Each of the top brands believes they can and should be competitive no matter what. So what if someone has a losing season? The admins won't care with the revenue the league would generate for the school.
I would imagine that, freed from the yoke of the rest of the welfare queen FBS, the top schools would and could create an NFL style equity that ensures more parity.
So they’re going to make a CBA, go entirely away from attending college and draft players? And players are going to voluntarily elect to go that route over every single other route where they maintain autonomy, can transfer, etc because they’re promised they might get paid more temporarily?
I think this plan works awesome for about 10 teams (OSU, Michigan, PSU, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, ND and then maybe USC, Florida, Clemson, FSU, LSU and those in that non blue blood but close to category). How big is the market for that 20 team league of maybe the best talent if you happen to get them? Do you have the ability to negotiate a contract that distributes revenue in a high enough fashion (acknowledging you’re competing against the other college teams who have regional pull and market, which is what college sports have always) you can entice athletes to abandon that and what’s going to stop the remainder schools from putting the same type of deal in place to restrict player movement? And how do you keep fans to keep donating to your NIL cache to keep up your ability to pay these players so well they want to keep coming, even if you’re losing, particularly acknowledging there are massive withdrawals threats to donation year to year based on who happens to be your HC rather than a negotiated salary cap and floor?
It’s actually a pretty sweet gig for the haves as it is now. Free transfers, you can just buy players after they’ve developed and look good enough to play for you in addition to recruiting only the highest of tier freshmen and you have an almost guaranteed place to be in or near in the important end part (the CFP) which maintains your place at the top.
I totally get what you’re saying, but Michigan doesn’t remain a blue blood if their record sits at .500 for 25 years. The NFL generates vastly more viewers on a per game basis. There were only 8 games for the NCAA that had over 1mil in week 11.
The NFL gets about 18 million a game. A sort of semi pro league is not going to make massive traction to where it offsets massive costs to enroll 80-100 football players and pay them well to not play at an equally opportunistic league at the end goal. Think a lot of people overestimate how many people are college football fans in that we watch games that could impact us and are in the same division. I don’t watch FCS football because it doesn’t impact me the same way. Same as I wouldn’t decide to watch a league with the top 20 teams because why would I get invested in that sport that isn’t the best league nor has shown they’re better than the other also rans?
If you’re talking they’re going to cut everything else, it gets closer. But that I would imagine is going to be a non starter. If you wanted to go with the entire B10 and SEC I think you could, but that’s not really the question which is more a random smattering of differential markets and removal of rivalries to make a manufactured product that someone is going to try tell me is better based on no factual data but peer speculation
If it’s getting bigger (ie like 70-80 teams) you’re just renaming the P4 and G5 differently but it’s the exact same thing.
