Are you familiar with college football?
More than any other major sport, CFB has not needed consensus. Until recently you had votes decide the champion, and even now an esoteric system to get to a 4 school playoff.
Removing conferences and regional fiefdoms, consolidation into 48 schools of clearly the top 2 factions and expanded playoffs will be good for consensus. Historically speaking better than ever.
And any single elimination format is limited on getting consensus on the winner being the best team. That’s not attainable. There will be consensus that the winner of the P2 postseason is the champion though. Really the 24 school SEC plus OSU and USC likely gives you enough for that.
Given your rhetorical it is safe to say my point isn’t getting across. Let me try a different tack…
Let’s use your
24 school SEC plus OSU and USC as the basis of a thought experiment.
Imagine that is where things land. Let’s also assume this league was neither able to secure non-compete clauses with all viable broadcast networks/services nor secure recognition by the AP as the only officially sanctioned CFB league.
After a rough couple of years the East and West conferences formed out of the leftovers stage their first Rose Bowl to feature two undefeated teams.
How about we assume those teams are Oregon and Michigan. Substitute other schools as needed if either is in your 24-team SEC.
The game is broadcast on CBS. Substitute another network/service that doesn’t have a substantial stake in your
True CFB League as needed.
Michigan wins in an epic battle and finishes 14-0. Both teams are poised to
run it back, with many underclassman returning.
The same weekend upstart South Carolina caps off a surprising run in the
CFB League Playoff after tiebreakers landed them the 8th seed at 9-3, finishing 12-3 on the season. They defeated Auburn (12-3) in the title game. It was broadcast on ESPN.
Now, given how quickly this change happened it isn’t exactly a coincidence that all the relevant media deals expire before the start of the next season.
Now, who do you imagine the AP voters crown
their champion?
What do you the ratings advantage is for the
CFB League?
What percentage of the combined media deals will the
CFB League command?
Now, I’d say this example is somewhat of a degenerate case, but since you proffered it I’d say it is fair game for illustrative purposes.
The history of college football demonstrates just how ephemeral and subjective the perception of strength/value is. We’re not that far removed from an undefeated SEC team getting locked out of the BCS title game by the Big 12 and Pac 12 champions.
My ignorant guess is that a
breakaway P2 would need to quickly and unambiguously establish itself as such a prohibitively dominant force that no media partner would waste their broadcast time on an alternative, no media outlet would dare advocate for an alternate champion, etc. Failure to do so would almost certainly jeopardize the premium they were able to command eventually, and likely in surprisingly short order.
In other words, a large portion of their value is derived from the perception of their being the
consensus best-of-the-best of an
expansive CFB landscape.
That doesn’t mean the Big 10 and/or SEC can’t find a way to thread the needle and pull it off. I’m just saying it is a complex and delicate system and doing so will not be easy.
It strikes me as much more feasible to instead more slowly evolve the existing CFB model to give themselves decided advantages while plausibly maintaining the appearance that there is still in fact a single, ~131 team CFB division.
