Top sports execs, college leaders reportedly pushing for college football 'Super League'
A group of sports executives and college presidents, called “College Sports Tomorrow,” has devised a plan to create a new governance structure for college football that would replace the NCAA and College Football Playoff, according to a report from The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand and Stewart Mandel.
The new structure would create 7 divisions of 10 teams — all members of the former Power Five, plus Notre Dame and SMU.
An eighth division of 10 teams would come from the rest of the 134 FBS schools. That division would feature a system of promotion and relegation similar to European soccer that would give smaller schools the ability to move up into the top flight.
The 7 upper divisions would all feature permanent members, meaning the 70 P5 schools would never be in danger of being relegated.
Under the new model, the 8 division winners would all secure automatic bids to a 16-team playoff. The remaining 8 wild-card spots would be determined by record and tiebreakers — eliminating the need for a selection committee.
According to The Athletic, CST’s 20-person group includes Syracuse chancellor Kent Syverud, West Virginia president Gordon Gee, NFL executive Brian Rolapp, Philadelphia 76ers owner David Blitzer, former MLS president Mark Abbott, and TurnkeyZRG’s Len Perna.
“The current model for governing and managing college athletics is dead,” Syverud told The Athletic.
According to Marchand and Mandel’s reporting, the group is “struggling to gain traction” with schools for its radical proposal.
CST presented before the ACC’s Board of Directors in February, but planned meetings with executives in the SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12 were all called off.
The report states that neither SEC commissioner Greg Sankey nor Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has met with CST about the idea. According to the report, lucrative broadcast deals that stretch into the 2030s with ESPN, FOX, NBC, and CBS are currently serving as the primary obstacle facing the so-called Super League.
But leaders in the sport have long been seeking solutions to the NCAA problem. Sankey and Petitti set up a joint advisory group in February tasked with exploring solutions to ongoing issues in college sports.
While the NCAA is currently drowning in antitrust cases challenging its rules and autonomy, the pivot from multiple conferences to one league would, according to The Athletic, give way to collective bargaining between players and the league on NIL, transfer portal, and salary structure rules.
Perna “insisted” to The Athletic that CST’s model is not a money-making venture for the group. An anonymous TV executive told The Athletic it was “naive” to believe college sports has more untapped money.
CST, however, believes there’s more money to be made in a model comparable to the NFL’s TV setup.
To that end, Rolapp was the chief architect behind the NFL’s 11-year, $110 billion TV agreements in 2021.
“The only way to solve the problem is to have a solution that is legally defensible, politically acceptable, commercially prudent, and is able to strike a partnership with student-athletes in a way that’s really good for them,” Perna told The Athletic.
More on the model can be found here.
Logical solution. Lots of issues to overcome.
LOL! The Power 2 is pulling down 59% of the proceeds. Why would the B1G and the SEC go for this last-ditch effort from the (p)ower 2 and the G5?
As soon as I saw W VA Prez Gordon Gee involved along with a representative from Syracuse, I knew this was a futile exercise.
Why would the B1G and SEC, and Fox, CBS, NBC, and ESPN want to water down the product?
The marketplace has already separated the Power 2 wheat from the chaff. When more consolidation happens, it will be something like Notre Dame and Kansas joining the B1G and Clemson, FSU, UNC, and NC State joining the SEC.
This is an effort by folks who abhor capitalism sorting out the winners and the losers trying to save their pie of the pie.
Super League is coming. As I said, there are many issues that will have to be overcome. But, it will happen.
I can’t really argue with you because that’s the natural progression. The NCAA has shown its ineptitude and it can’t be trusted to do the right thing for CFB. I hate what this will do to the non-revenue sports, but this has already been decided, in my mind.
This isn’t a super league though. It’s more teams that the P4 has now. A super league would have less teams and be more exclusive. This isn’t that.
That’s the part of the adjustments that will be made.
This thing has no legs. The future of college football will primarily be decided by the SEC, Big 10, and ESPN. This group will have no input.
I don’t like it. There aren’t 70 or 80 teams worthy of being in a super league. Some conferences would be way stronger than others, so basing wildcards on records only without taking SOS into account is pretty elementary thinking. No wonder the SEC and Big 10 blew them off.
Way too early to make judgments. We don’t know what form it would take, which programs would be in which divisions, what the salary caps would be, and so on. A lot of stuff to iron out.
We know enough to know I don’t like it. We would have to break up the SEC, and there are still not 80 teams worthy of being in a super league. People are complaining about five auto bids now, and we are supposed to believe that eight will become acceptable. How are eight conferences supposed to get media deals. What do we do with current media rights deals contracts. If we go to a super league situation, it will be led by the SEC and Big 10.
I hate it too. People who toss these crazy ideas around fail to realize that college presidents at large are very unwilling to divest their football programs from their schools. They see the players as “student-athletes”. Until that changes or the courts allow players to unionize and collectively bargain, it isn’t changing. I don’t like all of the conference expansion but I like what we now have way more than this loony idea.
The marketplace has already made the judgment. The B1G and the SEC won.
What media entities would agree to pay for this watered-down scenario? How about, None? The B1G and the SEC are not eleemosynary entities.
Spot On!
Here we go. First steps toward the inevitable.
I hope not. Then it just becomes the NFL with less appeal as the players won’t be associated with the schools they represent. Thing is the college presidents are not interested in running a football league. They want their programs under the educational umbrella of the school as opposed to some semi-pro league. I agree with them. If you want the nfl model go watch the NFL!
Is this sonething similar to what Coach Kelly tossed out a couple of months ago, regional conferences of the bigger football schools?
Just another example of a “solution” being worse than the problem. Never happen.
Is this something similar to what Coach Kelly tossed out a couple of months ago, regional conferences of the bigger football schools?
This plan will not come to fruition. The SEC and B1G will not want to give up their revenue. I think this is an attempt to keep them from breaking away on their own.
Why should schools who have invested time and resources to build up a strong program give up their earning potential so that schools like Wake and BC can continue to live off the success of others?
I believe there will eventually be a super league level that will include the SEC, B1G and the Big 12, with about half of the ACC members being added to those three conferences. Half of the ACC (like Wake, BC, Syracuse, etc.) Oregon State, Wazzu and the G5 will be SOL.
The ACC is a stronger conference than the Big 12.
In all likelihood when the House vs NCAA law suit is finished the NCAA and major conferences will be bankrupt. No one dislikes the future CFB landscape more than me, but the reality of the situation means it’s all going to need to be rebuilt completely.
I cant imagine this will get any traction from much of anyone who has a say so in it. This would dilute the revenue to the big schools, especially in the sec and Big, that there is no way they would agree to it. Its going to morph. That, IMO, is certain. But its much more likely to be in the realm of 50-60 schools and may still have to offer uneven payouts between the premier schools/conferences and the others…
The plan calls for uneven payouts. Obviously, it’s just a starting point. The 1st issue to be resolved would revolve around the major media outlets.
NFL just needs to adapt the NBA format, make CFB minor leagues and you can go to the NFL after 1 year removed from high school. These kids can really test thei value then!
adopt
Of all the possibilities, this is the least likely.
There is no advantage for the NFL to do this and the union would never approve it.
LSUSMC, the advantage is it would fix many issues CFB has right now!
What’s in it for the NFL? That’s the question.
JTF, very little. Every once and a while you get a player who would be ready for the NFL after 1 season. Maybe they expand rosters since they want to extend the NFL season again?
I’ve given up trying to predict how this will all unfold. All I know is that network executives and college presidents are driven by money far more than they are driven by love of the sport or love of tradition. I just hope whatever CFB evolves into isn’t too dissimilar from what made the sport so special in the first place.
This is a good model if you’re trying to save college football as a semblance of what we have now. By including lesser schools into the model, you ensure the smaller schools can still afford to have a program. It’s not likely, but it is a worthy effort.
What happens to the NCAA and other sports after this?
The NCAA is on life support.