(04-03-2024 09:40 PM)Porcine Wrote:  

(04-03-2024 05:53 PM)sctvman Wrote:  Article from the Athletic:

Several college presidents, Roger Goodell’s primary lieutenant at the NFL and some of sports’ top executives have devised a plan — dubbed by outsiders as a “Super League” — to completely transform college football, those involved in the group “College Sports Tomorrow” (CST) told The Athletic. Although the plan has drawn skepticism from within the sport’s current institutions, the people behind the ideas believe they must be implemented.

The current CST outline would create a system that would have the top 70 programs — all members of the five former major conferences, plus Notre Dame and new ACC member SMU — as permanent members and encompass all 130-plus FBS universities.

The perpetual members would be in seven 10-team divisions, joined by an eighth division of teams that would be promoted from the second tier.

The 50-plus second-division teams would have the opportunity to compete their way into the upper division, creating a promotion system similar to the structure in European football leagues. The 70 permanent teams would never be in danger of moving down, while the second division would have the incentive of promotion and relegation.

16 team playoff…

https://theathletic.com/5383639/2024/04/...alignment/

I'm sorry about Joe Flaherty.

Godspeed, Count Floyd!

(04-03-2024 09:17 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The core question of any proposal in college sports, whether it’s this one, the CFP, NCAA Tournament or anything else, is: Does this make sense for the Big Ten and SEC?

Considering that this Super League proposal is effectively turning back the clock to the Bowl Alliance days where there were 7 roughly equivalent top tier leagues based on regionalism, I would say that it’s DOA. This proposal makes absolutely no sense for the Big Ten and SEC.

Pretty much the only thing that I agree with is that the current membership of the P4 is generally going to be required for the construction of the top tier, whether it’s within the NCAA or a breakaway or regardless of how many power leagues end up surviving. I’ve long put the number of power schools required at around 65 schools (give or take a few) and this proposal tracks with stating that around 70 schools are needed. I don’t think a P2-only organization works because I don’t think either league can make going beyond 20 schools each to be financially viable.

The Big Ten and SEC are just umbrella names for their membership. Currently they’re disparate media bundles with various independent earning potential. Ultimately, the highest earning brands are going to do whatever it takes to continue to increase their earnings. Believing they won’t put themselves first for the good of their less valuable conference mate is quite Frankly, romantic and antiquated thinking.

(04-03-2024 09:23 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-03-2024 06:59 PM)LatahCounty Wrote:  Would be way better for fans and most schools than the current system. So of course they'll screw it up.

I'm not sure about that. SEC and B1G? I bet their schools would reject this plan. As others have noted they lose most of their current big advantages over everyone else.

G5? If I understand the proposal, the G5 will permanently be relegated - the 70 or so until recently P5 schools will all be permanent members of the top league, while the G5 can only earn their way in but can also drop out if they fail. As a fan of a G5 school, that IMO sucks worse than what we have now.

Really, I only think fans of the M2 schools would favor this. It puts them far more of an even keel with the P2 schools than the current system and permanently cements them above all current G5 schools.

In a nutshell, IMO this is fundamentally a pro-M2 proposal.

Pro-middle class? Wow, what a disastrous concept lol


I think you’re wrong anyway. It uncaps the potential of the best brands. No more subsidizing their hasty market adds or having to send teams across the country every season. It says nothing of media bundling potential, which hasn’t even been creatively looked at since the CFA. Pretty sure the regal Big Ten poo-pooed that uncouth money grab 20 years before pillaging every conference known to man.

(04-03-2024 06:59 PM)LatahCounty Wrote:  Would be way better for fans and most schools than the current system. So of course they'll screw it up.

IMO, the majority of universities would favor this. Unfortunately, the conference commissioners of the P2 and a few powerful brand universities would be vehemently opposed.

(04-03-2024 09:49 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(04-03-2024 09:17 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The core question of any proposal in college sports, whether it’s this one, the CFP, NCAA Tournament or anything else, is: Does this make sense for the Big Ten and SEC?

Considering that this Super League proposal is effectively turning back the clock to the Bowl Alliance days where there were 7 roughly equivalent top tier leagues based on regionalism, I would say that it’s DOA. This proposal makes absolutely no sense for the Big Ten and SEC.

Pretty much the only thing that I agree with is that the current membership of the P4 is generally going to be required for the construction of the top tier, whether it’s within the NCAA or a breakaway or regardless of how many power leagues end up surviving. I’ve long put the number of power schools required at around 65 schools (give or take a few) and this proposal tracks with stating that around 70 schools are needed. I don’t think a P2-only organization works because I don’t think either league can make going beyond 20 schools each to be financially viable.

The Big Ten and SEC are just umbrella names for their membership. Currently they’re disparate media bundles with various independent earning potential. Ultimately, the highest earning brands are going to do whatever it takes to continue to increase their earnings. Believing they won’t put themselves first for the good of their less valuable conference mate is quite Frankly, romantic and antiquated thinking.

I don’t disagree with you that this might be the outcome. That being said, your certainty in thinking that this is just some foregone conclusion is also misguided because you’re not taking into account that, at least in the Big Ten, places like Ohio State and Michigan do need connections to markets with real money and alumni power like New York, DC, Chicago, etc. (Maybe the SEC is different because their most valuable markets also overlap with their most valuable schools with the exception of Alabama.)

Regardless, a “Super League” is the top 20 schools breaking off themselves. I personally don’t think that will happen because I think a lot of people underestimate just how straight up snobby some of these schools can be (particularly Michigan and USC), but would grant that it’s a legit possibility because money is money and this may be a revenue maximizing format. I don’t think the Super League proposed in the OP article is a legit possibility in any reasonable circumstances. They’re essentially proposing a P4 breakaway but then breaking up the leagues, which serves absolutely no one in the Big Ten or SEC (whether the powers or non-powers).

(04-03-2024 09:23 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-03-2024 06:59 PM)LatahCounty Wrote:  Would be way better for fans and most schools than the current system. So of course they'll screw it up.

I'm not sure about that. SEC and B1G? I bet their schools would reject this plan. As others have noted they lose most of their current big advantages over everyone else.

G5? If I understand the proposal, the G5 will permanently be relegated - the 70 or so until recently P5 schools will all be permanent members of the top league, while the G5 can only earn their way in but can also drop out if they fail. As a fan of a G5 school, that IMO sucks worse than what we have now.

Really, I only think fans of the M2 schools would favor this. It puts them far more of an even keel with the P2 schools than the current system and permanently cements them above all current G5 schools.

In a nutshell, IMO this is fundamentally a pro-M2 proposal.

For legacy SEC and B1G members, I agree. They're fine now.

For the recent western B1G adds, I suspect they'd be at least as happy in a re-regionalized division, assuming everyone is getting an equivalent share of the money. Their fanbases would definitely be happier.

M2: Obviously better off.

G5: They get to vie to be one of the ten schools in a Super League with the big boys, with (I assume) playoff access. That seems 10x better than a tenuous 1 school getting a grudging berth every year.

Something like this could actually save CFB from themselves.

We need some sanity. But...greed will kill FB eventually.

(04-03-2024 09:49 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(04-03-2024 09:17 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The core question of any proposal in college sports, whether it’s this one, the CFP, NCAA Tournament or anything else, is: Does this make sense for the Big Ten and SEC?

Considering that this Super League proposal is effectively turning back the clock to the Bowl Alliance days where there were 7 roughly equivalent top tier leagues based on regionalism, I would say that it’s DOA. This proposal makes absolutely no sense for the Big Ten and SEC.

Pretty much the only thing that I agree with is that the current membership of the P4 is generally going to be required for the construction of the top tier, whether it’s within the NCAA or a breakaway or regardless of how many power leagues end up surviving. I’ve long put the number of power schools required at around 65 schools (give or take a few) and this proposal tracks with stating that around 70 schools are needed. I don’t think a P2-only organization works because I don’t think either league can make going beyond 20 schools each to be financially viable.

The Big Ten and SEC are ACC is just an umbrella name for their membership. Currently they’re disparate media bundles with various independent earning potential. Ultimately, the highest earning brands are going to do whatever it takes to continue to increase their earnings. Believing they won’t put themselves first for the good of their less valuable conference mate is quite Frankly, romantic and antiquated thinking.

FTFY

(04-03-2024 10:03 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(04-03-2024 06:59 PM)LatahCounty Wrote:  Would be way better for fans and most schools than the current system. So of course they'll screw it up.

IMO, the majority of universities would favor this. Unfortunately, the conference commissioners of the P2 and a few powerful brand universities would be vehemently opposed.

Yeah, just like socialism, the majority of people/universities benefit by taking a bunch of money from the wealthiest and spreading it out amongst everyone else. It's exactly what the NCAA does to the entire P6 in the NCAAT, and to many 1-AAA schools, too. We've all put up with it for an extremely long time, and everyone has thrived under the current model in basketball, but the football model is very different. I'm not saying that the "haves" need to have an unfair advantage over everyone else btw, what I'm thinking is that we're not going to split a bunch of our current revenues with everyone else out of the goodness of our hearts. If the networks decide that they want to keep paying us tons of $$ with significant yearly raises, and they want to pay all the ACC and Big 12 schools that same amount of money with all of us negotiating one huge contract? I mean, it wouldn't hurt us, we'd still make tons more money than ACC and Big 12 schools, and in the age of NIL it's hard to conclude that a $350m athletic budget will lead to any more wins on a yearly basis than a $250m budget would. So, sure, as long as we get ours, and as long as it's good for CFB, we'd be on board.

The issue with the proposal from the article is that it would require a bunch of "haves" to unilaterally give up tens of millions of dollars per year per school, with no guarantee that it would make football or college athletics any better for it. That seems quite unlikely.

(04-03-2024 06:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  DOA—the Big 10 and SEC aren’t going to just give up their advantages.

Now a system of the P2, M2, ND, and a rotation of 10 G5s could potentially work but I think that arrangement would need to be just for football. The G5 all retain their existing membership. 10 would just be culled from their ranks to participate as “M” independents in the group with revolving membership.

There would need to be a system to determine promotion and relegation—how many move up and down annually, who moves up, can relegation be avoided? Etc

Some schools in the ACC and Big 12 need to move down and not be permanent.
SMU
Boston College
Duke
Wake Forest
California
Stanford
Houston
Kansas
Colorado
Arizona
Arizona State

And some in Big 10 and SEC like Vanderbilt and Northwestern.

I don't see the 10 team divisions being a thing, but I like 80 teams. My guess is the B1G and SEC push to keep their own conferences and expand to 20 teams each securing 2 bids for each conference. Then the ACC and B12 function as 2 15 team conferences (I assume Kansas leaves the B12 for 15 while the ACC loses UVA, UNC, Clemson, FSU, and Miami while OSU and WSU join the ACC for 14 + ND) with ND remaining independent in football (good luck getting them into a 10 team division) splitting 3 bids. Then 1 bid for the Pro/Rel G5 and the 8 at-large (I think 8 at-larges is too many unless it's a 16 team ladder bracket).

I wouldn't be opposed of giving the ACC and B12 a 16th team and increasing the promoted G5 league to 12 teams (3 AAC, 3 MWC, 2 SBC, 2 MAC, 2 CUSA). 84 (72+12) is a better factor (better divisible) than 80 (70+10). It might also encourage the MAC and SBC to take out CUSA to take their 2 bids for themselves (results in 3 bids for each G4).

It's sad we've come to a place where so many posters are lambasting this plan. This plan would be so much more fan friendly than any of the conglomeration of brands that exist today. It essentially takes college football back to the pre Oklahoma v. NCAA landscape. It includes merit-based promotion and relegation, an expanded playoff without with a clear route to win on the field and make the tournament. Why would we as fans oppose this? It seems like the first instance of college football administrators, thinking about the fans. We don't get any media revenue? All we're seeing is schedules filled with teams with no historic ties to our favorite programs?

Do we all really care so much more for the game of risk, than the game of college football as it has been since it's inception! Regionalism is what made College football!

The divisions could be interesting:

1) Former Pac-10
2) Former Big 8 plus Utah and BYU
3) SEC as of 1990
4) Big 10 pre-Penn State
5) ACC from 1990 plus Notre Dame and Florida State
6) Big East from 1991 less Temple, plus Louisville, Cincinnati, Penn State
7) SWC from 1990 less Rice plus South Carolina and UCF

(04-04-2024 06:57 AM)LeeNobody Wrote:  It's sad we've come to a place where so many posters are lambasting this plan. This fan would be so much more fan friendly than any of the conglomeration of brands that exist today. It essentially takes college football back to the pre -alabama v. NCAA landscape. It includes merit-based promotion and relegation, an expanded playoff without with a clear rout e to win on the field and make the tournament. Why would we as fans oppose this. It seems like the first instance of college football administrators. Thinking about the fans. We don't get any media revenue. All we're seeing is schedules filled with teams with no historic ties to our favorite programs.

This Super League might be the dumbest thing I’ve read within the last 20 years. It’s eye popping stupid on a level rarely seen. Divisions of 10 teams? Just that alone made me chuckle out loud. These administrators within these conferences wants their schools to play each other more often among like minded schools.

So Big Ten and SEC are going to scrap their conference networks for this Super League? Those 2 conferences erase all their decisions they have made over last 4 decades to increase value in their conferences?

Some of you live in a fantasy land and then complain why are people being so rational? Unbelievable.

Anyone else like the fact that this seems to cap off FBS?

10 team divisions is too limiting given the roster turnover year to year.

You'd need a pool of 32 and maybe 40 schools below that, and you would have to have a completely closed system with relegation/promotion between the two. I don't think G5 would jump, unless they expanded the middle tier with more schools.

For scheduling, you draw randomly with a regional bias skew, so it would be unlikely for Bama to play @ Wisconsin or vice versa. I think maybe you grant a one year grace period in terms of revenue, so even if you fall out of Tier 1, you are still guaranteed the same Tier 1 revenue the next fiscal year. And Tier 2 teams promoted still make Tier 2 revenue for another year.

I don't know about you guys, but I had a blast following Rutgers versus similarly competitive Miami VaTech MSU (Maryland game not withstanding) type of programs last year. We shouldn't be playing tOSU and UM every year. It's just a better product overall.

All the millions of dollars spent on entrance and exit fees over the last 5 years were for nothing? Hey anything so these media execs can pad their pockets I guess.

This is like that perfect sweet spot of stupid, where obviously the SEC and B1G wouldn't agree to it but quite possibly most of the G5 wouldn't even agree to it. Always find it amazing when a really dumb idea comes from a group who absolutely knows better.

(04-03-2024 10:11 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(04-03-2024 09:49 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(04-03-2024 09:17 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The core question of any proposal in college sports, whether it’s this one, the CFP, NCAA Tournament or anything else, is: Does this make sense for the Big Ten and SEC?

Considering that this Super League proposal is effectively turning back the clock to the Bowl Alliance days where there were 7 roughly equivalent top tier leagues based on regionalism, I would say that it’s DOA. This proposal makes absolutely no sense for the Big Ten and SEC.

Pretty much the only thing that I agree with is that the current membership of the P4 is generally going to be required for the construction of the top tier, whether it’s within the NCAA or a breakaway or regardless of how many power leagues end up surviving. I’ve long put the number of power schools required at around 65 schools (give or take a few) and this proposal tracks with stating that around 70 schools are needed. I don’t think a P2-only organization works because I don’t think either league can make going beyond 20 schools each to be financially viable.

The Big Ten and SEC are just umbrella names for their membership. Currently they’re disparate media bundles with various independent earning potential. Ultimately, the highest earning brands are going to do whatever it takes to continue to increase their earnings. Believing they won’t put themselves first for the good of their less valuable conference mate is quite Frankly, romantic and antiquated thinking.

I don’t disagree with you that this might be the outcome. That being said, your certainty in thinking that this is just some foregone conclusion is also misguided because you’re not taking into account that, at least in the Big Ten, places like Ohio State and Michigan do need connections to markets with real money and alumni power like New York, DC, Chicago, etc. (Maybe the SEC is different because their most valuable markets also overlap with their most valuable schools with the exception of Alabama.)

Regardless, a “Super League” is the top 20 schools breaking off themselves. I personally don’t think that will happen because I think a lot of people underestimate just how straight up snobby some of these schools can be (particularly Michigan and USC), but would grant that it’s a legit possibility because money is money and this may be a revenue maximizing format. I don’t think the Super League proposed in the OP article is a legit possibility in any reasonable circumstances. They’re essentially proposing a P4 breakaway but then breaking up the leagues, which serves absolutely no one in the Big Ten or SEC (whether the powers or non-powers).

I think the threat of the 20-30 team super league is what will drive relegated media payments.

I don’t agree that OSU and Michigan need to share an athletic conference with Rutgers and UMd to have a presence in NYC and DC. That’s been established, even prior to 2014. They were solely added for TV sets when markets drove conference network based expansion. Carolina has great connections with the entire mid-Atlantic and doesn’t need St. John’s or Temple in conference to keep that established. Same with Duke, hence Coach K routinely playing those programs on their home courts. OSU and Michigan are free to schedule Syracuse in Yankee Stadium or Navy at whatever replaces FedEx Field. It’s not like they’re going to be in NJ or College Park every other year anymore.

You fail to see how every conference has succumbed to some sort of relegated payment system (by virtue of the big earners leaving) except the top two. Why would they be immune when they have been constructed the exact same way? They’re not, and it will happen to them next in some form or fashion. I’ve been predicting it, and now credible journalists are predicting it. Read the tea leaves.

Since 1989 every realignment move has consolidated television value into smaller groupings with the best value moving to SEC and Big Ten.

With the exceptions of Florida State to ACC and Notre Dame to quasi-ACC the SEC and Big Ten have moved everyone they wanted into their sphere.

This is not unlike 1946. Germany, Japan, UK, and France have been swept off the board as “great powers” and now you have two superpowers.

You don’t suddenly disarm and invite the former great power into the Super Power club by diverting your tax revenue to fund them becoming equals. You may be willing to keep them in the game but only as side players for political purposes.

Super League is stupid because the whole premise is 34 schools at the cusp of unchallenged supremacy will suddenly start funding the defeated not at a politically expedient level but lift to peer capability. No one does that.

People can blame unions and the courts or whatever boogeymen they are bothered by but the cause is simple.

Greed and mistrust.

When revenue accelerated the athletic department was not treated like a business. The universities all input some combination of real estate, capital construction costs, salaries, discounted financing, intellectual property and the required oversight and affiliation required to participate in the NCAA and NAIA.

Unlike business owners the increased revenue stream wasn’t spun off in meaningful dividends nor retained to improve marketability for sale.

Spending is essentially fear driven not by improving profits. If X thinks they need leather seats then we need leather seats.

1970-1988 was a tough period of revenue growing slowly or falling while expenses increased.

Had salaries for department employees tracked inflation the top football coach in land would be making just over one million dollars. What sort of fool thinks you can pay a head coach 11 times that or pay numerous assistants more than head coaches made and then cry amateurism only when it comes to player compensation. Unfettered spending for buildings, salaries, transportation, meals, and housing but drawing the line at the players? No one is buying that especially in sports where there is no professional alternative to college for high school grads.

Justice White said back in 1983 you can create competitive balance rules about revenue in athletics but you don’t get to arbitrarily constrain competition when less restrictive means exist. Subsequent courts said you can create competitive balance but not by conspiring to limit compensation to one employee group.

The initial anti-NCAA litigation recognized amateur competition was a unique product but that decision came down not long removed from players arriving on the first day of classes for the first practice and forgetting football after the final game of the season but for a few weeks in spring.

You don’t make the sport a 48 week activity and throw your hands up and say oh we can’t do more than cost of attendance or it ruins the enterprise.

The schools chose the path of NFL Lite and the SEC and Big Ten are fools if they do anything other than enter into detente as 34-40 team pro league system not unlike how MLB operated for most of its existence operating independently but for a limited set of issues.

If ACC and B12 want to chase, more power to them but there’s no reason for SEC and Big Ten to mutually negotiate at CBA with the others and no reason to share more than token revenue.