David Pollack wonders if FCS football should permanently move to spring
Some FCS conferences are making the tough choice to move to a spring football season amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
No Power 5 conferences have followed suit yet, so it looks as if the FCS level might have spring football to itself this coming spring semester.
Could that become a permanent thing? ESPN’s David Pollack wondered if it would be a good idea during a special on ESPN on Tuesday night:
https://twitter.com/ESPNCFB/status/1285721590630699008
“How about the FCS be spring football from now on?” he asks. “I would love to see that more than anything. You talk about the NFL, Joey, but not as many of those guys will be worried about going to the NFL and skipping time. How about you give me spring football? Not just this next year, but from now on.”
The problem, of course, comes with the NFL Draft. If it is held every April, FCS players who have a chance of being drafted likely wouldn’t want to play before going to the draft.
If this were a thing, there would no longer be any FBS / FCS crossover games. I would think that that would crush the budgets of smaller athletic departments. The only way that would work for FCS teams is if the improved visibility on their programs allowed them to make enough money on their own.
I would think that the lack of competition from other football leagues would allow the FCS to get more lucrative TV deals to help prop up their athletic departments. Of course there’s still college basketball, NBA & MLB to compete with in the spring but I think there’d be enough interest in them to make it work.
That’s certainly the way they would hope it would work. After seeing two separate pro spring leagues fold that last two years, I’m not sure that there is enough TV money in the spring to support all the FBS teams.
Sorry, FCS teams…
The XFL had some decent momentum going, and actually was exceeding anticipated attendance numbers in most markets. I’m not sure how many years it would have kept it up but if not for the pandemic, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see the XFL tread water at least 2 or 3 more years.
As far as the FCS, it’s doubtful it would get near as good of a TV deal from major networks the XFL got and I also agree with your point about them losing out on FBS crossover games if they move to the spring. It would be nice to have spring football of some kind, but spring money is hard to come by, college, pro or otherwise.
The only way the conference would consider this is if a network made them an offer to more than offset what the schools would lose playing P5 teams. Most networks already have contracts with conferences for basketball during that time. How would they fit that in? Would people rather watch FCS football or P5 basketball? That’s the question.
What has Pollack been Smoking ? Must have gotten into some bad weed.
FCS moved to the spring their numbers would grow TV viewership
From what network?