If there’s going to a super league failure, and it’s the kind of thinking that could keep Utah out, it’s that academic reputation matters more than program ability.
i.e, Vanderbilt and Stanford have great academic reputations and have been in the club for decades. They also have very little drawing power in their home markets, have student acceptance rules which are prohibitive to many of the kids who would end up in the super league, and as institutions they have not shown a willingness to promote the infrastructure required to support inclusion.
So if someone like Stanford is necessary to bring Notre Dame to the dance, I say leave Notre Dame out and put in two schools that bring more to the football table. If the super league is truly to succeed, the powers that be need to get their heads out of their nostalgia.
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