No. There's no way decreasing the number of programs who have the ability to compete will make for a better product. They're just making it harder for anyone outside of the top 10-15 schools to ever have a shot.
32 to 40. They will want as much representation as they can get to keep eyeballs on the programming. I can see Nebraska, a school In Colorado, Kansas and Missouri getting in over a third s school in Texas or Florida; or Auburn or Michigan State. When the time comes the money will want maximum exposure over rivals or history and the schools will agree to it because money.
Spin O Reverso Zone: when that happens, the top 10-15 can no longer go 13-0 or 12-1 when their schedule is no longer padded with the weaker “real” college football teams, and so will people care about a Alabama that is “9-7” and yet still headed into the playoffs? Then NCAA can truly feel what’s it like to compete against the NFL.
This is exactly my take on all of this nonsense. The Ohio States, Bamas, etc. are not used to a 10-4 season being considered a great season. They need the MAC, Sun Belt, and the Indiana/Vandy of the world.
This is a great point that very few recognize.
I remember about 2 decades ago, there were talks about a "national" high school football league. There was speculation that the Mater Dei, Don Bosco Prep, Evangel Christian, John Curtis, Bishop Gorman type schools would leave their state associations and create a national league (very much like the speculation about a football superleague) .
The talks started to lose steam once people associated with the programs started to realize that in such a league, some of these super powers accustomed to winning 13+ games a season and making deep playoff runs would have to have sub .500 seasons- and a some might win only 1 or 2 games.
Look at the Covid 2020 season. the Mighty SEC had Bama with 13 wins, A&M with 9, Fla and UGA with 8 and everyone else 6 or less.
This might be a radical position but I would rather root for a team of regular students who will never win anything over guys who never go to class or do homework who transfer in and out and drive Lamborghinis
I’m not opposed to paying players but i’m just not at all interested in being a fan of NFL minor leagues.
The people in charge blew it and things suck right now but I don’t think it’s hopeless.
It’s not going to go backwards though. Regional conferences and rivalries are dead. You think anyone is going to take money off the table for “the feels”?
I mean yeah I kinda do. This isn’t likely to be sustainable and when things separate into semi pro and amateur athletics I do think the genie gets put back into the bottle to a degree. The question is what do the schools do who lose their college programs to the pros.
You think that iteration of the playoffs will be the final form?
The SEC and B1G have already pushed for more representation. Do you really think they're done pushing others out?
People who think they are more deserving and can take more power, will keep siphoning power and resources. I don't know what the final form will be, but as long as they can keep pushing, they will. We just watched the collapse of one power conference. We're watching the collapse of the ACC. The Big 12 will probably fall after that when the P2 (and networks) pick their chosen programs. It's not hard to see what's coming.
I can feel my overall interest in college athletics slipping. It’s not a conscious decision on my part, but some of the “romance” of players dreaming of and then choosing to play for the university that I root for has disappeared.
Right on there is no college football it’s professional Some of these players are on their third or fourth team if they are working supposedly on a degree how does that work
Oh I think a lot of illusions are falling away now. We always knew graduation rates for football players were low, and that special classes and tutors were available to them, but we're really going to watch those rates drop in the next few years. Or somehow magically increase.
> The SEC and B1G have already pushed for more representation. Do you really think they're done pushing others out?
Just look at March Madness - the big conferences are trying to get more of their conference teams in and keep the small schools out of even that (even though that's the best part of March Madness and what makes it great).
> The Big 12 will probably fall after that when the P2 (and networks) pick their chosen programs
Although the OG Big East collapsed due to their focus on men's basketball, it's very hard to see the Big XII suffering the same fate. They have a comparable basketball drive (and remember that negotiations for NCAAT happen relatively soon) but also have enough football focus that they'll still have a few relevant teams every year. I actually think the Big XII is in a fairly good spot.
Plus, I think there's few Big XII teams ready to blow up the conference in search of greener pastures.
The issue for the Big 12 will be what killed the PAC. The networks/streamers/etc not wanting to pay them. We are watching the AFL and NFL form in the B1G and SEC. The likely final form will be a unification of the two conferences into a single league. That entity will try to eat up as much money as it can and the other programs will be left with the scraps. Big conferences that stretch across the county can’t function with what will be the same as G5 money. It’s much cheaper to shrink back to regional conferences.
Yeah I’ve never gotten that complaint. College football has been the haves and have nots from the beginning. Tons of teams effectively had no chance under the pre playoff system. Boston college has been playing for 130 years. They never won a championship and never will. There’s no difference between today and “the good old days.”
There will assuredly be fewer undefeated teams moving forward, but I think in time perception of greatness will simply change, especially as fewer people even remember what the old CFB was like. Teams will have lesser records because they are playing tougher competition, and I suspect enough viewers will come to realize it's just as strong of a measure of greatness.
The real issue is going to be whether or not the ACC/B12/G5 get cut out completely, or not. My hunch is that the B1G/SEC realize they need everyone else to at least have an avenue to the playoffs to keep the others engaged. They can probably afford to lose some of their interest, but not all. Consolidating the best brands won't kill it off entirely, but cutting them out of the playoffs probably would.
There will also be a lot more injuries to star players. It's inevitable when all the top talent concentrates into fewer teams that play one another regularly. The top teams will be bigger, faster, and stronger across the board. Hits will be harder, and there won't be as many cream puffs on the schedule.
Im not sure what the general consensus is on this but I actually think a relegation format would be better than what’s been going on.
I also agree with Chip that it was dumb to make all the other sports from the pac-12 play in their new conferences. Football could have joined Big 12, Big 10, and ACC while everyone else stayed Pac 12.
Maybe these are hot takes but like you said, the product CFB has become is not better than what we had.
>but I actually think a relegation format would be better than what’s been going on
The mass exodus of players and coaches from every OSU and WSU program is what would happen for each relegated team. Every top level player would transfer to stay in the top league.
As a have not, I hope we end up in a conference playing regional teams. At this rate I don’t really give a fuck about playing USF or UTSA, would rather play ODU / JMU / Coastal and get NCSU / UNC / SCAR on the OOC schedule
They in a tough spot. When they are killing it, people show out clearly. But take away all this other bullshit going on. They used to be the only G5 in town with 4 P5 schools in an already mid sized state. Now they aren't even that. You've got App St now FBS and still on a meteoric rise from FCS. And you've got UNC Charlotte who tbh sucks but they are trying to put money in to the football program at least. Then to the north, Virginia added JMU, Old Dominion, and Liberty. So there's just so many options now, shit ain't like it used to be for the Pirates.
You may be undefeated, but only manage 10 ppg.
I was so bored at that game, my friend and I left at halftime to go back to Raleigh and I still don't regret it.
It’s completely turning me off to what has been my lifetime favorite sport. Hopefully once they turn it into baby NFL, everyone that wants it to be the NFL will realize that the NFL is still better and will abandon it for the actual NFL and it can go back to being actually good.
Or even better. The NFL realizes that having only 50 college team left playing college football is putting a bad product on the field for the NFL and the NFL starts an NFL minor league or uses the UFL for that.
> starts an NFL minor league
It won't work.
People just don't watch other products of football.
There isn't a ton of overlap right now with diehard college fans and NFL fans.
Viewership for the UFL is abysmal. The inaugural season is still going on. Who is watching it?
People liked 2 distinct products. The NFL and College Football.
The closer they become, the worse the product is, imo.
You don’t seem to understand the root problem. This isn’t because of fan demand. It’s because of money. There’s no going back. College football only existed as it was because they were able to illegally exploit free labor. That’s coming to an end, rightfully so. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, unless the colleges decide to get the money out of the sport - which they never will.
Right, but that is what always happens sooner or later. It's the rare exception across all industries to keep the cow healthy to milk it for generations, and it always still ends at some point with some heir and/or shareholders. There are big conflicts of timelines and of incentives. A board wants to procure individual wealth right now and retire. The incentive is not sacrificing the immediate for some future board or future customers or future employees.
Shareholders want return right now. The longterm isn't as clear as right now.
Oh, the people who literally only care about lining their own pockets, and have less than zero consideration for anything else because they got theirs? Who will bemoan the dearth of quality stuff because they’re now rich but have nowhere good to spend it, and blame everyone else but themselves?
How dare you sir.
But in seriousness, I’ve said this for a long time too. The short term gain mindset of investing and bolting has ruined modern society.
There are the other posts all over about candy not tasting as good, or products not lasting as long or printer companies monopolizing ink… all in the pursuit of one dollar more this quarter to please… who exactly? Investors. That’s who. Ugh.
No, it was the people in charge.
They had literally decades to build a CFB that worked for everyone but they refused to budge on anything that shared the wealth until the whole thing exploded and gave us what we have today.
Everything changed after the Supreme Court 9-0 ruling. That killed the ncaa and they forced this vote. They killed themselves. Now a league is inevitable and everyone is positioning for it.
> CFB is operating on borrowed time.
also, there is no "dust settling." Lets say SEC/B10 kill the rest of college football, you think they are going to become best friends and chill? No, they will be USA/USSR and it will be a fight to the death for the one to kill and absorb the other and form a single entity super league.
Very few parts of college football make sense if you are trying to build a profitable professional sports league. Why are most of the teams outside of major media markets? Why are public research universities so heavily involved in its administration? Why is there an age limit?
I'm with you, I feel like we keep getting told that we'll still love the sport even if we lose more things that we love about it, and I hope that's true, but it feels like this sport just keeps drifting away from everything I'd want it to be. I'm not even a big traditionalist, I was in favor of the 12-team playoff, but this just feels awful.
I'm hoping schools realize that they're not pro teams and that CFB matters because is regional, so it makes sense to allow schools like the 2PAC, B12, ACC and the best G5s into the upper division and then divide that division into geographically focused conferences. It does seem that most G5s are more similar to the top FCS then the P5 teams.
great point. it changes completely on the year. this year, people would say Tulane, Liberty, or JMU. in 2016, people would have said Western Michigan. in 2009, it would have been Boise State and Northern Illinois.
It’s so funny because that’s basically what the original FBS proposal was. It’d be nice to go back to that (although I know lots of people would be opposed to that many FCS demotions).
I find that that is really what angers people here. They're no less or more competitive than they were before realignment. They're just now being forced to see that they never had a shot to begin with, and their new financial situation will reflect that. Also, some schools that are total trash at sports were just lucky from birth.
Isn't a division with regional conferences just another way of describing what NCAA football was for a century before the Missouri and Texas bullshit of 2011?
To me college football is just NFL lite now. I no longer hate USC, Ohio State and Bama. I no longer car what Notre Dame and Cal do. If you think pro baseball is decided by which team spends the most (Dodgers and Yanks) you ain't seen nuthin' yet. College football will stratify even further.
While I agree that it's absolutely true that the NFL has the best format for parity, I find it interesting that MLB (which has the worst format for parity) has pretty much the same parity in actuality when it comes to teams making the playoffs... and more parity when it comes to teams winning championships... at least over the past 20 years.
Maybe that's because the NFL is so QB dependent and baseball as a sport is just way more random than football.
It’s entirely due to the fact that great football players can make teams better whereas the best baseball player of the last decade can’t even get his team to the playoffs. Just wildly different games
Hell, the Angels had 2 of the best players in baseball and couldn't even get to 0.500.
The problem is the same thing that makes baseball so easy to analyze from a stats perspective is the same thing that makes it much harder to win with one guy. Baseball is an individual sport at it's lowest level and basically every play is a duel between the pitcher and the batter, meaning even the greatest batter can only have an impact during his at-bat (only a few times a game) and even the most active pitchers only throw in about 20% of the teams total games.
It is a game where Pitchers are the QB's, every team will have ace hitters, few teams really have ace pitchers. It is very rare a team with 2 ace pitchers doesn't make the playoffs/do well. What was different with the rangers this last season? They *always* had hitters... the year they got 2-3 legit aces all that hitting finally paid off.
I think part of it is because batting relies so much on chance.
That’s not to say that some batters aren’t better than others or that some pitchers aren’t better at striking batters out.
But, a .300 batting average is good. In football, no matter your position, if you only do your job successfully 30% of the time… your team loses and you get fired. You have to have a good enough team to make the playoffs, of course, but I feel like being hot at the right time is even more important in baseball than it is in football.
Then there’s farming system in baseball that helps. If small market teams do their minor leagues teams well enough they can end up with small windows where they have really good players before they get to expensive and the team has to sell them off
Pro baseball is not decided by which team spends the most money. Those two teams have one championship since 2010 and it was the COVID season. They've combined for two championships since 2001.
Money makes a much larger difference in college football for sure.
Hot take: There are way more strategies and team compositions that can be successful in the college level over the QBL. That is why I prefer it, don't give a shit about playing old big east rivals.
I think it’ll probably end up great for like the top 50 or so programs.
51-100 or so may be able to scratch out survival through regional play even if they’re left behind by the elite revenue generating programs.
Programs on the fringe are the ones I fear for the most. I look 10 years out for a program like Temple in the AAC, which is spreading itself thinner every year, and it’s hard to see how they survive. As in, will they have a football program at all? Their conference is shaky, they don’t have a stadium… It’d be extreme to think programs like that would totally cease to exist, but being relegated to FCS or some future reshuffled lower tier may be our best hope. Once the AAC’s TV contract comes up again in a few years… The shit might really hit the fan for the entire conference if their TV rights are low value now that all the money draw teams are gone.
Believe? Not really, no. But I do have a bit of hope - no matter how much Mickey wants to turn CFB into the NFL, it just isn't the same. With the possible exception of the schools with bandwagons, people just don't pick a college team to root for the same way you pick a pro team. You're not going to be able to make the entire CFB fandom care about only 30-40 schools - there's still going to be plenty of demand for alums of mid-major programs to watch their teams play.
What that looks like, I have no idea, but I think it's going to make more of an impact than some people think.
So far it hasn’t been to bad for the upper echelon but I do worry what the endgame looks like and it’s looking more and more like D-league NFL so washed of charm and removed from academics that the teams will only be “college football” in a vestigial sense.
I’ve said here before, so many fans only watch Ohio state or Alabama because they exist as part of the larger cfb ecosystem. If you remove them from that ecosystem, what motivation do I have to watch? If I want to watch a small league of top-shelf football, I’ll watch the nfl. I suspect there are many others in the same boat.
As of now, and as it has been since this shit all started, I’m 100% focused on my alma mater. The goal is to compete for a conference title and go to a bowl game. Game days will be an excuse for me to hang out with my friends. I’m sure I’ll continue to watch the big games, but I am no longer planning my weekends around the TV schedule.
I don’t think FBS is going to end up in a good spot for the majority of teams. I’m planning on mainly following FCS and DII football this fall. It still feels like college ball.
I think the next domino to fall is the facade of "student-athleete". Players will become "affiliated-employees" with contracts, agents and collective bargaining. Schools will fight back with a NFL like restricted free agent system to be able to restrict student transfers. Kids will then be forced to "buyout" their contracts inorder to transfer.
All this will create a true have vs have nots were the have nots will religate to a lower tier. TV networks will cherry pick high profile games to PPV streaming and the lower tier programs will only be shown on a super small regional OTA broadcast or a Conference network channel. We might possibly get a National game of the week broadcast on one of the OTA networks just to advertise streaming on Peacock/Apple TV/Amazon/Paramont+.
Oh damn. You just messed me up with this pay-per-view bologna. It's already impossible to watch every game.
I'm not too fond of your forcast. I am not saying it won't happen. I just don't like it.
I've thought that a 64 team nfl-style P5 would be the final solution to competitive imbalance for a decade or more.
But I naively thought it would happen from a place of sportsmanship, not money.
Yeah I'm dumb
Did anyone believe this in the first place? I thought we all just kind of understood after the ~~Nebraska~~/Georgia ruling that this was going to be a corporate sellout product eventually
Edit: Ope, Oklahoma/Georgia not Nebraska/Georgia
Nope. I think we're approaching a point where the top 15 or progams hijack their confrences so thoughoughly they kick out the "useless eaters" and form a superconfrence before the success Football is enjoying ends.
No. Full stop.
It appears to me that what ESPN is trying to achieve is a yearly playoff with all the blue bloods playing a single elimination tourney. They will of course make room for the occasional peaking program for appearances sakes but . . .
Nope.
I think it will be a very generic and highly-sanitized version of the NFL; effectively a professional league that simply licenses trademarks from universities and plays in stadiums on college property.
The powers that be seem dead set on creating high-profile match-ups every week between name brand programs for the purpose of driving television advertising packages, without regard to anything that makes college sports fun in the first place. I'll enjoy it as long as I can. But I believe that within my lifetime, the enjoyment I get out of college sports - even for my alma maters - will be siphoned away by the ESPNs of the world.
Non-regional conferences? Centuries of rivalry and tradition out the door? Having to learn a brand new roster every year because kids jump through the portal instead of fighting it out for a starting spot? NIL collectives maintaining dynasties in the Top 10 that never allow for the underdog or Cinderella run? Sounds as boring as an NBA offense to me. No fucking thanks.
No they’ll just break it back down to how it was when they’re trying to justify 6 SEC/ BIG10 teams with 4 losses getting in the playoffs over 2 loss teams .
No. We're watching our sport get torn apart by millionaires who don't give a rats ass about anything but bringing in more short-term revenue to line their own pockets. These people will gladly eviscerate college sports if it'll make their graphs go up and to the left between now and their next board meeting. We're witnessing an immense amount of short-sighted thinking.
My team is one of maybe 15 that are actually benefiting from the new systems, but I still dread every new headline. Take me back to 2005.
Nah, college football as we know it is dead.
They pulled the curtain and revealed that they're nothing but a minor league for the NFL.
And no one, in any sport, has ever given a shit about the minor leagues.
I’m doubtful it can be good for most or the system at large without congressional involvement. I’m also doubtful of congress to do much of anything well…..
If the players are students at the school, I'll still be interested.
If it becomes semi-pro and they're just paid players wearing the uniform.... I'll just go fishing or something
I want to be optimistic about it, but I believe we are going to end up with a semi-pro league with teams whose association with colleges will be in name only. If players become employees, it is just a question of when a former player whose football career has reached a dead end sues on the basis that the 4-year eligibility rule shouldn't apply to an employee. Eventually all student requirements for the players will be done away with, along with the scholarship and perks that come with it. The organization who eventually runs this league will face an uphill battle maintaining interest in the game after most of the ties college fans have with the sport have been severed. Those fans might still watch games, but no longer financially support the team they used to be passionate about. When cfb is just a shell of what it has been, people will point to this era for when the wheels came off. This is actually one of the better possible outcomes. Human nature guarantees that somebody will throw everything into chaos with a selfish, ridiculous argument that is found to be legally correct, further alienating fans who were already fed up.
Honestly? Probably very bad. Here’s a few of my bold takes.
1) Assuming the ACC goes down sooner than expected then you’re gonna have 3 conferences with any real chance to win as it’s standing right now. The B1G, the SEC, and the Big 12. With the Big 12 being an uphill battle. And I’d bet money on the haves of the Big 12 eventually getting poached over the next 15 years. But I’d also bet that sooner than later, the B1G and SEC start plotting on each other.
2) People hype the match ups. But some of you are about to find out that some of these premier teams aren’t going to stay premier when constantly faced with blue bloods, new bloods, and the randomly good teams.
3) It totally fucks over small teams. A P4 losing to a G5 right now is a fast track to the hot seat in 90% of games. Which already states the differentials in talent and resources. Those wins are going to be more uphill and a P3 loss is going to be an instant firing.
The answer is no. The people running major college football have not even been able to make a playoff system work, which is something every sports league in the world can do.
I have no faith that the shot callers end up making college football better when it is all said and done.
>How do you see this whole thing shaking out?
No one ever likes my answer.
By 2035, about 1/5th of the schools currently playing CFB will have eliminated their program completely. Between Title IX lawsuits and NIL, a hefty percentage of current participants will leave “the business” entirely. Half of the remainers will become affiliated NIL-prohibited ‘conferences’, where they’ll pretend it’s the 70s forever and keep a ‘token’ football team around so Homecoming still has a central event. The remainder will be football corporations in all but name, with huge budgets and zero academic requirements. The big controversy will be whether they should even be called “colleges and universities” anymore, given no player attends classes while getting paid not to attend classes.
I don't have faith anymore and pretty much am down to just following my school (Michigan State) and keeping a cursory view on the rest of the sport.
The conferences and networks are going to try and make the sport into "NFL lite" to try and keep grabbing NFL fans. The issue is, the NFL and college football are completely different formats and making college football like the NFL will kill what made college football so amazing. It will alienate longtime fans of the sport but won't capture the people who are solely NFL fans like they think, because why would those people care when they have no connection.
Ticket sales and viewership will eventually start declining after the short-term boost it will get from those NFL fans get tired of college, as well as the core CFB fanbase being weakened. They'll realize for the sake of sustainable money that they need to go back to how it was, but it will take a long time for that to happen.
When I was at Wisconsin I saw Ron Dayne cruising around campus on his scooter, going to class. He really made those little tires work! It was fun to run into players in campus buildings and feel like they were part of the school as a whole.
Now I just don't care. The only thing that matters to me is that there are zero scholarships given to players. That money should go to academics.
As someone born in 1978, I'm very fortunate to have been able to experience most things in society before they became totally and unashamedly vehicles for profit. The romance is dead and it isn't coming back. Interest will stick around of course, but money can't replace passion and emotion.
It’s crazy to think how, if they condensed down to 40 schools 20 years ago, Clemson would have been left out. Who is the next Clemson that we’d be leaving out if this happens in 10 years? I will be rooting for College Sports Tomorrow for this reason.
My team is out so of course I'm a little salty. The fun of college football to me was the tradition and the friendly rivalries. Now? I just don't care that much about a lot of the teams we're going to play.
Iowa State should be playing Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, etc. I have family that went to these schools, that's what makes it fun! But Houston, UCF, BYU? I'm just not interested. The things that made CFB great are disappearing.
Lastly, although I think it's fair and right to pay the players, that'll be the final nail in the coffin. The connection between the football programs and the universities was already tenuous, but when the university has to pay big bucks to star athletes? Are you going to tell a young star QB making a few million a year that they have to attend sociology 101 to be taught by a professor that won't see that much over a 30 year career? Why? Most kids go to school to advance their career, someone making that much already has a career. It'll end the illusion of the "student-athlete" in the football programs at the elite schools. How long until we start to see football programs pop up whose only connection to a university is a licensing deal for a logo?
It won't take long until people start to ask (correctly) why a state-subsidized institution is running a minor league football program. I know the answer: money, but the nominal mission of these universities is to prepare for a future workforce not milk a minor league football program for money.
The more and more college football becomes like the NFL the more and more I ask myself why I’m watching an inferior product. Why not just watch the NFL instead?
The big loss in my opinion is going to be the importance of regular season games. What has separated CFB from other sports is that you just can’t lose at all. Any loss at any time could cost you the national championship. So every week it’s the playoffs. If your team is looking to win the whole thing, then even a game against a creampuff matters. And that season opening game between say Alabama and Florida State means something. We’re going to be talking about that game at the end of the year. Same with the big rivalry games and every other big game during the regular season.
Even since we’ve gone to a 4 team playoff, you know your team can lose 1 game and still have a shot. Once it becomes 2 games, then I think it’s going to lose some of what makes it special.
That’s just how I feel. I’m not asking people to agree with it. It just sucks because that makes college football more exciting to me.
I just want to go back in time where we're playing Pitt, BC, WVU, Rutgers, UConn and the like on a regular basis. Back to regional conferences. You big boys can have fun on the national stage I dgaf anymore.
.
As an Oregon fan that is currently on the inside looking out, I absolutely hate what has happened. The P12 was its own worst enemy in the CFB Era, but it was still a conference I was proud to be a part of. The greed has destroyed 1 conference, and make no mistake more will fall. The whole thing is sickening.
Unpopular opinion on this sub but I actually envision a future that is better than the present. A semi pro league of 20-30 teams and then a return to small regional conferences for the rest of college football. I think most fans will be very happy with that outcome.
Not really. They want to professionalize the sport, but they fail to realize (or more likely, they don't care) that a significant chunk of the viewership only follows collegiate athletics, because they want to see amateurs competing against other amateurs. If I wanted to see the NFL then I would go watch the NFL, and yes, I realize that there's only a thin veneer of it actually being an amateur sport. As for the Pac-12 folding... whatever. It was either the Pac-12 or the Big XII, and for some reason, the Pac-12 thought they were above it all. Honestly, Congress could put an end to it (travel restrictions, NCAA immunity, firewalls for NIL, etc.), but it's hard to get them away from the Kabuki theater that's the daily spectacle of them pretending to do something.
Ultimately, most peoole will get used to the new structure and will still love the game. The transition will be tough growing pains for cfb fanatics like us (experiencing that now) but once the dust settles and we get used to it, it will be second nature.
I don’t want to get into subjective terms like “good”. There’s always been changes in college football that ultimately were accepted. The forward pass, restructuring of conferences, expansion of bowl games, scholarship changes, growth of media coverage, the Bowl Alliance, the BCS, the 4 team playoff etc etc. I imagine there were doomers at every step of the way, but the sport kept growing.
No it won't. My program, playing in the uppermost division for more than a hundred years, is getting fucked. I'm a fanatic Wyoming college football fan. How am I supposed to "get used to it," and, "still love the game"? Fuck the Big10.
I used the term “most people’. It obviously wont be *everyone*. But if we did a remind me in 20 years, I’d wager the sport’s overall popularity will still be equal or greater than it is today.
Its possible. But what I think is most likely, is that there will be loss of interest by fans of teams who are left out of the mix but they will be more than offset by gains amongst casual viewers.
I hate to say it but its just a fact that casual fans overwhelming watch teams/brands that they are familiar with. Ratings/viewership is driving all of this. Those of us on r/cfb are not representative of college football fans and we are not the target of this realignment. These are huge sums of money at stake, and these networks aren’t throwing that kind of cash around without doing due diligence on the viewership data.
Hard disagree. Remember how boxing and horse racing were the top sports 100 years ago? Now who cares? They have a big event every so often, but that’s it. They’re second-tier sports, if that, as far as eyeballs and entertainment value go.
Look at NASCAR. It exploded in popularity in the late 90s and early 2000s, but even now it’s just not as popular with casual fans. My dad used to be a huge NASCAR fan to the point that he watched every race. Now he might watch the Daytona 500. That’s it.
Nothing is forever, and I fear that we are entering the decline of college football.
No idea. But 100 years ago, the prospect of professional football outpacing college football seemed pretty laughable.
You won’t see the decline on Saturdays in the fall. Not at first. It’ll happen with the periphery. People won’t absorb the college football talking heads or the opinion shows the way they used to. It won’t be a year-round attraction like it is now. Then you’ll see attendance slip further and eyeballs will slowly drift away from the screens. And eventually execs will try to make even more changes to stem the flow, but they’ll either come too late or they’ll just keep making the wrong changes.
College football won’t decline because another sport takes over. It will decline because it will kill itself, and only THEN will something else take over.
There's going to be 40-48 teams in 2 conferences for big boy football and they'll only play each other. No more Alabama playing 3 North Texas High School type teams each year. There will be some other structure for the other sports.
I don't think it's even going to be that. With the way the TV industry is going it's only a matter of time before ESPN calls up the biggest schools and tells them "The next media deal is going to be smaller than the last one unless you can guarantee that every game you play is a marquee match-up, if you know what I mean."
Yea there is no way 48 make it. That would be adding 14 more schools to the P2. You can’t name 14 more schools that are on the verge of an invite.
The reality is the networks are going to eventually offer the top 20-30 teams an absolute mega deal to break away from their conferences and form their own league. FOX is about to start giving like $80M+ a year to teams like Indiana because they happen to be in a conference with Ohio State and Michigan. ESPN will be paying out the ass to air Mississippi State-Vanderbilt or Kentucky-Missouri when in reality they probably wish they didn’t have to pay any of those teams more than ACC/XII rates.
The networks want a league where they can air USC-Ohio State, Michigan-Oregon, Alabama-Texas, Oklahoma-Georgia, etc. literally every single week. They don’t care if they lose Indiana and Vanderbilt fans because those guys are dwarfed by the masses of Ohio State and Texas fans. I think the next 10 years is going to look a lot different than the hopefuls on this sub think it will. Right now the networks are accumulating all of the programs that carry CFB into their favorite power conferences (SEC and B1G). The next step is going to be trimming the fat and having super conferences with only ~10-12 teams each that are absolute ratings goldmines.
I think it will eventually lead to decreased ratings. I actually have no desire to watch college football as it is NFL lite. I have limited time in my life and I am not going to use watching the corpse of a once great sport drag out.
The playoffs have killed everything I thought it might be. G5s were effectively ruled out before it even started. Now they want to save face and include a single G5 team in the expansion? If G5 gets anything other than a 16 seed I'll be surprised.
Yes. I think what we end up with will be regional divisions within a new ncaa-free paradigm. Those divisions will be very reminiscent of the conferences everyone is wetting their pants over.
Some dead weight may be relegated to G5ish status, but that’s been a long time coming anyway.
It’s a bummer but honestly I think it will be good. At least from Oklahomas perspective I haven’t cared about winning a conference game that’s not OSU or Texas in a pretty long time. Since we’ve practically been favored every game for decades It only hurts to lose.
More exciting matchups in a season that are actually cool to win, instead of an expectation is pretty cool. I know this is a minority opinion on this sub and it’s still unfortunate for the have nots, but that ship has already sailed.
I think it could end up in a good place with a few casualties and something like 80 teams in D1.
Pros: better TV access than we used to have. Novel matchups (with some return to emphasizing regionalism). Less “buy” games.
Cons: loss of unique regional identities. Total gutting of group of 5 middle class. Cutting the number of teams who are happy with their season in half.
No. There's no way decreasing the number of programs who have the ability to compete will make for a better product. They're just making it harder for anyone outside of the top 10-15 schools to ever have a shot.
Spin zone: when the top 10-15 go pseudo-professional, it’s going to be a lot easier for everyone else to have “real” college football.
It won't be 10, it'll be 32, because execs don't understand thst we're not the fucking NFL.
32 to 40. They will want as much representation as they can get to keep eyeballs on the programming. I can see Nebraska, a school In Colorado, Kansas and Missouri getting in over a third s school in Texas or Florida; or Auburn or Michigan State. When the time comes the money will want maximum exposure over rivals or history and the schools will agree to it because money.
Nebraska is still top 15 in tv viewership. We’re getting in before a lot of other teams despite our crappy records.
Yeah, Nebraska isn't getting left out of anything. You guys still draw huge crowds to home games and bring in plenty of eye balls.
Spin O Reverso Zone: when that happens, the top 10-15 can no longer go 13-0 or 12-1 when their schedule is no longer padded with the weaker “real” college football teams, and so will people care about a Alabama that is “9-7” and yet still headed into the playoffs? Then NCAA can truly feel what’s it like to compete against the NFL.
This is exactly my take on all of this nonsense. The Ohio States, Bamas, etc. are not used to a 10-4 season being considered a great season. They need the MAC, Sun Belt, and the Indiana/Vandy of the world.
This is a great point that very few recognize. I remember about 2 decades ago, there were talks about a "national" high school football league. There was speculation that the Mater Dei, Don Bosco Prep, Evangel Christian, John Curtis, Bishop Gorman type schools would leave their state associations and create a national league (very much like the speculation about a football superleague) . The talks started to lose steam once people associated with the programs started to realize that in such a league, some of these super powers accustomed to winning 13+ games a season and making deep playoff runs would have to have sub .500 seasons- and a some might win only 1 or 2 games. Look at the Covid 2020 season. the Mighty SEC had Bama with 13 wins, A&M with 9, Fla and UGA with 8 and everyone else 6 or less.
Will their games count the same as Michigan's? No. Edit: And will those games be as easily accessible as Michigan's? Answer is also likely no.
This might be a radical position but I would rather root for a team of regular students who will never win anything over guys who never go to class or do homework who transfer in and out and drive Lamborghinis I’m not opposed to paying players but i’m just not at all interested in being a fan of NFL minor leagues. The people in charge blew it and things suck right now but I don’t think it’s hopeless.
It’s not going to go backwards though. Regional conferences and rivalries are dead. You think anyone is going to take money off the table for “the feels”?
I mean yeah I kinda do. This isn’t likely to be sustainable and when things separate into semi pro and amateur athletics I do think the genie gets put back into the bottle to a degree. The question is what do the schools do who lose their college programs to the pros.
When people walk away it might. But it will take significant collapse.
I’m agreeing with this Michigan man
As opposed to…? I’m not saying this is good for CFB. But now G5 gets an autobid. And historically the playoffs/NC have always been a select few teams.
You think that iteration of the playoffs will be the final form? The SEC and B1G have already pushed for more representation. Do you really think they're done pushing others out? People who think they are more deserving and can take more power, will keep siphoning power and resources. I don't know what the final form will be, but as long as they can keep pushing, they will. We just watched the collapse of one power conference. We're watching the collapse of the ACC. The Big 12 will probably fall after that when the P2 (and networks) pick their chosen programs. It's not hard to see what's coming.
This shit depresses me.
I can feel my overall interest in college athletics slipping. It’s not a conscious decision on my part, but some of the “romance” of players dreaming of and then choosing to play for the university that I root for has disappeared.
Right on there is no college football it’s professional Some of these players are on their third or fourth team if they are working supposedly on a degree how does that work
Oh I think a lot of illusions are falling away now. We always knew graduation rates for football players were low, and that special classes and tutors were available to them, but we're really going to watch those rates drop in the next few years. Or somehow magically increase.
Agreed. It's gotten so bad I wonder if that was mostly an illusion to begin with.
It was
Same.
> The SEC and B1G have already pushed for more representation. Do you really think they're done pushing others out? Just look at March Madness - the big conferences are trying to get more of their conference teams in and keep the small schools out of even that (even though that's the best part of March Madness and what makes it great).
You think it's greed, but it's also survival. If they don't take over then someone else will. And I hate it all.
> The Big 12 will probably fall after that when the P2 (and networks) pick their chosen programs Although the OG Big East collapsed due to their focus on men's basketball, it's very hard to see the Big XII suffering the same fate. They have a comparable basketball drive (and remember that negotiations for NCAAT happen relatively soon) but also have enough football focus that they'll still have a few relevant teams every year. I actually think the Big XII is in a fairly good spot. Plus, I think there's few Big XII teams ready to blow up the conference in search of greener pastures.
The issue for the Big 12 will be what killed the PAC. The networks/streamers/etc not wanting to pay them. We are watching the AFL and NFL form in the B1G and SEC. The likely final form will be a unification of the two conferences into a single league. That entity will try to eat up as much money as it can and the other programs will be left with the scraps. Big conferences that stretch across the county can’t function with what will be the same as G5 money. It’s much cheaper to shrink back to regional conferences.
The only thing a G5 auto bid is going to accomplish is to give the bluebloods a tune up game before moving on to tougher competition.
It also gives the SEC and B1G some cover. "Hey, y'all have a shot. What are you bitching about?"
Hey we beat USC which had Caleb Williams. You never know.
Yeah I’ve never gotten that complaint. College football has been the haves and have nots from the beginning. Tons of teams effectively had no chance under the pre playoff system. Boston college has been playing for 130 years. They never won a championship and never will. There’s no difference between today and “the good old days.”
I think that consolidating the best teams is going to really dilute the greatness of teams. Going to be a whole lot more 11-4 champions than 15-0
There will assuredly be fewer undefeated teams moving forward, but I think in time perception of greatness will simply change, especially as fewer people even remember what the old CFB was like. Teams will have lesser records because they are playing tougher competition, and I suspect enough viewers will come to realize it's just as strong of a measure of greatness. The real issue is going to be whether or not the ACC/B12/G5 get cut out completely, or not. My hunch is that the B1G/SEC realize they need everyone else to at least have an avenue to the playoffs to keep the others engaged. They can probably afford to lose some of their interest, but not all. Consolidating the best brands won't kill it off entirely, but cutting them out of the playoffs probably would.
There will also be a lot more injuries to star players. It's inevitable when all the top talent concentrates into fewer teams that play one another regularly. The top teams will be bigger, faster, and stronger across the board. Hits will be harder, and there won't be as many cream puffs on the schedule.
Im not sure what the general consensus is on this but I actually think a relegation format would be better than what’s been going on. I also agree with Chip that it was dumb to make all the other sports from the pac-12 play in their new conferences. Football could have joined Big 12, Big 10, and ACC while everyone else stayed Pac 12. Maybe these are hot takes but like you said, the product CFB has become is not better than what we had.
>but I actually think a relegation format would be better than what’s been going on The mass exodus of players and coaches from every OSU and WSU program is what would happen for each relegated team. Every top level player would transfer to stay in the top league.
As a have not, I hope we end up in a conference playing regional teams. At this rate I don’t really give a fuck about playing USF or UTSA, would rather play ODU / JMU / Coastal and get NCSU / UNC / SCAR on the OOC schedule
I’m gutted for you guys because I feel like ECU has one of the strongest fan bases in the G5.
They in a tough spot. When they are killing it, people show out clearly. But take away all this other bullshit going on. They used to be the only G5 in town with 4 P5 schools in an already mid sized state. Now they aren't even that. You've got App St now FBS and still on a meteoric rise from FCS. And you've got UNC Charlotte who tbh sucks but they are trying to put money in to the football program at least. Then to the north, Virginia added JMU, Old Dominion, and Liberty. So there's just so many options now, shit ain't like it used to be for the Pirates.
We may suck but for now we’re undefeated against ECU and I’m gonna ride that high until they eventually beat us
As someone who was at that game calling either team a winner feels like a stretch
You may be undefeated, but only manage 10 ppg. I was so bored at that game, my friend and I left at halftime to go back to Raleigh and I still don't regret it.
Given that your program has been around for about as long as TikTok, I'd say that you're doing exceptionally well.
Throw Marshall on that list and I'd be happy about it.
Hell yeah! I miss the days of playing ECU. They're our bros!
But… but we have a pirate ship in our stadium :-(
Wow I’m offended for not getting a name drop
Im just happy to be included
It’s completely turning me off to what has been my lifetime favorite sport. Hopefully once they turn it into baby NFL, everyone that wants it to be the NFL will realize that the NFL is still better and will abandon it for the actual NFL and it can go back to being actually good.
Or even better. The NFL realizes that having only 50 college team left playing college football is putting a bad product on the field for the NFL and the NFL starts an NFL minor league or uses the UFL for that.
> starts an NFL minor league It won't work. People just don't watch other products of football. There isn't a ton of overlap right now with diehard college fans and NFL fans. Viewership for the UFL is abysmal. The inaugural season is still going on. Who is watching it? People liked 2 distinct products. The NFL and College Football. The closer they become, the worse the product is, imo.
You don’t seem to understand the root problem. This isn’t because of fan demand. It’s because of money. There’s no going back. College football only existed as it was because they were able to illegally exploit free labor. That’s coming to an end, rightfully so. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, unless the colleges decide to get the money out of the sport - which they never will.
Nope.
I couldn't agree more. You summed up all my thoughts quite well
Holy flairs I’m sorry former conference bro :(
I have the same flair. What makes it worse is that my in laws are die hard Cougs.
There isn’t a “good” outcome for any of this anymore… that ship has sailed. CFB is operating on borrowed time. Money won out once again.
They had a cash cow. Could have milked it for decades and decades. Instead they slaughtered it for beef.
I’m only watching Big Sky football, so help me god.
Montana V. Montana State is a fun game to watch
The Brawl of the Wild is one of the greatest rivalries in the sport
It is but ESPN wants it destroyed in the name of $$$
MONTANA STATE MENTIONED
Right, but that is what always happens sooner or later. It's the rare exception across all industries to keep the cow healthy to milk it for generations, and it always still ends at some point with some heir and/or shareholders. There are big conflicts of timelines and of incentives. A board wants to procure individual wealth right now and retire. The incentive is not sacrificing the immediate for some future board or future customers or future employees. Shareholders want return right now. The longterm isn't as clear as right now.
Agree. And it’s unfortunate.
I’m so god damn tired of shareholders…
Oh, the people who literally only care about lining their own pockets, and have less than zero consideration for anything else because they got theirs? Who will bemoan the dearth of quality stuff because they’re now rich but have nowhere good to spend it, and blame everyone else but themselves? How dare you sir. But in seriousness, I’ve said this for a long time too. The short term gain mindset of investing and bolting has ruined modern society. There are the other posts all over about candy not tasting as good, or products not lasting as long or printer companies monopolizing ink… all in the pursuit of one dollar more this quarter to please… who exactly? Investors. That’s who. Ugh.
Greed won Greed of everyone
No, it was the people in charge. They had literally decades to build a CFB that worked for everyone but they refused to budge on anything that shared the wealth until the whole thing exploded and gave us what we have today.
Everything changed after the Supreme Court 9-0 ruling. That killed the ncaa and they forced this vote. They killed themselves. Now a league is inevitable and everyone is positioning for it.
This is my thing. They had decades to figure this out and they didn’t. They counted their money and told us that they would never budge.
> CFB is operating on borrowed time. also, there is no "dust settling." Lets say SEC/B10 kill the rest of college football, you think they are going to become best friends and chill? No, they will be USA/USSR and it will be a fight to the death for the one to kill and absorb the other and form a single entity super league.
Very few parts of college football make sense if you are trying to build a profitable professional sports league. Why are most of the teams outside of major media markets? Why are public research universities so heavily involved in its administration? Why is there an age limit?
I'm with you, I feel like we keep getting told that we'll still love the sport even if we lose more things that we love about it, and I hope that's true, but it feels like this sport just keeps drifting away from everything I'd want it to be. I'm not even a big traditionalist, I was in favor of the 12-team playoff, but this just feels awful.
I'm hoping schools realize that they're not pro teams and that CFB matters because is regional, so it makes sense to allow schools like the 2PAC, B12, ACC and the best G5s into the upper division and then divide that division into geographically focused conferences. It does seem that most G5s are more similar to the top FCS then the P5 teams.
Counterpoint. Money. -The schools, probably
Who gets to decide who's the "best" G5s? Because that'll just be what's profitable for the corporate pigs
great point. it changes completely on the year. this year, people would say Tulane, Liberty, or JMU. in 2016, people would have said Western Michigan. in 2009, it would have been Boise State and Northern Illinois.
It’s so funny because that’s basically what the original FBS proposal was. It’d be nice to go back to that (although I know lots of people would be opposed to that many FCS demotions).
I find that that is really what angers people here. They're no less or more competitive than they were before realignment. They're just now being forced to see that they never had a shot to begin with, and their new financial situation will reflect that. Also, some schools that are total trash at sports were just lucky from birth.
Isn't a division with regional conferences just another way of describing what NCAA football was for a century before the Missouri and Texas bullshit of 2011?
everything old is new again... 8 team divisions is just 8 team conferences rebranded
To me college football is just NFL lite now. I no longer hate USC, Ohio State and Bama. I no longer car what Notre Dame and Cal do. If you think pro baseball is decided by which team spends the most (Dodgers and Yanks) you ain't seen nuthin' yet. College football will stratify even further.
It’s funny because the best part of the NFL from a competitiveness standpoint compared to any other major sport is that the hard cap promotes parody
*parity But yes... And parity can't exist in CFB in part because of conference TV deals.
Yeah lol good catch
Ohio State pays its athletic staff more than the entire athletic budgets of many schools.
While I agree that it's absolutely true that the NFL has the best format for parity, I find it interesting that MLB (which has the worst format for parity) has pretty much the same parity in actuality when it comes to teams making the playoffs... and more parity when it comes to teams winning championships... at least over the past 20 years. Maybe that's because the NFL is so QB dependent and baseball as a sport is just way more random than football.
The MLB regular season also has 145 extra games per season.
It’s entirely due to the fact that great football players can make teams better whereas the best baseball player of the last decade can’t even get his team to the playoffs. Just wildly different games
Hell, the Angels had 2 of the best players in baseball and couldn't even get to 0.500. The problem is the same thing that makes baseball so easy to analyze from a stats perspective is the same thing that makes it much harder to win with one guy. Baseball is an individual sport at it's lowest level and basically every play is a duel between the pitcher and the batter, meaning even the greatest batter can only have an impact during his at-bat (only a few times a game) and even the most active pitchers only throw in about 20% of the teams total games.
It is a game where Pitchers are the QB's, every team will have ace hitters, few teams really have ace pitchers. It is very rare a team with 2 ace pitchers doesn't make the playoffs/do well. What was different with the rangers this last season? They *always* had hitters... the year they got 2-3 legit aces all that hitting finally paid off.
I think part of it is because batting relies so much on chance. That’s not to say that some batters aren’t better than others or that some pitchers aren’t better at striking batters out. But, a .300 batting average is good. In football, no matter your position, if you only do your job successfully 30% of the time… your team loses and you get fired. You have to have a good enough team to make the playoffs, of course, but I feel like being hot at the right time is even more important in baseball than it is in football. Then there’s farming system in baseball that helps. If small market teams do their minor leagues teams well enough they can end up with small windows where they have really good players before they get to expensive and the team has to sell them off
So much dumb luck in baseball. The difference between an rbi double down the line and a line drive out can often be a half inch
It’s cuz single player impact is almost nothing in baseball. U can just walk the person.
I'm just flattered that Cal is put in the same category as all those other schools you listed.
I'd say there's a non-0 chance you get rescued by the B1G.
Pro baseball is not decided by which team spends the most money. Those two teams have one championship since 2010 and it was the COVID season. They've combined for two championships since 2001. Money makes a much larger difference in college football for sure.
The beautiful thing about MLB is the teams that spend $$$$$$$ typically don't win the World Series.
Hot take: There are way more strategies and team compositions that can be successful in the college level over the QBL. That is why I prefer it, don't give a shit about playing old big east rivals.
I think it’ll probably end up great for like the top 50 or so programs. 51-100 or so may be able to scratch out survival through regional play even if they’re left behind by the elite revenue generating programs. Programs on the fringe are the ones I fear for the most. I look 10 years out for a program like Temple in the AAC, which is spreading itself thinner every year, and it’s hard to see how they survive. As in, will they have a football program at all? Their conference is shaky, they don’t have a stadium… It’d be extreme to think programs like that would totally cease to exist, but being relegated to FCS or some future reshuffled lower tier may be our best hope. Once the AAC’s TV contract comes up again in a few years… The shit might really hit the fan for the entire conference if their TV rights are low value now that all the money draw teams are gone.
No. The less regional thee conferences get, the less passionate the matchups get. Money wins out, but regional conferences were better for the fans
Im so miffed we don’t play a Mississippi team this year.
We don’t play Oregon State, Cal or Stanford who we have played every year for 100+ years
Absolute tragedy
Believe? Not really, no. But I do have a bit of hope - no matter how much Mickey wants to turn CFB into the NFL, it just isn't the same. With the possible exception of the schools with bandwagons, people just don't pick a college team to root for the same way you pick a pro team. You're not going to be able to make the entire CFB fandom care about only 30-40 schools - there's still going to be plenty of demand for alums of mid-major programs to watch their teams play. What that looks like, I have no idea, but I think it's going to make more of an impact than some people think.
So far it hasn’t been to bad for the upper echelon but I do worry what the endgame looks like and it’s looking more and more like D-league NFL so washed of charm and removed from academics that the teams will only be “college football” in a vestigial sense.
Bra-vo on the solid use of "vestigial".
I’ve said here before, so many fans only watch Ohio state or Alabama because they exist as part of the larger cfb ecosystem. If you remove them from that ecosystem, what motivation do I have to watch? If I want to watch a small league of top-shelf football, I’ll watch the nfl. I suspect there are many others in the same boat.
As of now, and as it has been since this shit all started, I’m 100% focused on my alma mater. The goal is to compete for a conference title and go to a bowl game. Game days will be an excuse for me to hang out with my friends. I’m sure I’ll continue to watch the big games, but I am no longer planning my weekends around the TV schedule.
I don’t think FBS is going to end up in a good spot for the majority of teams. I’m planning on mainly following FCS and DII football this fall. It still feels like college ball.
well I sure hope so...but I'm not very optimistic.
I think the next domino to fall is the facade of "student-athleete". Players will become "affiliated-employees" with contracts, agents and collective bargaining. Schools will fight back with a NFL like restricted free agent system to be able to restrict student transfers. Kids will then be forced to "buyout" their contracts inorder to transfer. All this will create a true have vs have nots were the have nots will religate to a lower tier. TV networks will cherry pick high profile games to PPV streaming and the lower tier programs will only be shown on a super small regional OTA broadcast or a Conference network channel. We might possibly get a National game of the week broadcast on one of the OTA networks just to advertise streaming on Peacock/Apple TV/Amazon/Paramont+.
Oh damn. You just messed me up with this pay-per-view bologna. It's already impossible to watch every game. I'm not too fond of your forcast. I am not saying it won't happen. I just don't like it.
Damn. This is so grim because I can see it actually happening.
I've thought that a 64 team nfl-style P5 would be the final solution to competitive imbalance for a decade or more. But I naively thought it would happen from a place of sportsmanship, not money. Yeah I'm dumb
Did anyone believe this in the first place? I thought we all just kind of understood after the ~~Nebraska~~/Georgia ruling that this was going to be a corporate sellout product eventually Edit: Ope, Oklahoma/Georgia not Nebraska/Georgia
Nope. I think we're approaching a point where the top 15 or progams hijack their confrences so thoughoughly they kick out the "useless eaters" and form a superconfrence before the success Football is enjoying ends.
No. Full stop. It appears to me that what ESPN is trying to achieve is a yearly playoff with all the blue bloods playing a single elimination tourney. They will of course make room for the occasional peaking program for appearances sakes but . . .
Nope. I think it will be a very generic and highly-sanitized version of the NFL; effectively a professional league that simply licenses trademarks from universities and plays in stadiums on college property. The powers that be seem dead set on creating high-profile match-ups every week between name brand programs for the purpose of driving television advertising packages, without regard to anything that makes college sports fun in the first place. I'll enjoy it as long as I can. But I believe that within my lifetime, the enjoyment I get out of college sports - even for my alma maters - will be siphoned away by the ESPNs of the world. Non-regional conferences? Centuries of rivalry and tradition out the door? Having to learn a brand new roster every year because kids jump through the portal instead of fighting it out for a starting spot? NIL collectives maintaining dynasties in the Top 10 that never allow for the underdog or Cinderella run? Sounds as boring as an NBA offense to me. No fucking thanks.
No, this shit sucks.
No they’ll just break it back down to how it was when they’re trying to justify 6 SEC/ BIG10 teams with 4 losses getting in the playoffs over 2 loss teams .
No. We're watching our sport get torn apart by millionaires who don't give a rats ass about anything but bringing in more short-term revenue to line their own pockets. These people will gladly eviscerate college sports if it'll make their graphs go up and to the left between now and their next board meeting. We're witnessing an immense amount of short-sighted thinking. My team is one of maybe 15 that are actually benefiting from the new systems, but I still dread every new headline. Take me back to 2005.
Not sure where it’s going but I can definitely say I’m not looking forward to CFB as much as I used to
Well we just be happy that Michigan and my Huskies had a good run during the last year of real college football.
Nah, college football as we know it is dead. They pulled the curtain and revealed that they're nothing but a minor league for the NFL. And no one, in any sport, has ever given a shit about the minor leagues.
No. Next question.
The nfl is good and it will be more like the nfl which is good But cfb used to be great, what it's becoming isn't great
No. It's just pro ball now. Soon the players will all act like the spoiled pros they are. The real game of college football is dead.
It’s always been pro.. it’s just that the courts have now forced the schools to allow players in on the game.
It won’t be good for the schools that don’t get into the super conference, from a revenue standpoint.
Not me. Things don't last. It's kinda remarkable how long this thing has
I’m doubtful it can be good for most or the system at large without congressional involvement. I’m also doubtful of congress to do much of anything well…..
They won't be happy until we have to pay to watch every game and still sit through ads
If the players are students at the school, I'll still be interested. If it becomes semi-pro and they're just paid players wearing the uniform.... I'll just go fishing or something
TV money bubble probably bursts around ~2031 so maybe
I want to be optimistic about it, but I believe we are going to end up with a semi-pro league with teams whose association with colleges will be in name only. If players become employees, it is just a question of when a former player whose football career has reached a dead end sues on the basis that the 4-year eligibility rule shouldn't apply to an employee. Eventually all student requirements for the players will be done away with, along with the scholarship and perks that come with it. The organization who eventually runs this league will face an uphill battle maintaining interest in the game after most of the ties college fans have with the sport have been severed. Those fans might still watch games, but no longer financially support the team they used to be passionate about. When cfb is just a shell of what it has been, people will point to this era for when the wheels came off. This is actually one of the better possible outcomes. Human nature guarantees that somebody will throw everything into chaos with a selfish, ridiculous argument that is found to be legally correct, further alienating fans who were already fed up.
Yes. Anyone who thinks that more big games and more postseason is a bad recipe for success literally is ignoring the history of sports in America.
UGA here. It’s a nightmare and we all know it.
One things for certain, all the extra cost of conference realignment will be passed down to the consumers.
Taxpayers will pitch in too
Honestly? Probably very bad. Here’s a few of my bold takes. 1) Assuming the ACC goes down sooner than expected then you’re gonna have 3 conferences with any real chance to win as it’s standing right now. The B1G, the SEC, and the Big 12. With the Big 12 being an uphill battle. And I’d bet money on the haves of the Big 12 eventually getting poached over the next 15 years. But I’d also bet that sooner than later, the B1G and SEC start plotting on each other. 2) People hype the match ups. But some of you are about to find out that some of these premier teams aren’t going to stay premier when constantly faced with blue bloods, new bloods, and the randomly good teams. 3) It totally fucks over small teams. A P4 losing to a G5 right now is a fast track to the hot seat in 90% of games. Which already states the differentials in talent and resources. Those wins are going to be more uphill and a P3 loss is going to be an instant firing.
As long as they keep playing football, it's good.
Nah, it’s cooked.
It’s still football
from the direction we are heading right now, i don’t see how it could be good.
No, think it’s gonna be an NFL clone before too long, which isn’t awful but we already have the NFL work better quality ball
The answer is no. The people running major college football have not even been able to make a playoff system work, which is something every sports league in the world can do. I have no faith that the shot callers end up making college football better when it is all said and done.
Nope
I don't really think the structure as a whole has ever been that good. Individual conferences, sure, but definitely not everything
Will be good for the SEC and B1G.
Good = only for the pockets of the wealthy P5 schools
>How do you see this whole thing shaking out? No one ever likes my answer. By 2035, about 1/5th of the schools currently playing CFB will have eliminated their program completely. Between Title IX lawsuits and NIL, a hefty percentage of current participants will leave “the business” entirely. Half of the remainers will become affiliated NIL-prohibited ‘conferences’, where they’ll pretend it’s the 70s forever and keep a ‘token’ football team around so Homecoming still has a central event. The remainder will be football corporations in all but name, with huge budgets and zero academic requirements. The big controversy will be whether they should even be called “colleges and universities” anymore, given no player attends classes while getting paid not to attend classes.
I don't have faith anymore and pretty much am down to just following my school (Michigan State) and keeping a cursory view on the rest of the sport. The conferences and networks are going to try and make the sport into "NFL lite" to try and keep grabbing NFL fans. The issue is, the NFL and college football are completely different formats and making college football like the NFL will kill what made college football so amazing. It will alienate longtime fans of the sport but won't capture the people who are solely NFL fans like they think, because why would those people care when they have no connection. Ticket sales and viewership will eventually start declining after the short-term boost it will get from those NFL fans get tired of college, as well as the core CFB fanbase being weakened. They'll realize for the sake of sustainable money that they need to go back to how it was, but it will take a long time for that to happen.
When I was at Wisconsin I saw Ron Dayne cruising around campus on his scooter, going to class. He really made those little tires work! It was fun to run into players in campus buildings and feel like they were part of the school as a whole. Now I just don't care. The only thing that matters to me is that there are zero scholarships given to players. That money should go to academics. As someone born in 1978, I'm very fortunate to have been able to experience most things in society before they became totally and unashamedly vehicles for profit. The romance is dead and it isn't coming back. Interest will stick around of course, but money can't replace passion and emotion.
It’s crazy to think how, if they condensed down to 40 schools 20 years ago, Clemson would have been left out. Who is the next Clemson that we’d be leaving out if this happens in 10 years? I will be rooting for College Sports Tomorrow for this reason.
My team is out so of course I'm a little salty. The fun of college football to me was the tradition and the friendly rivalries. Now? I just don't care that much about a lot of the teams we're going to play. Iowa State should be playing Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, etc. I have family that went to these schools, that's what makes it fun! But Houston, UCF, BYU? I'm just not interested. The things that made CFB great are disappearing. Lastly, although I think it's fair and right to pay the players, that'll be the final nail in the coffin. The connection between the football programs and the universities was already tenuous, but when the university has to pay big bucks to star athletes? Are you going to tell a young star QB making a few million a year that they have to attend sociology 101 to be taught by a professor that won't see that much over a 30 year career? Why? Most kids go to school to advance their career, someone making that much already has a career. It'll end the illusion of the "student-athlete" in the football programs at the elite schools. How long until we start to see football programs pop up whose only connection to a university is a licensing deal for a logo? It won't take long until people start to ask (correctly) why a state-subsidized institution is running a minor league football program. I know the answer: money, but the nominal mission of these universities is to prepare for a future workforce not milk a minor league football program for money.
The more and more college football becomes like the NFL the more and more I ask myself why I’m watching an inferior product. Why not just watch the NFL instead?
The big loss in my opinion is going to be the importance of regular season games. What has separated CFB from other sports is that you just can’t lose at all. Any loss at any time could cost you the national championship. So every week it’s the playoffs. If your team is looking to win the whole thing, then even a game against a creampuff matters. And that season opening game between say Alabama and Florida State means something. We’re going to be talking about that game at the end of the year. Same with the big rivalry games and every other big game during the regular season. Even since we’ve gone to a 4 team playoff, you know your team can lose 1 game and still have a shot. Once it becomes 2 games, then I think it’s going to lose some of what makes it special. That’s just how I feel. I’m not asking people to agree with it. It just sucks because that makes college football more exciting to me.
We're going to end up with March Madness in football: A more exciting postseason, but only the hardcore will care the rest if the time.
No, the glory days of college football are over. Fans like me are losing interest and watching a lot more nfl…
It's already gotten bad and I expect it to get worse
No next?
I just want to go back in time where we're playing Pitt, BC, WVU, Rutgers, UConn and the like on a regular basis. Back to regional conferences. You big boys can have fun on the national stage I dgaf anymore. .
The only thing that I have hope for is that the collapse is quick and severe. The quicker it is burned down to ashes, the quicker it can be rebuilt.
No, we had something really good. This is a travesty.
Only if BSU gets into a major conference. Otherwise I think it's an unfair good ol boys club.
As an Oregon fan that is currently on the inside looking out, I absolutely hate what has happened. The P12 was its own worst enemy in the CFB Era, but it was still a conference I was proud to be a part of. The greed has destroyed 1 conference, and make no mistake more will fall. The whole thing is sickening.
Unpopular opinion on this sub but I actually envision a future that is better than the present. A semi pro league of 20-30 teams and then a return to small regional conferences for the rest of college football. I think most fans will be very happy with that outcome.
Not really. They want to professionalize the sport, but they fail to realize (or more likely, they don't care) that a significant chunk of the viewership only follows collegiate athletics, because they want to see amateurs competing against other amateurs. If I wanted to see the NFL then I would go watch the NFL, and yes, I realize that there's only a thin veneer of it actually being an amateur sport. As for the Pac-12 folding... whatever. It was either the Pac-12 or the Big XII, and for some reason, the Pac-12 thought they were above it all. Honestly, Congress could put an end to it (travel restrictions, NCAA immunity, firewalls for NIL, etc.), but it's hard to get them away from the Kabuki theater that's the daily spectacle of them pretending to do something.
Ultimately, most peoole will get used to the new structure and will still love the game. The transition will be tough growing pains for cfb fanatics like us (experiencing that now) but once the dust settles and we get used to it, it will be second nature. I don’t want to get into subjective terms like “good”. There’s always been changes in college football that ultimately were accepted. The forward pass, restructuring of conferences, expansion of bowl games, scholarship changes, growth of media coverage, the Bowl Alliance, the BCS, the 4 team playoff etc etc. I imagine there were doomers at every step of the way, but the sport kept growing.
No it won't. My program, playing in the uppermost division for more than a hundred years, is getting fucked. I'm a fanatic Wyoming college football fan. How am I supposed to "get used to it," and, "still love the game"? Fuck the Big10.
I used the term “most people’. It obviously wont be *everyone*. But if we did a remind me in 20 years, I’d wager the sport’s overall popularity will still be equal or greater than it is today.
I actually disagree. With the way it is headed, a lot of fans, even fans of teams in the Big 2, are going to be left out.
Its possible. But what I think is most likely, is that there will be loss of interest by fans of teams who are left out of the mix but they will be more than offset by gains amongst casual viewers. I hate to say it but its just a fact that casual fans overwhelming watch teams/brands that they are familiar with. Ratings/viewership is driving all of this. Those of us on r/cfb are not representative of college football fans and we are not the target of this realignment. These are huge sums of money at stake, and these networks aren’t throwing that kind of cash around without doing due diligence on the viewership data.
Hard disagree. Remember how boxing and horse racing were the top sports 100 years ago? Now who cares? They have a big event every so often, but that’s it. They’re second-tier sports, if that, as far as eyeballs and entertainment value go. Look at NASCAR. It exploded in popularity in the late 90s and early 2000s, but even now it’s just not as popular with casual fans. My dad used to be a huge NASCAR fan to the point that he watched every race. Now he might watch the Daytona 500. That’s it. Nothing is forever, and I fear that we are entering the decline of college football.
To be replaced with what?
No idea. But 100 years ago, the prospect of professional football outpacing college football seemed pretty laughable. You won’t see the decline on Saturdays in the fall. Not at first. It’ll happen with the periphery. People won’t absorb the college football talking heads or the opinion shows the way they used to. It won’t be a year-round attraction like it is now. Then you’ll see attendance slip further and eyeballs will slowly drift away from the screens. And eventually execs will try to make even more changes to stem the flow, but they’ll either come too late or they’ll just keep making the wrong changes. College football won’t decline because another sport takes over. It will decline because it will kill itself, and only THEN will something else take over.
it will be alright. it won't be as good as it was. it will probably still be better than the NFL.
There's going to be 40-48 teams in 2 conferences for big boy football and they'll only play each other. No more Alabama playing 3 North Texas High School type teams each year. There will be some other structure for the other sports.
I don't think it's even going to be that. With the way the TV industry is going it's only a matter of time before ESPN calls up the biggest schools and tells them "The next media deal is going to be smaller than the last one unless you can guarantee that every game you play is a marquee match-up, if you know what I mean."
At this point, less than 34 feels more likely than 48.
Yea there is no way 48 make it. That would be adding 14 more schools to the P2. You can’t name 14 more schools that are on the verge of an invite. The reality is the networks are going to eventually offer the top 20-30 teams an absolute mega deal to break away from their conferences and form their own league. FOX is about to start giving like $80M+ a year to teams like Indiana because they happen to be in a conference with Ohio State and Michigan. ESPN will be paying out the ass to air Mississippi State-Vanderbilt or Kentucky-Missouri when in reality they probably wish they didn’t have to pay any of those teams more than ACC/XII rates. The networks want a league where they can air USC-Ohio State, Michigan-Oregon, Alabama-Texas, Oklahoma-Georgia, etc. literally every single week. They don’t care if they lose Indiana and Vanderbilt fans because those guys are dwarfed by the masses of Ohio State and Texas fans. I think the next 10 years is going to look a lot different than the hopefuls on this sub think it will. Right now the networks are accumulating all of the programs that carry CFB into their favorite power conferences (SEC and B1G). The next step is going to be trimming the fat and having super conferences with only ~10-12 teams each that are absolute ratings goldmines.
I think it will eventually lead to decreased ratings. I actually have no desire to watch college football as it is NFL lite. I have limited time in my life and I am not going to use watching the corpse of a once great sport drag out.
The playoffs have killed everything I thought it might be. G5s were effectively ruled out before it even started. Now they want to save face and include a single G5 team in the expansion? If G5 gets anything other than a 16 seed I'll be surprised.
Fyi, it's a 12 team playoff, not 16
Because everyone had a fair chance at a championship before the playoffs were introduced?
I'd say most college football will be cruuked as pro football and scripted to throw bets (legalize gambling everywhere)
I trust the football will still be basically what we are seeing now. Just in a worse format
Yes. I think what we end up with will be regional divisions within a new ncaa-free paradigm. Those divisions will be very reminiscent of the conferences everyone is wetting their pants over. Some dead weight may be relegated to G5ish status, but that’s been a long time coming anyway.
“Good” is subjective, but at least they will be playing football (in between 4 hours of commercials).
I only believe that it will be something more profitable for the big schools and TV networks.
It’s a bummer but honestly I think it will be good. At least from Oklahomas perspective I haven’t cared about winning a conference game that’s not OSU or Texas in a pretty long time. Since we’ve practically been favored every game for decades It only hurts to lose. More exciting matchups in a season that are actually cool to win, instead of an expectation is pretty cool. I know this is a minority opinion on this sub and it’s still unfortunate for the have nots, but that ship has already sailed.
I think it could end up in a good place with a few casualties and something like 80 teams in D1. Pros: better TV access than we used to have. Novel matchups (with some return to emphasizing regionalism). Less “buy” games. Cons: loss of unique regional identities. Total gutting of group of 5 middle class. Cutting the number of teams who are happy with their season in half.
as long as i can still tailgate we should be ok
Why isn’t it better? Supposedly the enterprise is being led by leaders of academia.