Another Op-Ed on How It’ll all Settle Out

[Washington Waddler]

     There’s a lot of interesting opinions stacking up out there in media-land concerning the eventual effect the move towards two super conferences will have on college football. 

 

     Here’s an excerpt from one by a columnist at the Peninsula Daily News on the north olympic peninsula. Believe him to be partial to the Cougs.

 

     “The realignment will work . . . at first. The millions will be made for the networks and the lucky 32 or 48 or 64 programs included, but the shine will come off those nonsensical match-ups pretty fast, and the sport will be gutted of what makes it special and weird and different from the boring, corporate NFL: genuine regional rivalries and the passion of attending or holding a lifelong allegiance to a particular program.”

 

 

 

     

[Duck 1972]

Hopefully someone or somehow this can be stopped. Doesn't the US government control the airways and therefore the networks.

 

The destruction of CFB will be a national tragedy. Isn't this breaking the monopolization or anti trust laws. All the state's will be affected.

 

Then there's Title 9. Women's college sports will be obliterated except for the lucky few. And all the other non revenue sports. 

 

There's still time. We have 2 years before the gutting starts. We don't need CFB to become the Pros. We already have the NFL. Isn't it in their best interest for this super conference BS to not happen?

[idontrollonshobbas]

Title IX would be the best hope for a federal intervention.  But it likely wouldn't avoid this reality.  Since the revenue pie is growing and not shrinking, for the big schools, the Feds would see that as a reason to keep those revenues chained to Title IX for the purposes of supporting non-revenue sports.

 

The schools left out of the super-conferences would then likely seek some Title IX relief in recognition of shrinking revenues.

[Tandaian]

If "college" football breaks away from the NCAA, it would nearly kill all college sports.  Most college athletic departments operate at a loss, remove the program that pays for 90%(?) of all other sports and very few universities will have those sports.  We already saw with COVID many universities try and cut sports. 

 

If football is no longer part of the NCAA, it would seem Title 9 wouldn't apply.  However, states still do partially fund universities, so that is a big stick states could use to keep football part of the NCAA.

[CalBear95]

On 7/7/2022 at 10:14 AM, Tandaian said:

If "college" football breaks away from the NCAA, it would nearly kill all college sports.  Most college athletic departments operate at a loss, remove the program that pays for 90%(?) of all other sports and very few universities will have those sports.  We already saw with COVID many universities try and cut sports. 

 

If football is no longer part of the NCAA, it would seem Title 9 wouldn't apply.  However, states still do partially fund universities, so that is a big stick states could use to keep football part of the NCAA.

At some some point the insanity has to end for non-football at least.  The geographic logistics are - and I think I can say this without violating the rules of OBD - utterly stupid.

 

It makes zero sense for water polo teams on the west coast to travel to the Midwest for regular season games.  Same for lacrosse going the other direction.  Track and field in any direction.  
 

It’s like they are doing this backwards.  Hoarding monopoly rights on as broad a national footprint as possible and hand waving at the logistics

 

If football truly is 85% of the media value why not just pool those rights across the country?  And the value of that number has to go up as leagues trim the fat off the lower value brands in the sport.  
 

For these so called media visionaries, I just don’t understand why the B1G and SEC merge, take the PAC brands they want and use the combined media leverage to force  ESPN to release the ACC brands the newly merged leagues want.  
 

Instead we are ending up with this kloogy Frankenstein of a model which seems to be a way station to an inevitable NFL model for the top CFB brands w/r/t media rights.

[2002duck]

On 7/7/2022 at 8:18 AM, Washington Waddler said:

what makes it special and weird and different from the boring, corporate NFL

I love it when writers or critics roll their eyes and deride the most popular sporting league in the United States. I mostly root for the University of Oregon because I attended school there. And though I moved to Eugene near campus in high school (and enrolled at UO while still being in high school), I assign less allegiance to my home city's school than detractors of professional leagues seem to be beholden to. My allegiance is more tied to the actual spirit of studying in the same halls as my peers. I just like sports, and I like sports a lot. And as much as I like the college game for its tradition and good-natured regional rivalries, I don't think hating on the NFL for it's perceived lack of closeness is the greatest take to parrot.