The new-in-1999 format for NCAA Baseball regional play consists of 64 teams in 16 four-team double-elimination mini-regionals. Winner proceeds to best-2-of-3 super-regionals against the winner of another mini-regional; pairings of super-regionals are determined by seedings before the mini-regionals are played. The games will be played as follows:
OFFICIAL (based on 5/99 NCAA report)
4-team tournament:
Day 1:
Game 1 - #1 seed vs #4 seed (often played second to suit host #1 team)
Game 2 - #2 seed vs #3 seed
Day 2:
Game 3 - Loser Game 1 vs Loser Game 2 (elimination game)
Game 4 - Winner Game 1 vs Winner Game 2
Game 5 - Winner Game 3 vs Loser Game 4 LW -vs- WL (elim game)
Day 3:
Game 6 - Winner Game 4 vs Winner Game 5 WW -vs- (5)
Game 7 - Same two teams meet again if necessary
Note that the top seed in each mini-regional will be one of the top 16 teams in the country. The top 8 teams are seeded so that they cannot meet in a super-regional. Super-regional pairings are not based on the seeding of the second 8 teams, rather they are supposed to match top-8 and second-8 teams from the same geographical area but not from the same conference. (Teams from the same conference can still meet in a super-regional if a lower-seeded team comes out of a mini-region.)
The other three teams in each mini-regional are distributed based on seedings but with an attempt to draw teams from the same geographical area while excluding teams from the same conference. Obviously practical considerations (travel, host team, distribution of teams that qualify for the tournament based on RPI and conference winners) come into play as well.
[My opinion is that I hope they do not eliminate all cross-region matchups, using the higher seeds that are not hosting to test the quality of teams in other parts of the country, but they might do so for budget reasons. Note Added: They appear to be including a number of interesting cross-region matchups. Budgeting is probably not a problem because the NCAA is making more money with this new system than with the old one.]
The top 8 seeds will be announced, and the winner of the respective super regional will inherit that seed in the College World Series. That is, the pairings in the CWS will be determined when the regional brackets are announced, just like in basketball.
Most of this is based on decisions of the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee as announced in late November 1998. (Articles no longer available on-line.)
In 2004, the process was changed somewhat by delaying the announcement of the regional hosts by almost a week. Instead of being announced a week before the seedings are done (almost 2 weeks before the games are to be played and before the major conferences have their playoffs), they are announced one day before the seedings are announced. This must make it much easier on the committee, but much harder on the stadium and ticket managers unless they have good technology on their side.
The following is a verbatim copy of the main body of an article updating past discussions and summaries of how the regional bid guarantees work; it was posted to RSBC on 29 April 1999.
Important notes: (1) The "last year - this year" comments are comparing the minimum guarantee for the old system of 8 regionals (6 teams each) to that for only the 16 first-round regionals (4 teams each) of the new system. There is a separate bid for the Super Regionals. (2) The person identified as "hwsrnbhrtNCAAmotrarbwgc" is not Charlie Carr (currently on the NCAA selection committee), and Charlie is not a relative. (We have never even met.) Guess again. (3) As most readers know, the guess I made below about using the top-8 seedings for the Super-Regional groupings as the final seeds in the College World Series proved correct. (4) The past 5 years also make it clear the "geographic basis" for grouping teams is interpreted quite loosely by the NCAA.
Date: 29 Apr 1999 23:16:35 GMT Message-ID: <7gap8j$j4h$1@news.fsu.edu> ... The following elaborates on details not clear in past summaries based on information from he-who-shall-remain-nameless-but-has-read-the- NCAA-manual-on-the-regionals-and-regional-bids-with-great-care and adds some comments and material from past articles: (Any errors from paraphrasing hwsrnbhrtNCAAmotrarbwgc are mine.) The minimum guarantee last year was 50 k$. This year the minimum is 35 k$. As in the past, the "guarantee" is not what you send the NCAA in the end. The "guarantee" is 75% of (projected revenue minus budgeted expenses). If actual expenses are greater than budgeted, you eat the difference. Ditto if actual revenue is less than was projected. If actual revenue is greater than projected, more money will go to the NCAA, but note the 75% factor. Finally, there is a category of "unbudgeted expenses" (which includes umpire costs), and these are subtracted from the "guarantee" -- not from the gross. [I see it sort of like scoring in Contract Bridge.] Anyway, you cannot figure how to make the guarantee just from gate receipts, as some have done already. [The above should be familiar to some of you from past discussions of how the bid guarantees work.] Notice the revenue increase to the NCAA. They can afford to get significantly less than the guarantee from a special-case super- regional and still be ahead of last year with 70 k$ instead of 50 k$ (modulo off-budget expenses) just from the regionals. Net effect (r plus s-r) will be to roughly double income to the NCAA. There is a separate guarantee for a regional and a super regional. You can bid on either or both. The separate bids on both of these are due 14 May. Facility paperwork from interested programs is due at the NCAA on 30 April; only then are the necessary forms sent to teams that have expressed an interest in bidding. A non-university entity can bid on a regional in an early selection process, but I have not seen any of those awarded. Off campus sites are only allowed for regionals unless there is a last-minute change in the already distributed manual. Quoting hwsrnbhrtNCAAmotrarbwgc: "The NCAA, for all its faults, is very reliable in sticking to any plan that is distributed to the membership." Most regional sites will be announced on 17 May, but they might hold off on one or two of them. Pairings will be announced on 24 May. As reported, the entire bracket through the super-regional will be predetermined. The pairings of the regionals into super-regionals will be such as to match top-8 seeds with the next-8 seeds on a geographic basis, provided those #1 seeds win their regional, of course. (Unlike basketball, it will not be 1-16, 2-15, etc. It could be 1-9, 2-14, etc.) It is possible, maybe even likely, that the pairings of the super-regional winners in Omaha will also be announced. (That would be a literal interpretation of "seed the top 8" in the press releases, by the way.) That pretty much covers it.
Note that "revenue" includes concessions as well as gate receipts.