[zaga_fan]

In basketball, I would argue that you just never know what could happen and a team could slow stuff down and pull a big upset.
In football, when the disparity is like what we typically see with the best in the class playing a team who didn't win a district game, 100 times out of 100 the result is the same.

It seems like the majority of districts around here send everyone to the playoffs and we have instances of some teams coming in 5th and still playing in the first round. I don't think an automatic playoff berth removes incentive to improve. To me, losing any game all season long should be enough incentive to improve. Good programs and players incentivize themselves to improve.

I just think we moved to six classes for monetary reasons and we send as many teams to the playoffs as we do for monetary reasons. Football and the players are secondary.