New Super League of 80 Teams being discussed

[MDUte]

Seeing this in a number of places on Twitter/X. But it doesn’t make any sense to me. This many schools means less money for the blue blood schools so I don’t understand why any of them would go for this. I think they want a more consolidated Super League of around 40 teams to increase the amount of money for themselves.

NEWS: A Group of College Presidents + Sports Executives are proposing a College Football “Super League” of 80 schools.
This is to pay players, collectively bargain, and increase revenue.
“The current model for college athletics is dead.”
Per @AndrewMarchand and @slmandel pic.twitter.com/6adNZKpsoO
— College Football Report (@CFBRep) April 3, 2024

[MDUte]

Details from @AndrewMarchand and @slmandel on the private equity-backed CFB Super League idea from a group called "College Sports Tomorrow" that includes a top tier and a promotion/relegation tier.

Most leaders in college sports think it's far-fetched: https://t.co/pV4gVfHeXu

— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) April 3, 2024

[Utah]

I don’t know why any P4/P2 school would even listen to a conversation about relegation.

Nonsense.

[thirtyfour-thirtyone]

The proposal is for 70 of the “power” teams to be permanent members of the “power” division. There would also be a single 10 team division of “non-power” teams who get promoted and relegated based on (hopefully) performance.

At this point, I think something like this, as ridiculous as it is, might be the only thing that can save college sports in anything resembling their current form.

[MDUte]

Yes, these guys talk about the promotion/relegation portion of this proposal.

Proposed Super League

[Utesbyfive]

Thus ends college football. How does this semi-pro NFL feeder league fit the mission of academic institutions?

[Central Coast Ute]

To make money. The players are no longer student athletes.

[EagleMountainUte]

Cute that you believe academics matters to colleges.

They make money and support agendas.

[EagleMountainUte]

This seems so absurd. I don’t see why espn would have any interest in that. Sure the presidents of the schools outside of the P2 would love this. ESPN loves the p2 model. They just have to keep pimping 6-7 schools. Throw a bone to the ones on the outside. It is a perfect model for a media company.

[Central Coast Ute]

I highly doubt this is how it will shake out. For arguments sake, let’s say it does. My theory is that it wasn’t ESPN pulling for it. ESPN will pay what they will pay for 40 teams as they will for 80. The only thing I can think of here is that the school presidents want to salvage a little bit of CFB tradition and not destroy it completely, so they’ll allow most schools to remain. It will at least bring back regionality. It doesn’t mean they’ll grant equal revenue sharing either. Also, this new league doesn’t necessarily have to go all in with ESPN or Fox. They can take a page from the NFL and spread it across several networks to maximize revenue.

[MDUte]

I agree. Here’s the most informative video on it because Andy Staples interviews Andrew Marchand of the Athletic who broke this story. Interview starts at 13:45 mark.

Andy Staples discusses proposed Super League with Andy Marchand

[MDUte]

Cliff’s Notes of the Andrew Marchand interview:

This proposal involves only 1 PE group that is working with key individuals such as the NFL’s #2 executive and University Presidents from Syracuse and West Virginia. But there are a number of other PE firms working on their own proposal for how to fix CFB. This just happens to be the first to talk publicly about it.

The proposed Super League is actually for all of FBS’s 130+ teams. 80 in the upper tier with 70 of the current power schools made permanent and the final 10 coming from the best current G5. The remaining 50 G5 schools would be incentivized to work towards getting promoted into that final 10 group which allows for promotion/relegation.
The major issue that needs to get solved by one of these proposed Super Leagues is overcoming anti-trust lawsuits. Currently, the system is broken with lawsuits already in the system putting millions and potentially billions of dollars at risk. At the heart of everything is a need for creating a collective bargaining agreement for the players. Without a CBA, players can sue both the schools and boosters/companies paying NIL and likely win on both fronts.

Although Staple and Marchand see this as a very realistic proposal, both don’t think this one will likely win out for reasons we’ve already been discussing here…namely, 1) SEC/B1G aren’t speaking to this group and wouldn’t want to give up the money or power they’ve already secured. 2) ESPN/Fox likely wouldn’t want this either for the same reasons. They both basically own the B1G/SEC and the majority of the best brands in CFB.

Moving to a Super League model will likely increase $’s/eyeball. Because, like the NFL model, you would be removing competition from multiple conferences and instead pooling resources. Competition is what drives revenue downward. It likely wouldn’t dramatically increase revenue and ratings but there should be an increase seen on both fronts from eliminating conferences/competition. At the end of the day, the reason why it’s good to take a look at this proposal is because elements of it will ultimately get approved in whatever model wins the day. It still makes the most sense for the top brands of CFB to break away and form their own Super League. And if/when this finally happens, a smaller Super League of the best brands will maximize the amount of money per school and likely increase ratings as well due to better matchups.

[Author]

Posts