https://sports.yahoo.com/while-sec-and-big-ten-leaders-mull-major-change...
Longer read, but it's a good overview of the current discussions pertaining to the future of college football.
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🚩former Disney executives' venture capital group
Edit: and a former Notre Dame AD.
Jesus, there are more red flags in that sentence than in Beijing.
I think schools/conferences should have agreed to playing 9-10 P4/5 games a long time ago, but I think completely eliminating G5 would take away some of the fun/magic of the sport.
No Fun League with relegation? I think the relegation piece would get dropped out of this plan in later rounds of agreements between those involved, but we can keep hoping and dreaming for the time being.
"fun/magic of the sport"- shipped has sailed. It's the UFL now with gullible alums with huge amounts of disposable income that buy tickets to meaningless games played by mercenaries. The other interest is students who have an excuse to party on Saturday. As been mentioned on here, VT is not concerned with major academic profile anymore- you need to be good in football. That's why kids pursue college now apparently- a good football team. College football is no longer unique. Cold hard truth. The best line in the article is "Sensing a vulnerability within the sport and fearing for its future".. no fucking shit. People can keep their head in the sand, but minor league pro football sucks and nobody goes to the games. This will happen soon with college football.
UFL is more equal competition wise and better managed which says so much considering it's not managed well at all. I do appreciate the UFL trying innovative adds on the field but the NFL is paying them to do most of those things so can't give them much credit there either. Really like how their games never seem out of reach since they can go for one, two or three after a TD. They also can opt to not kickoff after scoring, rather opting for a 4th and 15 opportunity. Remember watching one of their games where a team came back from 24 down in a 4th quarter using these rules.
"opting for a 4th and 15 opportunity"- I remember Paul Johnson suggested this when he was at GT.
dont know if he did or not, but schiano definitely has. he has his own reasons, one of his former players got paralyzed in a kickoff return
This is why it would make sense for the powers that be to keep some elements of the current landscape, like playing G5 teams.
Honestly, I'm surprised that this group is pitching relegation because that is something that I think would keep some of the quirkiness of CFB alive and a lot of fans have asked for. Every change we have seen in CFB for the last 15-20 years has been against fan interest or a complete bastardization of what fans expressed they wanted.
If this materializes I think we get a system similar to what we have now with private equity, a restructured media rights deal, and maybe a central governing entity with more teeth than the NCAA. I don't believe we will see 70 entities agree to anything innovative, but keeping 1-2 bye games on your schedule if something I think could happen.
Consolidating the media rights years ago would have fixed a lot of things, but I don't know if those can be put back in the bag. Media issues were literally what started this mess with OU suing the NCAA. Once the rights are for all power teams, the conferences don't matter, so let's get back to regional play.
I haven't read the piece yet but this, right off the bat, is something.
This sounds like someone who doesn't believe the claim.
Sankey. Arrogant AF. And he knows it.
Steve Spurrier- who is still alive- introduced the forward pass to the SEC - way back in the early 90's. That propelled them into expansion and staging the first "championship game" - Sankey is a lucky prick who just piggybacked onto that train. Before spurrier it was boring option football. Bama was floundering, UGA was not a major player etc.
I thought that quote in juxtaposition with these was interesting.
It does make it sound like the B1G SEC meeting this week will end up being a stop gap plan to milk as much out of the current system before the 'tipping point' occurs. Based on this hinging on ex disney execs and a media deal I think we can expect the tipping point to be the end of Mickey Mouse's patience.
Sort of interesting that they're already working on keeping the top 8 teams in the top tier, no matter what.
So the rich get richer, and let everyone else fend for themselves.
It's ironic that "the best league by far" wants guaranteed playoff spots. They don't want to earn 4 spots on merit.
Because "it just means more."
Why would college football be any different than everything else in the world?
It's nothing like the real world, as we have gone over 1000 times. It's the opposite of how every company operates in the world. Apple doesn't pay mid at best developers 500K signing bonuses to come over from Google. One example. There are thousands.
I think the underlying point of the rich getting richer still stands, and is even heightened, given the outrageousness of college football, as you point out
Your response has nothing to do with what I said. My point is that the decision makers for college football will do whatever enriches them, just as company executives will do whatever they believe will enrich them personally. Not because they care about their employees (or players) getting paid. Plenty of executives have run a business into the ground and walked away with a fat bonus while the employees get laid off.
The CFB powers that be don't care about fans or players. They care about their own personal bottom line. Just like in the real world.
That's a pretty broad brush. In the real world if you treat people like shit, both customers and employees, you get shit back for the most part. CFB is different in that the product doesn't seem to fit any traditional bounds of supply, demand, return on investment, etc. It seems to be based on some amalgam of entertainment, school pride, bragging rights, and gambling. Is there a specific product they are putting out that they are trying to sell? Are they working to find the pain points of the consumer and modify the product or service to better suit them? It doesn't seem like it. I don't know what it seems like to be honest. But I feel it's going in a direction that conflicts with my narrow definition of a customer, though that and a quarter will get you gumball.
Fair enough, I think that the ideal of how this should work is being subverted by greed. At the end of the day, if there are no fans, then there is no money, but realistically the fans will always be there for the valuable properties.
Individual fans might walk away, but most won't. So there is no real impetus for the conferences, university presidents, or Disney to do things any differently than they have been. If the smaller schools get hosed by expansion, well they didn't really bring that much to the table anyway.
I largely agree with you, but I think "they" are overestimating the loyalty of their fanbases. I see this blowing up in their faces if some direction and planning don't level the market. There's only so many millions of dollars fans can pump into a program to watch sports. I just don't see a market that supports that. But then again, I'm probably moving out of the demographic they're likely targeting. I just think one day we're all going to miss whatever this was up until the last 10 years or so. It sucks that our team sucks, but overall the sport seems to be losing what made it so special. No more Cinderella stories. No more walk-ons. No more student athletes. No more watching players progress from freshmen to seniors. Loyalty to the bottom line instead of universities. The elimination of rivalries, conferences, and to a large extent parity. I just see things going the wrong way unless you follow one of about 15 teams, and I think even those individuals will see things differently soon based on the current trajectory. Dunno.
I agree 100%. There's a reason I watch college football but rarely watch the NFL. Now the only college football team I watch is the Hokies.
Thanks for sharing Joe. Great article.
Meh, I don't love it, but I don't hate it. I can get behind it if there's a path for the 'lower 70' to get promoted to the 'upper 70'
This is a must if a school like VT wants to dream about competing for a natty.
Props for actually thinking of this
This would be the most creative idea to ever come about in American sports
Oh fuck right off. OSU and Alabama already have every possible advantage. If they manage to trip on their own dick, then fuck em, let them struggle.
The reality is, something like this is probably the best case outcome given where we're at and where most think we're going.
DCwilson already pointed out the irony of this. The "best teams in the world" want a guaranteed spot because they're afraid to put their money where their mouth is. I agree with you. They can fuck right off. You want people to believe you're the best? What are you afraid of then? You should be able to retain that spot without help if you're really that good. Put up or shut up.
I'll be generous - it's probably not the schools asking for this; it's the TV networks/buyers of the inventory.
There are 8 programs (OSU, Bama, ND, Michigan, USC, Texas, OU, Nebraska) that probably generation 50% of college football viewership/dollars/whatever, and buyers of this inventory want guarantees that they'll have the eyes of those fans in perpetuity.
But I still think it's completely fucked.
Why doesn't the SEC just spin off? seriously- Just have the "SEC league" and separate from the rest at this point. ACC teams like GT and Clemson can tell them to fuck off with their annual "rivalry" games while we are at it. Let them do their own thing.
Because the SEC needs everyone else. Can't brag about being the best conference if you only play each other.
I mean, you can, but eventually that gets old.
I do think the worst case scenario is the B10 and SEC bundle their rights, and become NFC/AFC of college football, and the inevitable 'super league' is capped at 35ish teams. A 50-70 team super league won't look that different from what we have today, and could even be a huge improvement. If the 'super league' is less than 20 teams (8 bluebloods plus 8-12 nuevo rich schools) then there's enough intriguing in the remaining 115 teams to have some fun college football. But if the super league is between 20 and 50 teams, it's gonna be a boring league and a league that's not compelling.
I agree with DC. With all the advantages they've given themselves, why are is this investment group trying to make eight of the top 16 permanently guaranteed?
If a network signs an agreement that includes all 70 teams, they'll get all the college football eyeballs they need.
I also agree with you that they NEED 70 teams to keep it interesting. It's just interesting that they want to keep their thumbs on the scale to ensure inequality among teams.
Think the term is "nouveau riche" but your point stands.(Especially cause those 8 blueblood schools definitely sneer at the 'up and comers')
That's the joke - it's not the french pronunciation; it's the pronunciation the average Finebaum caller uses.
Fair enough!!
Yeah I agree with you here. I think the TV networks see all the eyeballs that the big tv draw programs bring in and want to take those brands and make a hyper commercialized college version of the NFL. The networks think they can keep milking college football for all its worth to squeeze more money out. But I worry they are going to kill the golden goose and ruin what made college football so special and different from the NFL. The big thing to me is alienation of CFB fans who aren't fans of the top tier brands. They aren't just going to suddenly shift and become OSU or Bama fans just to enjoy the NFL lite. You start to run off all of those smaller fanbases and general fans, that collectively is going to hurt viewership. But maybe NFL fans will start watching CFB more if it's all about the top brands playing each other constantly and players that their NFL teams will draft.
"ruin what made college football so special"- too late. What made college football special? The most intense regular season- gone. Bowl Games- pageantry, fans and teams gather in a warm weather place to celebrate a great season- gone. If you aren't in the playoffs, the bowls don't matter. The Rose Bowl- gone. Amateur players- gone- they are pro's now. There is nothing special about college football- except the fact that rules of any other business don't apply to it.
I think I mourn this the most out of everything. Going to Tech turned me into a zealot for Hokie football, but I also became a huge CFB fan at the same time. I found, and still find, CFB to be far more compelling than the NFL. A big part of that was that every single game used to matter. Through a season-long process, the best CFB team was identified and crowned national champion (at least most of the time...). An NFL Super Bowl win isn't always an indication of the best team from a given year, but sometimes just which one got hot at the right time. I thought the 4-team CFB playoff was actually the ideal post-season championship format, but of course TV money couldn't allow things to settle there. The fact that Virginia Tech at 3-3 still technically has a viable path to the playoffs (although exciting to me as a homer) is honestly pretty stupid and inconsistent with what made me fall in love with the sport.
To me the 'best' team often didn't win the CFB championship - instead it was the 'most-perfect' or 'most deserving' team, but I was okay with that. I even liked it more tbh.
Yeah it's like when LeBron loses in a SEVEN game series, the series should be 11 games- to show the Lakers are the "best". Or when Mahomes doesn't get to "touch" the ball after 70 minutes of play- to show he is the best and can score one more time if he just gets the ball again. In the BCS/Playoff era, they have gotten it 99% correct, IMO. No chance UCF was better than Bama or Utah better than the Tebow florida team.
I'd say good enough, but not 99%. Boise has a legit claim. 2004 Auburn. 2011 OSU could've been better than LSU. 2003 USC. 2008 Utah Utes. 2000 Miami Hurricanes.
That's 6 teams over a 15 year period.
In 2000, undefeated Oklahoma beat 5 Top 10 teams- 4 of them handily. Miami lost to Washington and beat 3 top 10 teams - 1 was VT without Michael Vick for 3.5 quarters. I don't know how Miami has a claim over Oklahoma in 2000? In 2009- Alabama was 13-0 and beat 4 top 10 teams - arguably one of the greatest teams of all time. How in the world does Boise have a claim to that one? Boise's best win was TCU. If you are talking about 2006, Florida beat 4 top 10 teams and dusted #1 OSU in the title game. Boise's ONLY ranked win was by 1 point on a hook and ladder against Oklahoma. You can't make a case either year for them.
I mean, the only one of those that I think is special is the intensity of regular season (maybe/kinda the rose bowl too). There's a lot more I love about college football, but of the four things you listed, two of them aren't hitting home at all for me, and a third is more of a 'nice to have'
IF a centralized 70-team super league forced regional rivalries again, then I'm 100% into it. IMO, conference realignment has far and away been the worst change the sport has undergone over the last 2-3 decades. Transfer Portal, NIL, etc - That doesn't change the game day experience much, and I can argue the benefits drastically outweigh the negatives. Conference Realignment though is worse for fans and athletes. Only people benefiting are the money makers.
They dont' give a shit whether folks believe they're the best or whether they even are. They want the payday. That's it. In the current world, there's no chance of them losing that payday if they falter. No way they accept a world where that's not the case.
Echoing the sentiments of everyone else. They can fuck off with that suggestion.
The only way to counter that is to have team salary caps for everyone. Coaches and players. If a small group is going to get a greater share of revenue, then you have to keep them from using those resources to buy the best roster constantly.
Like in the NFL, Dallas is the most valuable franchise and gets a ton of revenue from non-NFL events at their arena and other sponsorships. But it doesn't help them one lick on the field. Absolutely crucial for salary caps to exist if you're carving out an elite group of teams as far as revenue distributions.
They killed college football, so lets kill high school football while we are at it. When college teams have paid rosters, collective bargaining, etc. High school kids arent going to care about their HS season, they are just going to prep to try to get "drafted" by alabama- if a QB knows that Bama has cap space, you think he is going to play his senior HS season? Lets just kill high school football off too while we are at it.
I mean, you're not wrong, but where are the off-ramps? The issue is the money clouds up things that people love because that love is monetizable (not 100% on that being a word, but you get my point.) People have been quietly trying to make their cash off it for years, now it's the fucking gold rush and everyone is trying to stake their claim. The idea that we're somehow tying private equity up in college football is not great. Turns out they're not in it for the love of the game. Seems like getting in bed with people who are happy to trash your house for a few extra bucks might be short sighted.
What I keep coming back to in this is why? Who is making these decisions? Where does the "Every new dollar matters more than the last one" ethos come from? Colleges aren't for profit institutions (most of them anyway), so this isn't a given necessarily. I guess the boards are full of rich folks who have deeply internalized that idea, but it just doesn't feel like it needs to be true in this arena.
UNLV football, which has never been anything and will never be anything- they play in front of 200 people in a nothing conference. THAT UNLV football had a booster with more money than sense offer Holy Fucking Cross's QB 1.2 million- with an M- dollars to come to - UNLV - for football. Digest that. In a time where people bitch about gas prices, food prices, affordable housing, forgiving student loans, some asshole UNLV grad has so much money he can give the GDP of Haiti to a transfer QB from Holy Cross. Again. Let that sync in. There is not a job on earth that has a starting salary of 1.2 million dollars before you have proven anything. There is SO MUCH disposable money - millions per school- in the NIL space, we could legit solve world hunger. How do we get THAT out of college sports and get back to some form of sanity??? The NFL practice squad salary is less than this. It makes no sense on any level. If you think that UNLV QB is worth 1.2 million in ad revenue for UNLV, I have a bridge to sell you.
It has become necessary because it helps your team win games, or at least have capacity to win games, and flexibility to make changes if your team isn't winning games.
The "who" that is making these decisions are the schools, who are telling their conference commissioners to negotiate for every penny possible, because if they don't, some other conference will. And when that other conference does negotiate for more money, that other conference will be able to pay for better coaches, better facilities, better everything ... which in turn creates better players/teams, and keeps the competitive balance in their favor.
Remember when we couldn't afford Fuente's $15M buyout?
PE has ruined a lot of things in this country and I guess CFB is just one of the newest targets in their sights. As it becomes harder to create genuine new profit-generating ventures, they look to squeeze profit out of existing "industries".
PE smells blood because even filthy rich Go Blue! donors don't like bad investments. Beating Ohio State only comes with so many orgasms for them. PE firms are like- these guys buy players for millions.. ??? just beacuse? They want to beat their rival? Fuck- lets get in on that. Let's see how happy the coke dealer that gave Lynn Kidd a half a million dollars is when Kidd averages 6 and 3 and Miami is a bubble team at best. Great investment.
Fitting that the project is named for a guy that was busted for securities fraud.
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/football-underdog-rudy-sacked-for-...
We all know that really, the name of it should be Project Sam Bankman Fraud.
Many years ago my brother in law was out at a bar in South Bend with some friends. They met this really obnoxious and off-putting drunk guy who told everybody that he was extremely important and that Disney had bought the rights to his life story.
Apparently lots of people around South Bend had a similar story.
2 years later, sure as hell, Rudy came out. The guys a complete asshole.
They met Sandusky?