Why is everyone assuming 4-16 team conferences?

Easy to send the top four teams to a playoff.

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Why not 6-14 team conferences, or 5-16team conferences?

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Why not 4-20 team conferences? Two ten team divisions playing 9 conference games (everyone in their division) with the champions from each division meeting in the conference championship game.

I'm ok with 5 superconferences with an elite 8 playoffs. 5 auto bids and 3 at-large. Maintain a 2 bid limit per conference. Convert the 4 BCS bowls into playoff games and add 3 more bowls. I'm thinking the Cotton, Cap One, and maybe the Chick-filet bowls. Teams that decide to remain independent like Notre Dame are required to finish in the top 8 to get a bid.

This is what I speculated before:

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It doesn't have to be 16. Some have suggested we will eventually have 4 - 20 team conferences. The number of teams imo will ultimately be determined by economics. But why 4 conferences?

If you were designing this from scratch, you really wouldn't even have conferences (meaning quasi-independent management organization). There is too much costly redundancy. You would probably opt for an NFL model with divisions based on some optimal playoff model for the total number of teams.

However, we have entrenched interests that means we have to live with the redundancy. Right now there are 4 stable regions (SEC, B1G, ACC, and the PAC12). The Big 12 is highly unstable and the Big East is just not important enough, in Football to force their way in. So it looks like four is what we are going to end up with.

I think we are going to a sort of super div (subset of the FBS model) within the NCAA, or an entirely separate athletic organization will be formed. This group will be for the haves that will have high barriers in terms of facilities and expenditures for entry. I believe the the player stipend discussions were a shot over the bow to signal that this is going to be an expensive proposition, so that the ULLs and the like need not apply.

I think it will start at about 64 teams but will have room to expand if a team meets the criteria. This will stop the monopoly cries and so forth. 64/4 = 16, but we do not need to get there right away, but it is an advantage to get there first. I think we are still a few years away, but this is where I think we are heading.

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I would also add the following. Broadcasters pay big bucks for these events because the viewers are desirable targets for advertisers who are willing to pay big bucks to reach them. The fewer divisions/conferences you have, then more power they accumulate in these transactions. With fewer div. you have less overlap in regions.

If you add FSU to the SEC, if you want to reach these viewers, you really would have no choice but to deal with us from AR/LA to GA/FL. The B1G is pretty solid as is the PAC12, and the ACC will be too if the BE collapses. Broadcasters are middle men who want to charge advertisers as much as they can, and pay the conferences as little as they can. The more divs, the more overlap, and the more they can play one vs the other.

Why not 1 then? Well it would be the most profitable, imo, but there are entrenched interests. Who is going to voluntarily give up their position? Then there is the fact we all have a little of that TX gene in us. Each region will probably think that they are worth more than the others and they want to keep the money for themselves.