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Posted (edited)

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/2022-season/
 
2022 ratings:

OU-OSU: 3.06 M

Texas-TCU: 5.03 M

Texas-OSU: 4.46 M

(you actually see decent numbers for non-Texas and non-OU games, as if there is a halo effect)

Ha-ha-ha-ha! Those idiots at ESPN and Fox thought the B12 schools were making part of the contribution to those numbers. Now, they know- when B12 schools play each other, get the streaming ready. 
 
The B12 needs to really enjoy its media contract through 2031; got a feeling there will be an adjustment later. 

Edited by statsman
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Posted
7 hours ago, Hayduke said:

Moving from eighth place in one top-level football conference to a lower level of competition the next year won't drop anyone's budget that dramatically. If your budget is only $70 million one year, you're not competing with the big boys very often anyway, but the fans (and TV) have brought you $70 million despite that. 

The top 20 NCAA programs in valuation all generated $151 million or more in revenue last year, and that low figure of $151 belonged to Oregon (valued at No. 17). 

Over time, that can certainly erode. But enough television money and attendance will remain at the "next 64" level (or whatever it is) to keep schools' budgets relatively stable from one year to the next. Easy enough to bake some revenue-sharing into the system, just like it's there now.

Most revenue goes to the  big two, of course, with the rest of the P5 getting the next level of money.

So the revenue inequalities likely won't change much just because of relegation.

And relegation might be "fantasy" for American football message boards, but it's absolute reality for the rest of "world football" and makes a whole lot more money that CFB does. The Premier League alone generates about twice the revenue of P5 football and the EFL adds more than another billion -- all in one little kingdom.

Works great for soccer because, despite the intellectual inferiority of the rest of the earth to America, they've figured out how to make gazillions at the top level. Yeah, it flows down less and less as it goes. It barely trickles to the virtually amateur Wrexhams of the world, who remain Wrexham only as long as some famous guys don't figure out how to help them compete.

Mississippi State is a SEC cellar dweller and great candidate to examine for relegation.  This article shows that MSUs FY2024 revenue was $127MM against expenses of $134MM (deficit due to a COVID loan repayment). Football created $43.7MM.  This number is ticket sales, sponsorships, concessions, etc.  The SEC TV deal sent MSU $52.5MM, a number expected to grow significantly in coming years.  

Currently MSU fields teams in Men's: Football, Basketball, Baseball, Golf, Tennis and Track and Field, plus Women's Basketball, Cross Country, Soccer, Softball, Tennis, Track and Field, and Volleyball. All sports other than football ran a deficit.  

Let's say MSU gets relegated to the Big12, or something like it.  Last year the Big 12 distributed $470MM to it's member schools.  They did an unequal split for the new members that will equalize in coming years but if you average it, that's $29.4MM per school - and that's before the SEC revenues really kick into high gear when they add another game or play-in tournament for the CFP.  That gap is not going to shrink.

If you take just the football TV revenue alone, MSU would lose $23MM/year.  The reality would be much worse than that, because a moribund MSU fan base is not showing up for a football team that just got relegated and is now hosting a home schedule of Baylor and West Virginia.  Their ticket revenues would crater as well, let's be generous as say that they only dip by 30%, which is half of the dip that Premier League teams take when relegated (even including parachute payments).  That's a loss of another ~$14.5MM.  The original AD budget of $127MM is now down to $89.5MM.  What gets cut? MSU is relatively poor, they don't have a Boone Pickens to make up the gap.  Student fees can only cover so much.  And don't forget Title IX, you can't just cut women's sports.  They'd scrap everything except football, baseball and (maybe) men's BB and the bare minimum women's sports they'd be required to keep. Even then, all those sports would take huge cuts.

Are these solvable problems?  Sure, and soccer shows the way: ADs could negotiate relegation clauses in contracts, the NCAA could figure out the player employment legal jumble and work with the players to create a CBA that would allow for buying/selling player contracts, that same currently non-existent player's union could work with the NCAA to create conditions for transfer so that a relegated team doesn't immediately lose all of its players to the portal, conferences could setup parachute payments, etc.  If there's a will there's a way.  The problem is there is no will.  Nobody is beating down Sankey's or any commissioner's door for relegation/promotion.  In fact, it would be actively opposed by any team in the SEC or B1G today for obvious reasons.

So yeah, relegation is a total and complete fantasy in college football.

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Posted
4 hours ago, statsman said:

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/2022-season/
 
2022 ratings:

OU-OSU: 3.06 M

Texas-TCU: 5.03 M

Texas-OSU: 4.46 M

(you actually see decent numbers for non-Texas and non-OU games, as if there is a halo effect)

Ha-ha-ha-ha! Those idiots at ESPN and Fox thought the B12 schools were making part of the contribution to those numbers. Now, they know- when B12 schools play each other, get the streaming ready. 
 
The B12 needs to really enjoy its media contract through 2031; got a feeling there will be an adjustment later. 

Hey they sold themselves to espn.  Pulled a fast one.  Unless espn has an out

Posted
7 hours ago, 'stache said:

Oh damn, a 3-6 team vs a 5-4 team late in the season got put in a shit network and drew shit ratings? No wai. Should probably just shut down the conference lol.

That’s 3-6 team vs 5-4 team in one of the power three conferences to you mister.  This ain’t some acc tilt

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Posted
5 hours ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Mississippi State is a SEC cellar dweller and great candidate to examine for relegation.  This article shows that MSUs FY2024 revenue was $127MM against expenses of $134MM (deficit due to a COVID loan repayment). Football created $43.7MM.  This number is ticket sales, sponsorships, concessions, etc.  The SEC TV deal sent MSU $52.5MM, a number expected to grow significantly in coming years.  

Currently MSU fields teams in Men's: Football, Basketball, Baseball, Golf, Tennis and Track and Field, plus Women's Basketball, Cross Country, Soccer, Softball, Tennis, Track and Field, and Volleyball. All sports other than football ran a deficit.  

Your post has a number of excellent points, especially your conclusion that there's no will to get things done. But the will -- or the outside pressure -- is coming, largely because we've got a couple of sizable, arguably monopolistic leagues that will need to keep expanding (and sharing) or face blowback.  They'll have to take over the role of the NCAA and spread the wealth better.

Otherwise, a healthy chunk of the country will ask why Mississippi State gets to keep feeding off of the SEC teat, and why a comparatively limited set of mostly public universities are part of a wealthy professional sports league. The public will question whether we produce too many Johntay Cooks but not enough athletes who finish degrees.

Relatively speaking, nobody talks about graduation rates any more. That won't last long. The Washington States and Kansas States don't like the new order. They'll organize. There will be lawsuits.

I haven't paid attention to how serious the effort has become in Georgia to exempt college athletes from income tax on their NIL earnings, but that's not going to sit well with a large part of the Georgia population. That's partly because there's a shiny-new-toy aspect to certain parts of college sports, especially for fans of teams like Texas and the other clear winners of the Big/SEC expansion sweepstakes. It won't last.

Meanwhile, a lot more teams have been left out, and every state is going to start dealing in the next couple of years with the fallout of changing demographics and the enrollment cliff. Schools are going to close and most will shrink to substantial degrees. Publicly funded support for college sports is going to be scrutinized more. People will realize how much of a complicated mess has been made of what we once thought of as amateur, ancillary sports activity for students.

And, as you've pointed out, Title IX and the money-losing nature of the vast majority of college sports, especially at the bloated upper level, are another can of worms altogether. The larger political environment and the earthquakes starting to rumble in D.C. will also be part of this.

Personally, I like the old Big XII, but I might like the old SWC even better if there was a larger playoff system. I hate the loss of regionality. The new SEC/BIG and the NIL era, despite their obvious benefits for the program I love most, has killed much of what I thought would be the appeal of the just-expanded playoff. Feels like a cheat code for Texas.

Relegation is already happening, but it's not organized and not equitable. It may need to be to help college sports keep thriving.

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Posted (edited)
17 hours ago, Hayduke said:

Your post has a number of excellent points, especially your conclusion that there's no will to get things done. But the will -- or the outside pressure -- is coming, largely because we've got a couple of sizable, arguably monopolistic leagues that will need to keep expanding (and sharing) or face blowback.  They'll have to take over the role of the NCAA and spread the wealth better.

Otherwise, a healthy chunk of the country will ask why Mississippi State gets to keep feeding off of the SEC teat, and why a comparatively limited set of mostly public universities are part of a wealthy professional sports league. The public will question whether we produce too many Johntay Cooks but not enough athletes who finish degrees.

Relatively speaking, nobody talks about graduation rates any more. That won't last long. The Washington States and Kansas States don't like the new order. They'll organize. There will be lawsuits.

I haven't paid attention to how serious the effort has become in Georgia to exempt college athletes from income tax on their NIL earnings, but that's not going to sit well with a large part of the Georgia population. That's partly because there's a shiny-new-toy aspect to certain parts of college sports, especially for fans of teams like Texas and the other clear winners of the Big/SEC expansion sweepstakes. It won't last.

Meanwhile, a lot more teams have been left out, and every state is going to start dealing in the next couple of years with the fallout of changing demographics and the enrollment cliff. Schools are going to close and most will shrink to substantial degrees. Publicly funded support for college sports is going to be scrutinized more. People will realize how much of a complicated mess has been made of what we once thought of as amateur, ancillary sports activity for students.

And, as you've pointed out, Title IX and the money-losing nature of the vast majority of college sports, especially at the bloated upper level, are another can of worms altogether. The larger political environment and the earthquakes starting to rumble in D.C. will also be part of this.

Personally, I like the old Big XII, but I might like the old SWC even better if there was a larger playoff system. I hate the loss of regionality. The new SEC/BIG and the NIL era, despite their obvious benefits for the program I love most, has killed much of what I thought would be the appeal of the just-expanded playoff. Feels like a cheat code for Texas.

Relegation is already happening, but it's not organized and not equitable. It may need to be to help college sports keep thriving.

There is a ton to talk about in here and I agree with some of it, but disagree with the conclusion.

On the point about the anti-trust nature of the Power 2, and the feelings of exclusion that the KState's of the world have, you're right.  But KState was never going to win a national title under any permutation of the playoff, and I'm certain that the SEC and B1G have a legion of lawyers specifically designing the changes to the CFP to preserve just enough access to everyone else to either keep them out of court or swing a decision in their favor.  The facts are that the Power 2 now cover the vast majority (like around 70%) of the brands and eyeballs that care about college football.  There won't be enough momentum from the Washington State's of the world to change the system.

Regarding graduation rate, not enough people care about it to matter anymore.  And it will matter even less when the facade of the "student-athlete" is finally dropped.  I think most Americans are pretty honest about college football being a semi-pro sport at this point: star players making millions, etc.  The world where they were paid in a great college education with room and board is a fading memory.  I'm not sure what you mean by "publicly funded support for college sports," do you mean schools other than Texas using student fees and the academic side sending money to the athletics side?  Because Texas' AD is totally self-funding and actually sends money to academics.

The Georgia NIL thing is a political loser for anyone other than hard-core Georgia fans.  If I were a non-Georgia fan in that state I'd be pissed: if they get an exception, why not me?  Seems like the kind of thing that drives people to vote a politician out, but we'll see...

A lot of people miss the regional nature of college football.  I think this venerating the past without seeing its flaws.  Yes it was nice to have a conference that was largely in the state of Texas in the SWC.  The old Big 12 also had a few bright points at its moment in history.  But they also had rampant cheating, Texas and OU carrying the water, and conference mates who detested the rich big boy coming to town and would jihad Texas.  And it gave us home schedules of TTech, Baylor, Oklahoma St., Rice, etc.  Today we lost the regionality but regained 2 important rivalries, entered a conference where every other game is a marquee brand and it shows up in our schedule, plus we get a ton more money for our effort and are part of one of the only 2 relevant conferences now.  I'll take that tradeoff.

On being in the SEC and NIL being a cheat code for Texas - BRING IT ON.  In my lifetime we've had one generational player who drug his coach to the title.  We've watched Bama, Georgia and others pay under-the-table blatantly for decades and Texas was "too good" for that.  Rather than a cheat code, look at it as finally, FINALLY a level playing field where an aligned death star in Texas is fully armed and operational.  I hope this era never ends and it takes the NCAA and congress a few decades to get their shit together.  The current time is awesome for Texas.

Edited by Horn of Gabriel
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Posted
17 hours ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

... But KState was never going to win a national title under any permutation of the playoff, and I'm certain that the SEC and B1G have a legion of lawyers specifically designing the changes to the CFP to preserve just enough access to everyone else to either keep them out of court or swing a decision in their favor.  The facts are that the Power 2 now cover the vast majority (like around 70%) of the brands and eyeballs that care about college football.  There won't be enough momentum from the Washington State's of the world to change the system ...

 

... FINALLY a level playing field where an aligned death star in Texas is fully armed and operational.  I hope this era never ends and it takes the NCAA and congress a few decades to get their shit together.  The current time is awesome for Texas.

Again, good points. But K-State found ways to be a national powerhouse under Snyder (and the influence of Jon Wefald as president was a major part). Mississippi State could also find the will to be that competitive again. Tough over the long term for lesser programs to do that consistently, but magical runs where underdogs break the dominance of the bluebloods happen.

Bottom dwellers in a 64-team super league will still draw fans (maybe more) if there's still something to play for in relegation.

Some of my most entertaining and satisfying sports moments in recent years involve Mainz (emotional ties for me) scratching out ways to stay in the Bundesliga. About once every 8-10 years they compete for the Champions League, but generally, their efforts to stay out of the relegation zone are enough to interest me when Bayern München only allows someone else to be champ about once every five years.

Creative planning can make relegation drama work and smart revenue sharing keeps the entire sport healthier. Boiling it down to two big conferences with unsatisfying conference titles (at least this year) and half the country left out is less interesting. ACC and Big 12 teams are too huge a part of football to be cast aside.

Definitely an awesome time for Texas, and I do love it.  But sports are better when it's not the same four or six teams and regional rivalries abound. SEC dominance (illegitimate in my book, too) was boring. 

We haven't been back long enough for it to get old, but I can see looking back in 10 years and wishing we'd had someone besides OSU, Michigan, Florida, Georgia and Notre Dame as our Final Four opponents. Wouldn't be surprised to see us play in five or six title games but have only five different opponents in our last 10 or 12 semifinal and final games.

Things are good, but they could be even better.

 

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Posted
3 hours ago, Hayduke said:

Again, good points. But K-State found ways to be a national powerhouse under Snyder (and the influence of Jon Wefald as president was a major part). Mississippi State could also find the will to be that competitive again. Tough over the long term for lesser programs to do that consistently, but magical runs where underdogs break the dominance of the bluebloods happen.

Bottom dwellers in a 64-team super league will still draw fans (maybe more) if there's still something to play for in relegation.

Some of my most entertaining and satisfying sports moments in recent years involve Mainz (emotional ties for me) scratching out ways to stay in the Bundesliga. About once every 8-10 years they compete for the Champions League, but generally, their efforts to stay out of the relegation zone are enough to interest me when Bayern München only allows someone else to be champ about once every five years.

Creative planning can make relegation drama work and smart revenue sharing keeps the entire sport healthier. Boiling it down to two big conferences with unsatisfying conference titles (at least this year) and half the country left out is less interesting. ACC and Big 12 teams are too huge a part of football to be cast aside.

Definitely an awesome time for Texas, and I do love it.  But sports are better when it's not the same four or six teams and regional rivalries abound. SEC dominance (illegitimate in my book, too) was boring. 

We haven't been back long enough for it to get old, but I can see looking back in 10 years and wishing we'd had someone besides OSU, Michigan, Florida, Georgia and Notre Dame as our Final Four opponents. Wouldn't be surprised to see us play in five or six title games but have only five different opponents in our last 10 or 12 semifinal and final games.

Things are good, but they could be even better.

 

I don't doubt that relegation and promotion would be super cool in college football or that it would drive interest across all levels.  I agree that it would. I just can't get over the suspension of disbelief it takes to create a world that would allow it to exist.  A short list, probably incomplete of changes to the current status quo to create promotion/relegation:

  • An actual unified governance structure for the different leagues participating in the pro/rel process. Like the NCAA but with actual centralized power to set rules and teeth to enforce them.  Won't happen because: the member institutions of the NCAA don't actually want enforceable rules on themselves, they want the facade of rules and a bad guy they can turn their fans against whenever they don't want to do something ("we'd do it but the NCAA will say...")
  • A structure with clear leagues at the top, middle, and bottom.  Won't happen because: the B1G and SEC would both want to be that league at the top and neither will go away willingly.  In a merger only one set of leaders will get retained so it's in both their interests to keep things status quo.  Same with Big12/ACC.  Same with AAC, Sunbelt, WAC, etc.
  • A CBA a player's union that sets out enforceable rules for contracts and transfers.  Won't happen because: neither the players or the schools want a union or CBA right now.  The schools don't want to admit they are employees, the players like having free agency twice per year and unlimited contracts with no salary cap.
  • An anti-trust exemption from Congress.  If there is a pro/rel structure governed by a NCAA-like organization, and it covers the majority of CFB teams, they will create a monopoly on the sale of their TV rights and get sued  like the NFL did until they got their antitrust exemption from Congress in 1961.  Why it won't happen: Congress's inability to agree on anything at all, let alone pass it.
  • Buy-in from the current B1G and SEC universities.  Won't happen because: they're in the catbird seat right now. What's their incentive to change?
  • Major changes to existing contracts. Coaches, and soon players would need relegation clauses added to their contracts that reduces their comp if relegated. Won't happen because: Jimmy Sexton ain't signing off on that.

I'm sure there are many others.  As cool as pro/rel would be, I just can't see going from where we are to that, at least not in my lifetime (I'm in my 40's).

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Posted
On 2/19/2025 at 4:29 PM, The Dog said:

Inevitable, and it will expand again. Lots of money being left on the table by not expanding. 

And please have all first round games on campus. That was amazing.

FCS playoffs has 24. Gimme more football.

The insatiable demand for "more football" is why I think CFB is going to become a spring sport as well as a fall sport.  It already kind of is, with the last two rounds of the playoffs crossing into the spring semester.  And it's not like we don't already have other sports that cross from the fall semester into the spring (e.g., basketball).

Have the regular season go 12 games.  Great.  But build in two bye weeks.  That still puts championship weekend around the second weekend in December.  Bowl games for the teams that didn't make an expanded playoffs.

And then a four-round playoff starting January 1.  A bye week between each round.  And during those bye weeks, have a series of inter-conference "challenges" for teams that aren't in the playoffs.  That takes you all the way to the beginning of March Madness.

There's just too much money involved and too much demand for spring football for someone not to provide the supply.  College football would be stupid not to do it.  And I don't believe for a minute that the likes of Greg Sankey are stupid.

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Posted

Stewart Mandel: The SEC and Big Ten want to saturate the Playoff. But history suggests it won’t really help them

Quote

As you have read, the Big Ten and SEC are plotting to transform the College Football Playoff into the Tony Petitti/Greg Sankey Invitational. They want their conferences to be guaranteed four automatic berths each in an expanded 14-team field, versus two for the peons in the ACC and Big 12. Currently, in the 12-team CFP, only the champions of those conferences qualify for an automatic berth, leaving seven at-large spots. 

In the proposed Petitti/Sankey Invitational, the first- through fourth-place teams in their conferences are automatically in, regardless of where they’re ranked by the committee. I went back and looked at the final College Football Playoff rankings from 2014-24 to see just how dramatically this brilliant plan would have benefitted them had it been in place all along. The answer is: Not at all.

Their total number of berths over that period would be barely different. And in some cases, it would have backfired. Like in 2019, when, under the current rules, the SEC would have qualified five teams and the ACC just one. But under the SEC’s own proposal, No. 24 Virginia (9-4), the ACC’s second-place team, would be in, while No. 13 Alabama (10-2), which would have earned the last at-large berth, would be out.

Had there been a 14-team Playoff all along, but with only the five highest-ranked conference champions getting auto-berths, the yearly averages largely mirror what’s being proposed (using current conference membership). The Big Ten and SEC each averaged 4.2 entrants per season and the ACC and Big 12 averaged 2.1. The Group of 5 (1.0) and Notre Dame (0.4) accounted for the rest.

But no one is going to be tracking 11-year averages on selection Sunday. All that matters is who should or should not have gotten in that particular season. And not once over those 11 seasons did the split among the Power 4 naturally land on 4-4-2-2. Some years, the ACC or Big 12 would have earned more than two bids, some years fewer. The Big 12 had as many as five in 2021, two more than either the Big Ten or SEC that season.

Some years the Big Ten or SEC earned more than four bids, like in 2023, when the SEC would have had six and the Big Ten five. But some years — brace yourself — they would have had fewer than four teams. It happened to the Big Ten three times, and four for the SEC. This occurred most recently in 2022 when the SEC’s fourth-highest team was No. 17 LSU (9-4). Under the Power 2’s plan, the Tigers would have made the 14-team field automatically, at the expense of No. 12 Washington (10-2).

That’s hardly the most extreme case of bracket manipulation working in the SEC’s favor. In 2015, No. 19 Florida would have been in as the SEC’s fourth team, along with No. 16 Oklahoma State, the Big 12’s second team. Together they would have bumped not one but two top-10 ACC teams, No. 9 Florida State and No. 10 North Carolina.

In other seasons, however, the SEC would have found itself on the wrong end of someone else’s automatic berth. Like the aforementioned 2019 Virginia example. Or the year before that, when No. 20 Syracuse (9-3) would have displaced No. 14 Kentucky (9-3). In 2023 neither the ACC nor Big 12 had a second team, in which case No. 15 Louisville (10-3) and No. 20 Oklahoma State (9-4) would have bounced No. 11 Ole Miss (10-2) and No. 12 Oklahoma (10-2).

In 2020, in a Big Ten-on-SEC crime, No. 15 Iowa (6-2) would have replaced No. 9 Georgia (7-2). Call it revenge for 2016, when the SEC would have had just two teams qualify under the current parameters. Instead, No. 14 Auburn (8-4) and No. 17 Florida (8-4) would have replaced No. 9 USC (9-3) and No. 13 Louisville (9-3). Are you noticing a recurring theme yet? This. Is. Dumb! 

This clearly well-thought-out Petitti/Sankey Invitational must have some sort of long-term payoff for the Big Ten and SEC, right? Surely if they’re going to strong-arm eight other conferences, it must mean they’re pocketing a whole bunch of extra berths. Nope. Applying their model to the past 11 seasons, the Big Ten goes from 46 CFP teams to 47, while the SEC drops from 46 to 45. The biggest winner is actually the Big 12, which picked up two berths to go from 23 to 25. (The poor ACC fell from 23 to 21.)

There would be next to no long-term benefit to those leagues by manipulating the Playoff field. But it would have at least one long-term consequence: Destroying the credibility of the entire event. Here’s a better plan: Hold a Playoff consisting solely of the best teams in the country that season.

(Ralph D. Russo) The Big Ten and SEC’s CFP bargain: Would more auto-bids mean less selection committee?

Quote

NEW ORLEANS — The College Football Playoff debuted in 2014 with ESPN asking a simple question: Who’s in? Since then, there have been countless hours spent and words spilt pondering the possibilities before, during and even after the season. Speculating about which teams will make the Playoff can be a bit much in mid-September, but those debates have become an integral part of college football. 

The subjectivity baked into the process of determining a national champion, a longstanding tradition in the sport, is both maddening and alluring. There is a reason why the CFP selection committee releases a month’s worth of essentially meaningless Top 25s before selection Sunday. Fans love to complain about the rankings and the committee, but as long as they’re talking about college football, that’s generally viewed as a good thing.

The Big Ten and SEC appear intent on putting an end to all that, and turning the selection committee into, basically, a seeding committee, with almost all of the Playoff participants determined by a combination of conference standings and play-in games. Commissioners Greg Sankey (SEC) and Tony Petitti (Big Ten) mostly deflected questions about potentially overhauling the CFP, starting in 2026, after the latest summit of their two conferences’ leaders in New Orleans this week but gave a few hints about where their collective heads are at.

“We also have an interest, and I said this in December, in understanding selection committee decisions in the last few years,” Sankey said. “We have different views. We entrust them with that work, but there are domino effects from those selection decisions. Again, I’m not forming the agenda, but I’m identifying things that are regularly a part of our conversation with lots to understand.”

Asked if redefining the role of the selection committee would improve the Playoff, Sankey decided it was a leading question. “That’s a tricky way to get me to commit to something that might be said in a meeting or not. So I appreciate the effort,” Sankey said. Petitti and Sankey have been careful not to criticize the committee after the first season of the 12-team Playoff. 

Plenty in SEC country took care of that for them after the conference that has dominated college football for much of the past two decades had only three teams make the first expanded field. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel began serving on the committee in 2022, when it was a four-team Playoff, and served as chairman and face of the 13-member panel last year, the first season with a 12-team field. He said expansion changed the committee’s task but not the scrutiny it faced.

“And so whatever pressure is there, pressure is there,” Manuel said. “But the people around the room have the best interest of the game of football in mind, the front of mind. And so structure doesn’t matter. In other words, it’s going to be pressurized anyway, just because of the concept of picking teams and ranking teams. So it’s all good. Y’all feel it, too. Y’all run y’all weekly ‘who should be where’ and then people yell at y’all, too. It’s no different than the committee.”

Sankey said selection committee decisions trickle down into everything from the SEC’s four-year-long debate about whether to go from eight to nine conference games to nonconference scheduling (SEC-Big Ten challenge, anyone?) and ultimately just how rigorous their schedules should be.

“How do we understand the function of the selection committee?” Sankey said. “Is it meeting the objectives established? How are the criteria used? You know, my members want to understand, how is strength of schedule fully evaluated in the selection room?” “From my perspective, how you qualify for the postseason impacts the regular season,” Petitti said. “Or how you perceive you qualify for the postseason. What factors you think are important … I think that informs the way you think about the regular season. They’re all tied together.”

To that end, the Big Ten and SEC believe creating clearly defined paths to the Playoff will improve everything about college football. An idea floated last year to give conferences multiple automatic bids to an expanded — again — CFP has not gone away, despite the fact that it is difficult to find anyone outside the Big Ten and SEC who likes it.

The model that seems to have traction includes 14 teams, with four spots each going to the SEC and Big Ten, two each to the ACC and Big 12, one set aside for the best of the six other Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and one at-large spot that provides an access point for Notre Dame but could conceivably go to the highest ranked team that hasn’t already played its way in.

The conferences would determine the means by which their teams get those bids. There would be no comparing resumes. No more eye test. No more debating whether a spot should go to the most deserving team or the team that would be favored in a hypothetical matchup. In reality, there will be no need for a committee to meet as frequently as it does in the current system, though ESPN might like to continue the midweek content and still run a weekly rankings release throughout November.

There is some upside to taking the subjectivity out of the CFP process. Despite the beliefs of some conspiracy theorists, the committee does a hard job in good faith. There will always be complaints about who’s in and who’s out. But allowing the whining of Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin and other SEC propagandists about the performances of teams like SMU and Indiana to hijack the conversation during the opening rounds of the Playoff this past season was not great for college football.

Creating well-defined postseason qualifications makes sense, because that’s how sports generally works. Win something, get something. The current selection criteria and guidance given to the committee is intentionally broad and vague. To sum it up: Pick the best teams. The committee could be given a more focused set of criteria and maybe even some metrics to direct their decisions, the way it’s done in other college sports such as basketball. 

But the small-sample-size nature of football makes what works in other sports less effective. Having good teams play more games against good teams and “settling it on the field” is, ostensibly, not a bad idea. Predetermining the quality of the teams by conference is a bad idea, if for no other reason than it marginalizes dozens of schools with substantial and passionate fan bases.

But the Big Ten and the SEC see opportunities to create still more revenue for themselves with more marquee early-season nonconference matchups and high-stakes late-season intraconference games. And since they don’t trust the selection committee process to properly reward them in the end, they’ve come up with a way to eliminate that part of the CFP altogether.

 

Posted

I'm starting to think the auto bids is less about guaranteeing their spot in the playoffs, and more about generating the new revenue stream of play-in games on what used to be CCG weekend.

Posted (edited)
On 2/24/2025 at 12:30 AM, Horn of Gabriel said:

 I just can't get over the suspension of disbelief it takes to create a world that would allow it to exist.  A short list, probably incomplete of changes to the current status quo to create promotion/relegation:

Hard to argue with your reasoning. But ya never know; sometimes folks come up with interesting new approaches to harness people's greed, self-interest and even intertia in surprising ways. In the meantime, I'll just keep enjoying the place we're in now.

Edited by Hayduke
  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

The way you'd get relegation/promotion to be embraced by enough schools is to give the blue bloods more money than they're getting now.

If Texas and Mississippi State were being paid on the basis of the value they bring to the SEC contract, as opposed to being paid the equally, Texas would be making a shit load more money.  

So what you end up with is the death of conferences as separate bargaining entities, and schools pay outs are based on their ratings.  The blue bloods in the SEC and Big 10 would have something to gain in terms of more money, the Big 12 and ACC shools would no longer be at a disadvantage to the SEC/Big 10 freeloaders/grandfathered in class, and those schools are the only ones who would oppose it.  And I don't think there would be enough of them to overcome the combined energy of the blue bloods and the Big 12/ACC schools, as well as those G5 schools that have a realistic chance at playing their way in.

The only ones who stand to lose anything in this scenario are the ones being most unjustly enriched by the current situation, and I don't think there are enough of those schools to stop it if push came to shove.

Posted

Ralph D. Russo: Can anyone stop the Big Ten-SEC CFP power grab? Don’t count out courts, politicians or ESPN

Quote

The Big Ten and SEC’s forced transformation of the College Football Playoff into an invitational is not inevitable. For more than a year, before the first 12-team CFP even took place, college leaders have been focused on 2026, when the next CFP contract begins, the Big Ten and SEC gain more control and changes ranging from bracket expansion to additional automatic qualifiers (AQs) could come into play. The Big Ten first floated a radical format change a year ago, but public comments on such a dramatic overhaul remain scarce. That’s no accident.

An expansion of the postseason to include automatic bids weighted in favor of the Big Ten and SEC could draw legal and political scrutiny — to go along with already mounting public backlash — if the two wealthiest conferences try to force through a new format without any support from other leagues. “It’s wrong and it’s pre-rigged,” said one of the more than a half dozen administrators from the other eight FBS conferences to speak to The Athletic about the AQ push by the Big Ten and SEC. “It flies in the face of earning your way into a championship field.”

This past season was the first with a Playoff field triple the size of the original, expanded from four to 12 teams with reserved spots for the five highest-ranked conference champions plus seven at-large bids. No conference receives preferential treatment, and everyone outside the Big Ten and SEC would like to keep it that way.

CFP leaders met last week in Dallas and left without making any decisions on changes for the upcoming season or future ones, though some did acknowledge a discussion of further expansion to 14 or 16 teams. It’s still possible tweaks to how the field is seeded and first-round byes awarded will be approved in time for 2025. The commissioners of the Big Ten and SEC voiced support for that after a summit of leaders from those leagues in New Orleans last month.

The rest of the CFP management committee, which is made up of the 10 Football Bowl Subdivision conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director, still needs convincing. Unanimous approval is needed to make a change for the coming season. The committee discussed whether a financial package could be agreed upon that would make the changes to seeding and byes more acceptable for those outside the Big Ten and SEC, according to people involved in the conversations. ACC, Big 12 and Group of 5 commissioners didn’t rule it out. They’ve asked the CFP for some models and information before another meeting next month.

A more divisive debate on 2026 didn’t reach last week’s meeting, but the latest reports about the potential power play by the SEC and Big Ten first floated last spring have their CFP partners already gearing up for a fight behind the scenes.

The Big Ten and SEC would like the next iteration of the CFP, starting in 2026, to replace selection committee subjectivity with a setup in which each power conference receives multiple automatic qualifiers. In a so-called 4-4-2-2-1-1 format, the SEC and Big Ten would get four spots each (determined by conference standings or league play-in games); the Big 12 and ACC would get two each. One spot would be reserved for the top non-power conference team, and the final spot would be accessible through the committee’s final rankings, giving independent Notre Dame a path to the Playoff, perhaps an automatic bid should the Irish finish above a certain ranking threshold.

“It’s ridiculous,” said an official from a school in one of the other power conferences. But can mere opposition keep it from happening? The new agreement among the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame, signed last year, removed the need for unanimity within the group to make changes to the format and replaced it with parameters giving the Big Ten and SEC more power. Exactly how much power is not fully known.

The weight of each league’s vote under the new agreement is not clear yet and may not be fully finalized. Terms of the memorandum of understanding signed by the conferences last year have not been made public. Several people familiar with the deal have confirmed to The Athletic that language in the agreement calls for “meaningful consultation” with, and “input” from, the entire group. “How can it be considered ‘meaningful consultation’ if they go with a format (that) eight of 10 conferences are against?” asked another power conference athletic director.

There is a case to be made that coming off a season in which the Big 12 put only its champion in the CFP and the ACC was a game-winning, 56-yard field goal by Clemson away from also being a one-bid league, those conferences might be better off in the long run agreeing to a format that ensures two bids per season from 2026 to 2031.

As The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel noted recently, history suggests the Big Ten and SEC don’t need AQs to dominate the Playoff selections. But they do need them to create some new late-season TV inventory in the form of additional championship weekend CFP play-in games, which many administrators believe is the real impetus for the proposed change.

The problem for the ACC and Big 12 — aside from the fact they might not be able to create the same type of additional revenue-generating inventory from play-in games — is the potential perception hit that comes with formalizing their second-class status among the Power 4. How damaging can that be? Think back to the four-team CFP. All involved agreed the most severe of unexpected consequences was the brand damage done to conferences that struggled to qualify for the Playoff. 

No power conference appeared in the CFP less often over the first 10 years than the Pac-12, and now it is no longer a power conference after 10 members bolted for other leagues. If the Big Ten and SEC do attempt to push through an imbalanced, AQ-heavy CFP model, sources outside the Power 2 point to several possible obstacles the leagues could face beyond just the objections of their colleagues.

Threat of legal action

It’s hard to gauge how much appetite there would be within the group to start filing lawsuits against each other, but several athletic directors said they hoped their conference leadership was already talking to legal counsel. Of course, who’s to say the lawsuits need to be filed by conferences or schools? In the past 18 months, state attorneys general have shown a willingness to step in and protect their schools in cases where NCAA rules seemed to pose a threat to the hometown team.

West Virginia’s AG filed a lawsuit that essentially eliminated any transfer restrictions when a Mountaineers basketball player was not granted eligibility, and Tennessee’s AG responded with a lawsuit when the NCAA began scrutinizing the collective that was providing name, image and likeness deals to Volunteers athletes and recruits.

There are no SEC or Big Ten schools in West Virginia. Or North Carolina, Arizona, Kansas, Utah, etc. Whether any legal challenge to the CFP agreement between the conferences would ultimately be successful is almost inconsequential. The simple filing of a lawsuit in a receptive home court could be enough to bog down the process and create CFP stagnation and uncertainty.

Political pressure

The college football postseason has attracted the ire of politicians in the past. In 1997, leaders of the Bowl Alliance (a multi-conference precursor to the Bowl Championship Series) were called to Washington, D.C., for a Senate hearing after No. 5 BYU was kept out of the Fiesta Bowl because the WAC was not part of the Bowl Alliance. In the early 2000s, Tulane president Scott Cowen led a coalition of schools that challenged the BCS’ exclusivity on the grounds that it was anticompetitive. In 2009, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch asked the Justice Department to investigate the BCS when undefeated Utah missed out on the national championship between one-loss teams Florida and Oklahoma.

When the architects of the new 12-team format — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey among them — mapped out Playoff expansion, they did so with that history in mind. Former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, also part of that CFP subcommittee, frequently referenced antitrust concerns. “These guys don’t want to get dragged up to Capitol Hill,” another administrator from outside the P4 said.

Nor is it a good time for college sports leaders to risk alienating federal lawmakers. Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti have been among the many who have been lobbying legislators in Washington for a bill that will allow the NCAA and conferences to effectively regulate college sports, overriding myriad state laws and providing some antitrust protections.

With Republicans now in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, the chances of getting that help have increased. The future of the CFP format has yet to become a federal issue, but so far the multiple-AQ idea does not appear to be a winning platform with fans (and constituents) — even those within Big Ten and SEC country.

ESPN

The network owns the media rights to the CFP through 2031. Generally, ESPN’s influence over the Playoff is overstated by conspiracy theorists, but the network is paying $7.8 billion to the CFP, and you’d better believe the opinions of its executives matter. The contract that runs from 2026-31 also does not require ESPN to pay more if the field expands to 14 teams, people briefed on the situation told The Athletic last year. It’s less clear that would remain the case if the field expanded to 16.

ESPN will be the exclusive home of the ACC through 2036, after recently picking up an option on that deal. The network also shares the rights to the Big 12 with Fox through 2030-31. Why would it want those conferences marginalized any more than they already have been by a CFP format stacked against them? Or encourage a CFP format that undercuts the event’s credibility with fans? Play-in tournaments that create more game inventory could also decrease the value of the regular season and be sold to non-ESPN broadcasters.

Working against the best interest of college football

The comments section and social media might not be the most scientifically sound gauge of public opinion, but it’s been hard to find many fans cheering for an SEC/Big Ten takeover. “I understand the seeding issue, but I believe they are completely wrong about guaranteeing bids,” ESPN (and SEC Network) personality Paul Finebaum said last week on ESPN’s Get Up morning show. “Doing our show yesterday, even SEC fans are calling in saying they don’t like it. There’s something inherently wrong about stacking the deck before the season.”

The 33 football schools in the Big 12 and ACC have large, passionate fan bases and proud histories, even if their brand values fall short of Big Ten and SEC superpowers. If they view the CFP as an invitational intent on squeezing out their teams, why watch?

It may simply be too hard to make a case that a format that formalizes the Big Ten and SEC being twice as good as the Big 12 and ACC is good for the long-term health of college football. Conference commissioners report to their schools, and what’s best for their constituents is always top of mind. But as some commissioners have said during the past four years of CFP expansion drama, they have to think bigger than that.

“You come in here with both of those things in your mind, and I think that’s your responsibility as a guardian of the game,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said Tuesday. “For all of us, there’s been somebody before us and there’ll be somebody after us, and so whatever you do, you have to pay attention to both, and you have to serve your constituents. But you can’t be completely oblivious and not mindful about what’s good for college football, what’s good for the fans, and what are you hearing from them?”

 

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