The euro league is probably the closest in my comparative, but with both of those you have fringe talent that likely wont ever make it to the nfl. They are still operating as a backstop to players from college that werent good enough for the league.
I would argue that if you had caleb williams get drafted out of highschool and playing for your teams feeder league until he is ready for the nfl. Removing the minimum time after highschool graduation etc like baseball. That the league makes more money and the players also make more money as they arent being held to restrictions that the colleges are currently being put under.
Obviously we disagree on this which is fine, i just see the ncaa as weak and that the big 10/sec are already moving towards something similar to what i raised. If title ix doesnt get outta the way of it i see it being a messy divorce from college football. In the end we shall see either way.
To be clear, I donāt really disagree with the model of either a minor league or a new power CFB league.
Iām playing devils advocate to a large degree as when this topic was first brought up elsewhere a poster indicated how easy it would be to do this. Primarily utilizing the universities fields, etc. I always look for the questions that remain.
In your scenario of a feeder league questions that come to mind:
Does each team get assigned a geography where they own the recruits?
is there a HS draft
In the state of Michigan you have two power schools and numerous group of five and smaller schools. What happens to those football teams? Do we not care?
Will state legislatures feel the same towards what will happen to those schools as revenue will dry up? If revenue, mainly from spartan and wolverine football goes down the toilet we are ok with all the other teams in that university disappearing or does the state now fund them?
Again, i donāt mind the idea but there are tons of questions and challenges to it.
At this point I would be much happier with a minor league system. Let people play in college who actually want to go to college. That would be something.
The draft moves to out of hs similar to baseball
3-4. Not sure why football is the savior of schools and athletic programs but held to a standard where they are viewed as āequalā and should be compensated the same.
A lot of these questions are geared around the emotions tied to other sports or colleges being unable to be self sufficient without the revenue from college football. I agree, that is the ugly truth behind all of this conversation.
From a business perspective, if we had out of hs draft eligibility, expanded draft rounds etc. It could work. But one thing i may be overlooking is the popularity of the draft would be significantly impacted as most people wont know the players being drafted unless they follow recruiting today.
As with anything there will always be questions to answer and unexpected fallout. As a thought exercise it is certainly interesting from a purely business perspective i believe it would overall be more profitableā¦ obviously it would have a negative impact on the social and political fronts due to the lost revenue for schools etc. There will be no perfect solution, and ultimately i believe the ncaa, title ix, etc will backoff to a certain degree once they feel that a minor league system could replace them.
Recruiting is still WIDE open. But there will be contracts for commitments that cant be broken by EITHER side (team and player) as well as a salary and salary cap.
As well as a freshmen player cap. Meaning you can only pay HS recruits a certain amount Z
Nobody cares about the group of 5 and fcs and d2.
Group of 5 schools make less than $50m for the whole athletic department and most football programs are under $10m
FCS $30m for AD $5m for Football.
They just dont have the capital to even come close to the top dogs. That make $200-250m for the AD and $50m-$150m for the football program
They will still be D1. And they will still compete in the NCAA in their confidences and play in the 14 team CFP. But that will now be a tier down from the new league.
The proposal thats gaining more and more traction and is backed by many programs already. Is 80 teams. (Basically the power 5 plus10 more teams) 8 conferences of 10 teams. Conference champs play in a 8 team playoff. Set scheduling. No voting committee no computer rankings. Just football.
Most people only watch the top 80. Most NFL players come from the top 80. And now most of the good players that are halfway decent in the portal get picked up by thr top 80. So why weigh down the whole division.
This will make huge money. Require no NFL backing. And will deliver a fair enjoyable product
They still make money. They still have full ride scholarships and housing benefits and ncaa unlimited NIL.
The point is the group of 5 has never and will never be able to do anything
Just wait this year. 12 team playoff. They MAY make it out of the first round because it will be a home game. But they wont make it out of the quarterfinals
A separation from the NCAA and a separation from universities are two very different things. You might create a separate minor league but how does a university leave itself? UM wonāt be dropping football, too much money is at stake. The nature of the sport may change, they may become employees etcā¦ but there will be football in the fall at the Big House.
The NBA has the g-league but I donāt see March Madness taking a big hit. Now the NFL draft, I can see that losing some popularity if half the top picks are unknowns from a minor league team.
So, in the case of Michigan, the state, where do people spend money on football?
The Detroit Lions, yes, especially now.
Michigan / Michigan State to see their football teams, probably yes
The new hypothetical league will get some ticket share from the above but how much is the unknown. If this league is owned by the NFL they may not care.
Being too literal with the idea of a āuniversity leaving itselfā.
What could happen is coaches and players taking their talents to a newly formed league. Again, the NCAA is weak and if the government and title ix try to push the players into a box financially where they are making the same as guys on the rowing team i bet you start to see a league try to fill the void by offering top talent and coaches a more financially rewarding leagueā¦
If that happens and it has ties to the nfl it probably works and devalues the product at the college. Will college football still exist, eh probably, but the product would severly sufferā¦ maybe people and alumni wont care but i guarantee the players wont sit by if they are getting offers of significant life changing money and still a path to the league.
Think about how march madness has lost some luster due to some players choosing to go to the g-league etc. You make that problem way worse by messing with nil and spreading the funds to non revenue generating sportsā¦ pandoras box has been opened with nil and paying players. If title ix comes in and players are capped at 150k a year as mentioned in this thread it wont be hard for a league to come along and pay top talent 1m plus be affiliated with the nfl and really hurt the product of college sports.
My point is that the ncaa and title ix better be very very careful with how they proceed. They think people will watch regardless of talent and that they are the only show in town. The minute they arentā¦ that is my only point and you may disagree, but i can tell you personally if the g-league expanded and further expanded team affiliation with continued degradation of the talent level in college hoopsā¦ i would rather watch the g-league.
More and more nba players in the draft are coming from g-league and euro league, make it worse with title ix restricting what these players can make and see what happens. They really should be careful how they proceed.
Also, to be clear i would rather that the universities figure this out and break away from the ncaa officially etc and create their own league with equitable salary structures etc. I just dont trust them to figure it out.
I think you are operating under some misconceptions. Schools like Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama, LSU, Texas USCā¦ all the big names in the sport, these teams have been playing football since long before the NFL existed, more than 130 years. Their fanbases are deep and passionate, often going back many generations in a family, with obscure and deeply felt traditions that run much, much deeper than anything the NFL can produce. These colleges WILL be playing football as long as football is a thing that gets played, and their fanbases WILL be filling stadiums and tuning in to watch their teams.
I suppose itās possible that some combination of legal and financial factors might cause the NFL to create an actual minor league (though I doubt it; much cheaper to have colleges operate your minor league for you for free. And NFL owners are cheap). In any case, this would have ZERO impact on college football. CFB fans donāt watch to see elite football talent, not really. They watch to cheer their schools and hate on their rivals. You could make college ball 100% amateur and fill rosters by going door to door at dorms, and fans would still watch their team. This is what people who donāt have college football in their blood just donāt get about the sport.
Only retort i have is that annually the nfl makes more money than college footballā¦ again i think.they will come to their senses but there is a point where the non-diehards walk away from it and watch the superior talent. If that happens, yes the schools still will play football but to think the vast majority of people will watch what amounts to club ball to me really oversells the idea of college alumni loyalty or history driving future viewership.
There was a point in time where the majority watched baseball, it was americas past time, etc. Overvaluing your position can be dangerous has really been my point this entire time. I hope that the NCAA and government dont make that mistake and allow for the athletes and coaches to be rewarded appropriately based on the revenue that their sport generates for these schools and league as a whole.
This is true but college football makes more money thanā¦ literally anything else? At least, Iām pretty sure thatās the case. Add up the recent TV deals for the SEC, Big Ten, and College Football Playoffs, and Iām pretty sure they dwarf every other sport, and every other entertainment property on the planet.
I donāt disagree that there are huge changes roiling the sport, but I donāt see any evidence that these changes will reduce its popularity. Everything youāre arguing seems to just assume that will happen, without making much of a case why or how. I mean, we havenāt even had the first year of a 12-team playoff! And the media companies making billion-dollar bets on these questions sure seem to disagree. (With more competitive conference schedules and a bigger playoff, they are actually predicting 23% year-over-year growth.)
There just arenāt that many events anymore that reliably pull tens of millions of viewers week after week. College football is one of a grand total of TWO. Of course things can change, but the idea that fans will just lose interest because of āvibesā seems unlikely anytime soon.
