If ESPN has eyes on a 24 team league, that’s what they’ll get. Might not happen immediately, but if that’s the goal this was the last TV deal that the Big10 got together. If they went out and said they’ll pay $150M per school, you either join up or be left behind. And Michigan, Ohio State, and USC won’t be left behind if the SEC schools sign up for that.
Here comes the doomsday thread, sorry
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If ESPN has eyes on a 24 team league, that’s what they’ll get. Might not happen immediately, but if that’s the goal this was the last TV deal that the Big10 got together. If they went out and said they’ll pay $150M per school, you either join up or be left behind. And Michigan, Ohio State, and USC won’t be left behind if the SEC schools sign up for that.
That’s not what this is, it’s just a minimum buy in that the vast majority of the P4 if not all will opt in to. Also you will never have a single super league in college football it just doesn’t work given its format.
Agree to disagree on this one for a variety of reasons but I know anyone (not saying that’s you) that firmly believes a super league is happening I won’t be able to convince. Plus 30 years from now who knows, I just know it’s not happening for the next 6/7.
Edit* also ESPN currently has zero rights to the big ten games
Media execs may not believe that viewership would drop. Or that if it does, it will be small and temporary until people who would have been 2nd tier fans become 1st tier fans instead.
They have all their side shows to pump up whoever they want, and if they pump a superleague, that will increase interest in that superleague.
I am not convinced a superleague would fail, tho it might. But i am convinced theres a lot of media execs that are sure it would succeed.
Even if a cap gets put in place there will be ways around it - just like the NFL. Players like coming to Dallas because outside of the cap they’re on every local commercial. Like Jerry says, if you’re not doubling your salary simply by being in his orbit then that’s on you.
I’m not saying it will definitely happen. I’m saying there’s a chance that it will and denying it sounds a lot like the PAC members denying that their conference would break up. If the NCAA goes forward with allowing direct NIL payments and ESPN offers individual schools big sums for their TV rights rather than the conference package, the dominos will fall. And you’re right, since ESPN doesn’t own the Big10’s rights, it’ll start in the SEC and ACC. But once there are a handful of schools that sign, the Big10 members will have no choice if they want to compete. There are too many snakes in college sports to think that tradition means anything anymore.
Agree. A cap would only be on the school, and that’s assuming you could find a legal way to do it. Boosters would make up whatever extra money is needed to buy the best team possible.
How much schools are allowed to distribute their own funds in this deal will go a long way to determining if you’re right.
I’m coming from the assumption that once you allow it at all then the athletes become employees and to put a limit on their earnings would be struck down by courts as collusion. Now, if the NCAA finds a way around that, then I’d agree that this doom and gloom scenario is overblown.
That’s hyperbole.
The professional leagues do a great job preventing franchises from bypassing the cap and those caps distribute talent to a degree college athletics has never had.
Employment with a CBA that included punishment for synthetic NIL/inducement would represent a system more equitable than ever before, and more in the spirit of amateurism than the current black market arms race.
This was exactly my point. I totally get that the teams that would be in the top tier have established fan bases. But how is a separate division going to be better than what they already have?
In my mind, the proponents of this have to be banking on NFL fans with no college affiliation to follow it. And maybe also banking on college football fans of the teams left out to follow it. I just don't see either happening to any significant degree.
How would you control the boosters? It isn’t like the NFL salary cap includes endorsement deals now. If Adidas wanted a kid to go to, I don’t know, let’s say Kansas. What’s to prevent them from doing that even with a CBA?
I don’t think I’m unique in that on any given Saturday I’m slapping that YTTV quad screen on and just jumping around when my team isn’t playing. I’m not going to stop doing that in this proposed setup.
Due to realignment and the College Football Playoff, I've noticed I care far less about games outside the Big 12 over the last few years.
I'm at the point where I wouldn't mind (and would perhaps prefer) the SEC and B1G split into their own league. I'm excited about the new B12.
I'm at the point where I wouldn't mind (and would perhaps prefer) the SEC and B1G split into their own league. I'm excited about the new B12.
Yyyeeeaaahhhh… the NCAA has such a great track record of policing boosters LOLOLOL! The SEC and OU/UT would not be where they are today if the NCAA knew how to watchdog the cheaters.
This. I have cared FAR less about other conferences because of this separation happening before our eyes. College Football fans follow teams they have a personal connection with (alumni, grew up nearby, watched growing up, etc). I will ALWAYS be an ISU fan and will follow them to whatever league they fall in College Football but I promise I will not watch the Super League because ISU is literally not in the same league. If I ventured to guess, a majority of College Football fans feel the same way with their team.
If ESPN/Fox thinks this super league is going to be like the NFL and fans will pick a team from this new league, they are grossly mistaken.
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The incentive is more money. If they can get more money they’re in. Throw in running money through tax free organizations that are universities… insert billionaire hard on.
Maybe Alabama can get their wish.
Be in a League of Their Own
And play with themselves.
Be in a League of Their Own
And play with themselves.
ESPN just shafted a major football brand in FSU on the biggest stage for the world to see, just to make a few million more on a single year of playoffs. Why would they have any qualms cutting loose Rutgers or Illinois or Indiana. That would be child's play by comparison.
The Big East was raided of its best teams and now no longer exists as a power football conference.
The B12 was then raided of its best teams and is no longer an equal to the top football conferences.
The Pac was raided of its top teams and fell apart completely.
The top teams in the ACC are now pleading to leave. Their fate is all but sealed.
How anyone can look at a steady 40 year march towards more money and more consolidation of power and tell me it stops there, I just can't understand. The rich blue bloods keep pushing for changes to get even richer. And once they are all together cashing big checks in the B1G and SEC, the only way they can grow further is to break free from the dead weight in those leagues. And the media partners have a long history proving they are happy to play that game.
What gnaws at me in all this, and it's been hashed out ad nauseam on here...but the original Big 12 was a GREAT conference from a competitive standpoint.
While we may remember the north/south imbalance with those elite OU and UT teams, and solid TT/A&M/OSU programs...when the conference started in the 90s Nebraska, KSU, and Colorado were all still at their peak. And good Mizzou/KU teams in the late 2000s.
And don't forget basketball....Kansas anchoring the conference as the blue blood, solid Texas and OU teams (Durant and Griffin years), Sutton's OSU program, Bobby Knight in Lubbock, solid ISU and Mizzou programs...
If the top schools had swallowed their pride and done the hard work to build a solid foundation, this conference could've thrived for a long time. Just a shame.
