[Rain Man]

If you went to 36 teams, then you're going to have one of the following:

18 divisions with 2 teams each
12 divisions with 3 teams each
9 divisions with 4 teams each
6 divisions with 6 teams each
4 divisions with 9 teams each
3 divisions with 12 teams each
2 divisions with 18 teams each

That kind of argues for six divisions with six teams.

So what's your playoffs in a three-division conference with six teams per division? You know it won't be smaller than it is now, so I doubt that it would be three division winners and a wildcard in a field of 18 teams. It'll be really awkward. Maybe something like two first round byes and then the third team plays in a pool with every second round team? That's still smaller than we have now. You could go with eight teams and the playoffs go to the first and second place teams in each division, plus two third-place teams. But that's not much of a reward for winning your division.

But there's a nice alternative if we think outside the box. They might go with the unprecedented step of having three conferences of twelve teams each. Now you have each conference having playoffs with the three division winners and one wild card. Nice and easy.

However, what happens next? You have three division champions. Who plays in the Super Bowl? The obvious answer is a round-robin tournament where each team plays the other, and whoever does the worst gets eliminated. The two survivors play the super bowl.

Oh, or wait! We have four conferences with nine teams each. Each conference has three divisions with three teams each. Four of those teams play in the playoffs (4 of the 9 teams), and at the end you have four conference winners who play each other to get to the Super Bowl. That's easy to implement, and you have 44 percent of teams getting into the playoffs, which maximizes revenue. You also have four rounds of playoff games.

So now you've got three conferences, and each one