So times are crazy in College sports especially football. NIL, Transfer Portal, Revenue Sharing, Realignment, Playoffs etc. And the NCAA is just sitting by and watching it all burn.
Many Coaches, Presidents and Athletic Directors want something done to add guidelines. But that would have to come from the NCAA. Because no conference is going to limit themselves if the others dont. And the NCAA seams like they are in absolutely no rush to do anything since they say “this is what the schools wanted.”
So a 20 person+ investment group has come together to try to fix it. So who is this investment group?
They are called “College Sports Tomorrow” or CST for short. The group is headed by
- Brian Rolapp - NFL CMO, NFL Network CEO, (Roger Goodells Right Hand Man)
- David Blitzer - Blackstone investments chairman, Owner of the PHI 76ers NJ Devils. Partial Owner of the CLE Guardians, WAS Commanders, Christal Palace FC, and Joe Gibbs Racing and Dignitas (ESports) (The only person to have MAJOR investments in all 7 major team sports, NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, FIFA ESports and NASCAR he just needs to get into F1)
- Len Perna - CEO of TurnkeyZRG, (the firm most Colleges use to find a new Commissioner, and other administrators)
- Tony Petitti - Big 10 President/ Commissioner
former VP of CBS, CEO of MLB Network , President of Blizzard/Activision - As well as a couple of Power 5 School administrators.
In other words a bunch of very rich Billionaires that know a thing or two about marketing sports.
So before we talk about what they want to happen. Lets look at when this could take place. It was originally reported it could happen as soon as the end of the decade. But that was before the new 12 team playoffs got approved and the new TV deals were handed out. So college football is going to stay as is for now for the most part, for the next 10 years through the 2033-2034 season. Unless a MAJOR buyout happens which is unlikely.
So for the 2034 this is what they want to happen.
1 - Separate Division 1 FBS football from the NCAA. There is little the NCAA can do about it. As well as very little courts can do.
2 - Conferences will go back to be more regionally located. Bringing back the 10 conferences where every other sport aside from football will operate in the NCAA.
3 Create a new Conference system for the football programs. (We will get to that in a second)
4 The football players will no longer be required to be student athletes but could be employees of the universities.
5 Players will become unionized with a collective bargaining agreement to discuss a verity of topics like
A: Contract for players locking them into a school for 1-4 years unless certain conditions happen ie. coach is fired. But that means a teams cant release that player and that player cant leave.
B: Salary caps for teams. Likely in the $20m per year range. Could be higher. And that money will be only paid by the schools. Now investors and private companies can help pay for that, but they will be donating money to the school and the school will pay the players. The vast majority of top 20 schools already pay about that much.
C: Salary caps for recruiting high schoolers so it will no longer be a bidding war for players that have never taken a college snap.
D: Tighter window for the “transfer portal” Something like opening 2 weeks after the championship game. Including no tampering before hand.
E: Strict enforcement of the rules. Private companies can’t promise recruits money if they come to their favorite team. Or schools paying under the table.
As well as a bunch more but those are the big issues that ALL schools and most fans want to happen.
As for people that are worried about other sports, fear not, part of this proposal is to HELP those sports.
- Having regional conferences again cuts down on costs for all sports.
- the profits from this league will go back to the AD of each school to help pay for the other sports. Pretty much how it works for every school and every other sport aside from men’s basketball.
Revenue will be MUCH higher for this new system than the current NCAA FBS system. With a NFL like TV deal. With a nation wide TV deal. Instead of each network bidding on each conference. With CBS, ESPN, ABC, NBC and Fox showing your local teams. As well as rotating each week to have nationally televised games. According to the experts both in and outside of the CST, all agree, Football revenue could grow by 3-4x! What it currently is. Meaning the FBS average could go from $35m per school to over $100m per school. But the revenue would still be tiered towards the larger market teams like Texas, Michigan, ND, Bama etc.
so the big schools would make closer to $250m per year
And the lower end schools make $40m+ (for reference most of the Go5 schools make under $10m)
Thats the main reason why realignment is currently happening.
1 schools trying to go into a conference that has a higher revenue
Or 2 Conferences adding teams to get into a bigger media market.
Well if the revenue in the entire FBS is divided up, and all teams can broadcast their networks and stream their games anywhere in the usa. Then there would be no need to realign. Or add teams. Everyone is maximizing their profits
So what would this new league alignment look like?
They would take top power 4 (plus Oregon St, Washington St and Notre Dame as well as new comer SMU) which is 70 teams. Those 70 teams would be realigned into 7 Conferences of 10 teams each. All regionally located.
Then the group of 5 will be balanced back out to 5 conference of 14 teams each regionally located as well. T(You might be asking wait thats more than ~136 schools thats currently in the FBS) yes. Assuming that several FCS schools will want to make jump up to make money and compete with better competition. Since the FCS will be the new top tier of the NCAA. So i added the top 4 FCS schools of the past 20 years or so. Based on revenue and championships.
So thats
College Football Super League
7 conferences of 10
New FBS
5 conferences of 14.
Totaling 140 FBS schools
Then there will be an 8th conference in the CFSL.
The top 2 teams of each FBS conference will combine to form the 8th conference names currently by the CST “Under Conference”
So 8 conferences of 10 in CFSL
And 5 conferences of 12 in FBS.
BUT there will be relegation!
At the end of the season the bottom 5 teams in the “Under Conference” (one from each FBS conference) will be relegated to the FBS and the FBS Conference Champions will replace them in the CFSL Under Conference
This still allows all 140 FBS schools to compete with out watering down the league with the cupcakes
So this is what it would look like according to CST.
So you notice I include the Group of 5 and Power 5 realignment as well. Because the power 5 will play in its traditional conferences (for the most part) in all other sports.
And the Group of 5 will play in its new conferences for ALL sports.
This is the maps of each
Nice and regionally located
And dont come at me about Notre Dame. The CST had it that way.
As for the schedule. Pretty simple.
FBS operates as is.
But the CFSL operates as
-
First 2 games of the season
FBS schools travel to CFSL schools. -
Game 3 cross conference CFSL play.
They will play a home and home back to back years vs the same team. 5 teams at home 5 teams away for each conference. And they play the team that finished similarly in their conference the years prior before
1 v 1, 2 v 2 etc
Then after those 2 years. You switch conferences. Making a 14 year cycle -
Game 4-12 Inter conference play.
Note that each team plays 5 home and 5 away weeks 3-12
So this is what Michigans schedule would be for if it started this year
So in 2035
The first 2 weeks the teams can change.
But for week 3-12 they basically just switch home and away. But they can be in a different order.
Then in 2036 Michigan will play a different conference for the 3rd game.
Now for “conference championship” week.
EVERYONE will play. So yes, that means rematches.
Based purely on overall standings
1 v 2 for the championship
But also
3 v 4, 5 v 6, 7 v 8, 9 v 10
All at neutral sites.
As for playoffs. It largely remains the same for the FBS. 12 team playoff. 5 conference champs are top 5 seeds. Then 6-12 are wild cards.
As for the CFSL. It is a 16 team playoff.
8 conference champions are the top 8 seeds. Then wild cards for the next 8. And no conference can have more than 3 teams in the playoffs. And rankings are based purely on record like the NFL.
However one tweak is that there can be no conference rematches in the first round.
The first round is like the CFP where 1-8 host 9-16. Then the last 3 rounds are at neutral sites
So based on last season this would be the rankings in each division
Then this would be the playoffs
I know all of this is a lot easier said than done. BUT.
Billionaires are backing it.
Lots of College administrators are backing it.
TV networks are backing it.
The NFL is clearly backing it.
Players are backing it.
Fans would like it.
There is just a LOT of legal to go through. Mostly to do with who gets how much money. Both players and colleges.
Again they have 10 years to iron this out. Because theres only 3 options after 2033
1 This CFSL.
2 the SEC and B10 break-off into their own league and have their own tv deal and championship. Which still wouldn’t help the other sports. (Again USC and Maryland in the same conference) and no other teams will be allowed in after they get to ~48 total. And the Sec-b10 will do their own thing in terms of NIL and portal ect
3 the NCAA actually does something. And forces realignment back to what it was and control the portal and nil.
Those are the only 3 ways forward.
