CFB “Super League” Heck NO!

For me, it is quickly becoming dead. So yes, coffin with nails.

 

I read somewhere the SEC and Big10 are pushing for guaranteed four teams each in the playoffs taking up 8 spots.

 

You sure? Didn’t the power brokers of the SEC and B1G meet to discuss this specific idea? We all know where it’s going. The major programs don’t want to share football revenue with the small programs. The other sports will still play under their conference affiliations.

This is happening whether we like it or not. I’m seeing college football following a path where teams will be owned (sponsored) like the major professional sports.

 

Given the idea that college football as we all remember it will never come back, I'd love to see something that incorporates a promotion and relegation model. Cap it at 64 and let teams lose their spot if they can't/won't compete. I realize this would put UF at risk, but it would also force the administration to poop or get off the pot.

 

Agreed and Non Profit Educational institutions have no business running a professional sports league...just license the names and trademarks (just be sure that license is only good if they play a minimum of 6 games annually in Alachua county) and lease stadium and be done with it.

 

It will go on without you. You’ll be nailing an empty coffin shut.

 

IMO only if they can maintain the linkage to colleges. If it is lucrative enough you know the greedy bastids running our educational institutions will want to keep as much pie as possible. If they lose the linkage it will wither and die pretty quickly since no one really watches minor league sports.

 

Becoming?

 

I've said this a million times. The comp is European Soccer. Sorry, but it just is. It's the most comparable system out there, yet even it has some rules. Also, to give the big schools some slack on this, it's probably not so much greed as need. This new sport - whether you call it college football or not - is going to be very expensive. So, honestly, a Super League makes sense. This is why all the big clubs in Europe tried to do a SL (but it was killed by fans) and will no doubt try again.

 

P.S. I'd personally love to be in that second tier. I have no interest seeing UF become a football team with loose affiliation to a university.

 

It's just changing. I think the old fan goes away, along with the concept of booster funding. With the playoffs - and inevitable expansion of the playoffs - it will be funded primarily by TV money and casual fans. . . . You know, like a proper pro league. You'll still have some jock sniffers willing to give money, but the days of a completely booster-funded program are over IMO. Boomers are dying off and none of the subsequent generations have the money or wherewithal to fully fund a program.

 

I am halfway checked out now.
It used to be that the kids playing on the field were your classmates who bled for your school like you did. Now they are mercenaries, and the loyalty to them will slowly fade, the abstract idea of your schools football team will still have a draw, but it isn’t the same.
The other thing that doesn’t get talked about is the changing demographics of the top schools. As more people go to college and population sizes increase, schools like UF are becoming more exclusive, with truly career focused kids and not partiers. Less interest in the sport, UF has to brag now about selling out its student ticket allotment for example, when that used to be hard to even get. Fewer fans now is fewer fans later. UVA, UNC UCLA and Cal are already there, little to no interest in football at all. That’s going to trickle down over time through the second tier schools.
And one other point, woken now largely outnumber men at a lot of schools. Fewer men equals less interest. It’s not that there aren’t a lot of women who care, but this website and our top donors list tells you where much of the hard core interest comes from.

 

you have the right to be wrong

Alabama’s thrilling win over Georgia topped the week five college football slate with the largest regular season audience on ABC since 2017.

fans are filling stadiums, 12 team playoff. sky high viewership

where are storm clouds, but cfb right now this year is without a doubt, the most popular it has ever been

as Will Rogers said the rumors of college football’s demise were greatly exaggerated

but if you believe it’s not longer worth watching, and the nails are in the coffin stop posting do something else with your weekends

 

I'd be fine with being wrong. I'd be fine--though bummed--with the sport prospering even if I'm no longer watching.

I'm concerned we're eating the seed corn by changing so many things that have been such an essential part of why college football had been popular and meangful to people.

But the thing about an argument like that is it takes time to find out one way or the other. Because eating the seed corn means you still get to enjoy eating food for the time being. The problem only comes later when you start to run out and there's no clear way left to grow more.

So I guess we'll see. But popular sports can absolutely lose their popularity. And while I don't think college football will disappear, baseball was America's game and boxing dwarfed mma.

And I feel very confident that I'm not wrong that I have less interest than I did and my kids barely care at all.

 

I think a close parallel would be when free agency took off in the NFL during the 1990s. Prior to that a kid could know the entire roster of the team and most of those guys had been there for years as he grew up, creating a strong fandom. To me it made the teams an organic part of their communities. Once free agency really took off though, guys came and went depending on the paycheck and you could really only be a fan of the team jersey, the actual players didn't matter.

For me that really killed a lot of the connection I had to pro football and I became just a casual fan. But new fans were found, they just adapted to the new product on the field, which I totally gave up on after the NFL went all in BLM & politics. If the fans haven't given up on CFB after the introduction of NIL, they'll put up with semi-pro teams as well, I think. I don't care much what's going on behind the curtain if they're representing UF and are putting a good product on the field.

 

The two most popular sports at the turn of the 20th century: Boxing and Horse Racing. Neither are probably top 10 now.

 

Nertz, I say!

 

So what?