CFB Super League (Link)

[Bogey]

I haven't seen this posted but please delete if it has.
Personally, I like the idea which keeps the conferences as they are but think it stinks when the payouts are so heavily weighted in tier 1.

Report: 70-Team CFB Super League Concept Pitched to ADs; Would Infuse $9B into Sport

As college football tries to navigate the widening financial gap between the top conferences and everyone else, one group is trying to get the biggest…

syndication.bleacherreport.com

 

[gtcole]

Definitely hate any ideas of permanent tiers. Every team goes through some lull period.
"There are different proposals for how to determine the tiers, including using the previous season's results or an aggregate model over a period of multiple years. It would also include a relegation and promotion system, though there is one model that "suggests having eight 'permanent' members of Tier 1, a move presumably to placate the biggest brands in the sport."

 

[yeti92]

I don't see how this fixes much. Everyone gets more money, but there is still a massive imbalance and preferential treatment. Without preferential treatment for those 8 teams they will say no, but if you give the 8 teams that permanent tier 1 status, the rest of the teams in their conferences will say no. The ACC and Big 12 won't get any of those 8 teams, so they will be against it from the get go. It also uselessly injects PE into the equation, just another party to have to satisfy.

There needs to be a cap on football spending, period.

 

[RamblinRed]

Interesting roundtable on the Super League idea (and revenue chasing in general) and whether it is a good idea for college football.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-f...s-something-bigger-what-will-it-leave-behind/

I Thought this question and one response to it was telling.
"Can someone answer a question for me I'm just curious about: What's the point of athletic departments chasing so much extra revenue, especially in places like the SEC and Big Ten?"

"It's loss aversion. They're more concerned about getting left behind than what the excess money can do for them. And that impact is probably as much reputation driven (see Florida State or Clemson in the ACC) than driven by real financial impact. "
"... Arkansas would rather be No. 13 than No. 1 in the Big 12 because they don't want to be left behind. They would rather lose while being in the club than win and risk getting left out. "

Will shrinking the number of relevant teams diminish interest in the sport?
"The point I always make is no one is hanging banners for how much revenue you bring in. Fans want wins. It's depressing for those teams in the bottom third of the Big Ten or SEC knowing you're making a lot of money, but so is everybody else in your conference. "

"do fanbases realize they're about to be outside of the club? Take Auburn, a program that has played for multiple national championships in the last 15 years. Over the next decade, they very well might be the 11th-best program in the conference and consistently miss bowls. That's not how their fans have seen themselves."

" I prefer college football to the NFL because it's more fun and there's no NFL equivalent to Larry from Shelby. But I'd just worry that if you strip away what makes it unique, it starts becoming more and more like the NFL. "

How do people become college football fans?
"Most fans, I believe, grow to love college football because of a regional tie to a school close to them."

"The sport is bigger than school ties, sure, but I don't believe the sport is built on Alabama, Georgia and Michigan fans being spread across the country. That's an NFL way of thinking."

 

[CEB]

I don't see how this fixes much. Everyone gets more money, but there is still a massive imbalance and preferential treatment. Without preferential treatment for those 8 teams they will say no, but if you give the 8 teams that permanent tier 1 status, the rest of the teams in their conferences will say no. The ACC and Big 12 won't get any of those 8 teams, so they will be against it from the get go. It also uselessly injects PE into the equation, just another party to have to satisfy.

There needs to be a cap on football spending, period.

Agree…
This proposal (at least in any semblance of what has been proposed thus far) is a non-starter.

 

[iceeater1969]

To balance out the team different sucess the nfl has a draft to an Equal Team Roster.
The order of draft starts with worst

The super league should have larger playoff and un Equal Team rosters based on sucess in playoffs. The mega p5 ( ala, osu, etc) who go FREQUENTLY AND ADVANCE FAR should loose a bunch of spots. Any team going should loose some.


This would regulate money in a slow but increasing manner.

 

[stinger78]

Definitely hate any ideas of permanent tiers. Every team goes through some lull period.
"There are different proposals for how to determine the tiers, including using the previous season's results or an aggregate model over a period of multiple years. It would also include a relegation and promotion system, though there is one model that "suggests having eight 'permanent' members of Tier 1, a move presumably to placate the biggest brands in the sport."

The SECheat has massive preferential treatment today and thus will never accept any other model that mitigates that. At this point, it's institutionalized with The Narrative spiking preseason polls in their favor (which biases all early ranking models, and then moving to media favoritism in ranking thereafter. Maybe the B1G is too, but they seem to be more equitable in their thinking. This is why I just want them to go, leave, be gone to their own circus.

Then the rest of us can get back to college athletics.

 

[GTJake]

This is an interesting idea and eventually I see college football coming to something like this making it more similar to the NFL.

But, the idea of Tiers for revenue distribution sounds like the same old - same old, haves vs the have-nots ... College Football has always been cyclical, so what happens when a Tier 1 team hits a down cycle and a Tier 2-3 team hits an up cycle ? I can hear the Law firms already licking their chops.

 

[takethepoints]

I continue to be bemused by the way college football ignores obvious and tried solutions to th inequalities in the game. And what might those be, I hear you say?

Luxury taxes a la the NBA. Admittedly, this would lead to immediate political and donor problems. (The two are joined at the hip.) But it would level the playing field and make it more likely that the playoff picture would reflect a reasonable sample of the teams based on their records alone. But … as I keep saying, this'll take King Kong to bring it about. Look for that to happen.

 

[JacketOff]

I continue to be bemused by the way college football ignores obvious and tried solutions to th inequalities in the game. And what might those be, I hear you say?

Luxury taxes a la the NBA. Admittedly, this would lead to immediate political and donor problems. (The two are joined at the hip.) But it would level the playing field and make it more likely that the playoff picture would reflect a reasonable sample of the teams based on their records alone. But … as I keep saying, this'll take King Kong to bring it about. Look for that to happen.

Really the biggest issue that’s plagued college athletics for decades is just lack of and/or unequal enforcement of pre-existing rules. The NCAA picks and chooses who it goes after, and how hard they go after them. 2 programs can break the same rule and have the same offenses, but their punishments could be handled totally different.

If people want to turn college football and basketball into actual professional sports, job #1 is to clean up the investigation process and rule enforcement.

 

[Techastrophe]

Most of these proposals keep the same idea of long-term conference alignments where conferences negotiate long-term media deals for their fixed membership. You can't fix all the pain points and keep that. Why not ditch it. Rebid conferences and media deals every year or every other year. Then you're not stuck with decisions made 15 years ago that no longer make sense.

 

[bobongo]

This is an interesting idea and eventually I see college football coming to something like this making it more similar to the NFL.

But, the idea of Tiers for revenue distribution sounds like the same old - same old, haves vs the have-nots ... College Football has always been cyclical, so what happens when a Tier 1 team hits a down cycle and a Tier 2-3 team hits an up cycle ? I can hear the Law firms already licking their chops.

With the grossly uneven distribution of money, how is a 2 or 3 tier school even going to compete with a tier one school?
This looks like a caste system where you're pretty much frozen in your tier by dint of the uneven revenues.

 

[MWBATL]

With the grossly uneven distribution of money, how is a 2 or 3 tier school even going to compete with a tier one school?
This looks like a caste system where you're pretty much frozen in your tier by dint of the uneven revenues.

Some truth to that. But in Europe, promotion to a higher tier brings more revenue. So, it can work.
Wrexham has now been promoted 3 straight years, as I recall.

 

[JacketOff]

Some truth to that. But in Europe, promotion to a higher tier brings more revenue. So, it can work.
Wrexham has now been promoted 3 straight years, as I recall.

It’s true there are outliers. But most promotion/relegation occurs within the same groups of clubs every few years. Most teams that go down immediately go back up with a couple of seasons, and most teams that go up immediately go back down. Since the Premier League became a thing in 1992, 6 of the 20 clubs (30%) have never been relegated and 5 of those 6 have been in the top level since the 70s.

There really are a lot of similarities between European soccer leagues and the college division system. Most notably: the top stays the top, the bottom stays the bottom, and everyone else is in between. Long term movement between tiers is unlikely to happen

 

[bke1984]

Ineligible man downfield

It’s true there are outliers. But most promotion/relegation occurs within the same groups of clubs every few years. Most teams that go down immediately go back up with a couple of seasons, and most teams that go up immediately go back down. Since the Premier League became a thing in 1992, 6 of the 20 clubs (30%) have never been relegated and 5 of those 6 have been in the top level since the 70s.

There really are a lot of similarities between European soccer leagues and the college division system. Most notably: the top stays the top, the bottom stays the bottom, and everyone else is in between. Long term movement between tiers is unlikely to happen

Kind of. Except the lower tier teams in our sport find ways to beat the upper tier teams. In their boring sport it doesn’t really work that way.

 

[MWBATL]

It’s true there are outliers. But most promotion/relegation occurs within the same groups of clubs every few years. Most teams that go down immediately go back up with a couple of seasons, and most teams that go up immediately go back down. Since the Premier League became a thing in 1992, 6 of the 20 clubs (30%) have never been relegated and 5 of those 6 have been in the top level since the 70s.

There really are a lot of similarities between European soccer leagues and the college division system. Most notably: the top stays the top, the bottom stays the bottom, and everyone else is in between. Long term movement between tiers is unlikely to happen

There is definitely truth in this long term. One club can rise up and have a special year or two, but there isn’t revenue sharing in Euro soccer like in the US. So, the big clubs who earn the most global revenue stay on top. They may not win the trophy every year, but they stay up and compat a high level . In that regard it is identical to US college football.

 

[JacketOff]

Kind of. Except the lower tier teams in our sport find ways to beat the upper tier teams. In their boring sport it doesn’t really work that way.

Ehhhh, most of that boils down to them being actual professionals. They are drawing from a pool of the best players in the world, and because of their professionalism they’re able to pay the best players their market worth. Manchester City has the highest payroll in the EPL at £213M, while Ipswich Town (lol wtf) is only paying their roster £29M. Major upsets do still happen though. Leicester City won the entire league just 2 years after being promoted in 2016. That’s equivalent to Kennesaw or Jacksonville State winning the natty next year.

College teams just get to pick from who happens to be a senior in high school at that time. The overwhelming majority of college football players are just “amateur” kids who will never play at the (real) professional level, even the ones on the best teams. It makes way more sense that kids and “amateur” athletes are more prone to riding emotional waves and playing way above/below their potential on any given day.

Either way, the super league really doesn’t do anybody any good long-term. Soccer already learned that lesson (for now). Any new profits and eyes you gain in the short term because of more high profile matchups are negated long term because fans of smaller teams lose interest in the top league.

 

[LT 1967]

See comments by B1G and SEC Commissioners concerning Super League and Private Equity. "B1G and SEC unite to keep Private Equity Out of College Sports".

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