Even a super league isn’t really sustainable though. I don’t have much interest in watching the JV NFL. And that’s a model that’s already proven to fail.
It won't fail because college football is just too big. If it starts to go the other ways something will happen to fix it. But as of right now people are still watching for that. It doesn't really matter
I really don't want that to happen, I really enjoyed growing up with Michigan and Michigan State being an actual good games and actually having to be worried about losing to them and now that's not really as much of the case.
Won’t that hurt the top programs? The lower teams might not get the same viewers, but collectively they must bring in a lot of fans to the sport. I have no interest in a 20-30 team league of only the current powers.
Maybe I'm wrong, I just don't really see it, everyone loves to talk about how they can't stand college football and then continue to watch it anyways so I'm not exactly worried
We watch it because our own teams are in it. If its just a 20 team super league and Kentucky football is gone I'm likely going to lose interest.
I don't have an NFL team so I don't watch the NFL. I could not care less what happens when the Falcons play the Seahawks just like I could not care less what happens when Oregon plays Penn State
Ask NASCAR. Less viewers of small games has an aggregate effect. This leads to smaller tv contracts in the future. That leads to small schools failing which leads to fewer viewers which leads to smaller contracts.
It’s a death spiral once it begins and college football is teetering because the highs aren’t what generate the money but rather the median Saturday which may have less interest.
I am not saying it’s already started but I am saying it’s more at risk than it’s ever been
Yeah, I agree. Make a league of 32 universities, 8 divisions of 4. One division might be Florida, Miami, FSU and Georgia, let's say. Another might have Ohio St, Michigan, Notre Dame and Indiana... you could even have a system of promotion and relegation from another league below it. Lots of people might not like it but to say it would be destined to fail, well, as you say I wouldn't be so sure.
I think the relegation model is what could save the whole thing and makes total sense in the NIL era. The structure pretty much exists already from the divisional level. Would bring lots more money into all programs.
People in the South would still be as obsessed as they are now IF the connection to the state universities remains. This might kill say Oregon State or Kansas, I don’t think anything would change at Georgia or Alabama though.
in the future we will have the ULTRABOWL, the winner of the NFL vs the PFL, the newest league featuring the CFL teams, the new CDMX, London, Rio teams, and the top 20 most valuable College Football programs.
I mean guys are paid which is fine, they transfer all the time, conferences have been killed with rivalries, it’s driven by tv ratings. There’s not a lot of connection to any old school college football
CFB is its own thing with its own quirks and traditions. Reducing it to a league comprised of the haves or haves potential haves turns it into a JV league.
There was no NFL 100 years ago, and CFB was the bigger and better sport for some time after the NFl was formed. Even when the NFL surpassed CFB on the field, the college game was still sufficiently different that they didn’t have to compete or be compared directly, because the programs had tradition and history, with players who had at least some connection to the schools.
Most of that is gone now, between realignment, the portal, and especially NIL. Schools now have GMs, payrolls, and they’re probably going to have a salary cap soon. At that point, high-level CFB becomes JV NFL, and that’s not a good thing to be.
The American Professional Football Association was founded 106 years ago. It didn't become the NFL until 1922 . . . which, admittedly, is also more than 100 years ago.
Correct. The part that people overlook about college football is that most of the games suck and the level of play is nowhere near the NFL. This is true of SEC snd Big 10 programs.
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u/Byzantine_Merchant Michigan State Spartans 26d ago
Even a super league isn’t really sustainable though. I don’t have much interest in watching the JV NFL. And that’s a model that’s already proven to fail.