Don't be surprised if the SEC and Big Ten go pro in the future...

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Great Plains Gopher

Great Plains Gopher

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The greed driving college football (and destroying it) logically leads to pro status for the wealthiest conferences and college presidents will go along with it for the money, just as they have gone along with the destruction of conferences, absurdly high coaches' salaries, the transfer-whenever-you-want rule, and paying college players at various salary levels. The latter is a sign that true, legally professional college football is not far away. The multi-billion dollar TV agreements have driven all these changes. In other words, greed.
 

It's very likely that high level college football in the near future will represent at least some kind of unofficial paid minor league, one that pays much better than MLB and along the lines of NBA G-League, whether or not the two are legally affiliated. One thing holding back college football, like the NFL, is team size and a pie that has to be cut a lot more times than basketball.

The really crazy thing to think about is something I've been posting a lot to GH and other various places and nobody's really come along with...yet...the idea that once a pay-for-play structure is in place, all it takes is the NCAA eliminating 4 year eligibility limits for football players and voila, you have a very serious contender to challenge the NFL.

What if universities thought of the football team more like faculty than student athletes? It's not how it was set up to be, but get enough money and greed and unregulated competition in the room and the plot can be lost very fast.
 

fmlizard said:
It's very likely that high level college football in the near future will represent at least some kind of unofficial paid minor league, one that pays much better than MLB and along the lines of NBA G-League, whether or not the two are legally affiliated. One thing holding back college football, like the NFL, is team size and a pie that has to be cut a lot more times than basketball.

The really crazy thing to think about is something I've been posting a lot to GH and other various places and nobody's really come along with...yet...the idea that once a pay-for-play structure is in place, all it takes is the NCAA eliminating 4 year eligibility limits for football players and voila, you have a very serious contender to challenge the NFL.

What if universities thought of the football team more like faculty than student athletes? It's not how it was set up to be, but get enough money and greed and unregulated competition in the room and the plot can be lost very fast.
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Open it up to Saudi investors and you're in business.
 

fmlizard said:
It's very likely that high level college football in the near future will represent at least some kind of unofficial paid minor league, one that pays much better than MLB and along the lines of NBA G-League, whether or not the two are legally affiliated. One thing holding back college football, like the NFL, is team size and a pie that has to be cut a lot more times than basketball.

The really crazy thing to think about is something I've been posting a lot to GH and other various places and nobody's really come along with...yet...the idea that once a pay-for-play structure is in place, all it takes is the NCAA eliminating 4 year eligibility limits for football players and voila, you have a very serious contender to challenge the NFL.

What if universities thought of the football team more like faculty than student athletes? It's not how it was set up to be, but get enough money and greed and unregulated competition in the room and the plot can be lost very fast.
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Before you eliminate the 4-year eligibility limits, you secretly encourage the athletes to establish a players union. Then you negotiate salary caps with the union, so you're within the antitrust laws. THEN you eliminate the eligibility caps.

I agree with 100% of what you've said.
 



MonikerSchmoniker45 said:
Open it up to Saudi investors and you're in business.
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There's a theory out there like this.

What if the Saudi PIF (or another investor) put up a few billion - more than any of the conference TV deals - and just started picking off schools from the established conferences until they built a little college football elite league?

Could happen. But I think the place where this breaks down is that not everyone can go 11-2 and win their conference annually in a league like this. Hearts are going to break at some formerly prestige programs when they become bottom feeders under that system. And under the current rules there's no draft or any other competitive balancing to save them.

One could argue that the Minnesotas (a likely high end non-invited) of the world win over the Wisconsins (a likely low end top league invitee) under that system. College football is all minor league anyway.
 

Cyndi Lauper has it right...


Very applicable to what has happened to the PAC over the last year.
 


fmlizard said:
It's very likely that high level college football in the near future will represent at least some kind of unofficial paid minor league, one that pays much better than MLB and along the lines of NBA G-League, whether or not the two are legally affiliated. One thing holding back college football, like the NFL, is team size and a pie that has to be cut a lot more times than basketball.

The really crazy thing to think about is something I've been posting a lot to GH and other various places and nobody's really come along with...yet...the idea that once a pay-for-play structure is in place, all it takes is the NCAA eliminating 4 year eligibility limits for football players and voila, you have a very serious contender to challenge the NFL.

What if universities thought of the football team more like faculty than student athletes? It's not how it was set up to be, but get enough money and greed and unregulated competition in the room and the plot can be lost very fast.
Click to expand...
I think college football would be crazy to try and challenge the NFL. There is plenty of money to be made in their current niche without trying to go head to head with the NFL and potentially failing like all other challengers have to this point.

Have already hit the point where the student part of student Athlete is no longer really a major factor in the revenue sports, but trying to do contracts or extended eligibility beyond the 4/5 years would be a death sentence.
 



fmlizard said:
It's very likely that high level college football in the near future will represent at least some kind of unofficial paid minor league, one that pays much better than MLB and along the lines of NBA G-League, whether or not the two are legally affiliated. One thing holding back college football, like the NFL, is team size and a pie that has to be cut a lot more times than basketball.
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Title IX is a huge hurdle to any sort of model that pays, or shares revenue, with athletes that participate in revenue-generating sports.

Non-revenue athletes would sue for equal pay and almost certainly win. And these sports just don’t generate enough revenue to support their own operations, along with supporting the opps of all non-revenue sports, and pay all of the players participating in all sports.

It is very notable that the PAC-12 couldn’t get a TV deal. I think people will look back at that development in the future and consider it to be what was the beginning of the end of seemingly unlimited increases in TV revenue.
 

Goldmember said:
Title IX is a huge hurdle to any sort of model that pays, or shares revenue, with athletes that participate in revenue-generating sports.

Non-revenue athletes would sue for equal pay and almost certainly win. And these sports just don’t generate enough revenue to support their own operations, along with supporting the opps of all non-revenue sports, and pay all of the players participating in all sports.

It is very notable that the PAC-12 couldn’t get a TV deal. I think people will look back at that development in the future and consider it to be what was the beginning of the end of seemingly unlimited increases in TV revenue.
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This round of contracts was all about television. It's still where you need to be.

By 2030, streaming or streaming plus television is going to be where you need to be.

The Pac-12 ran out of television channels that had open time slots.
 

Goldmember said:
Title IX is a huge hurdle to any sort of model that pays, or shares revenue, with athletes that participate in revenue-generating sports.
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That's a good point - but, is there a clever work-around? Like, what if the athletes weren't students and the U of M was simply "licensing" it's brand/logo to "this team" for a "fee"? And the U of M "rents out" the stadium to the team, just like it rents it out for a concert or whatever?

This would absolve the U of having to call these football players "student athletes" anymore, and therefore they could be treated completely differently from the basketball/soccer/hockey/track etc athletes?
 





RodentRampage said:
I'd lose interest if college football became a professional league. Then it's just a minor league. I'd like to see the NFL get their own minor league and pop this bubble.
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Exactly. College football is great because it is amateur. Traditions. Memories. Students. If it becomes minor league pro sports, I will pay as much attention to it as I currently do other minor pro leagues in other sports, which is zero.
 

RodentRampage said:
I'd lose interest if college football became a professional league. Then it's just a minor league. I'd like to see the NFL get their own minor league and pop this bubble.
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College football is their minor league. I would be interested to know how much, if any, say the NFL owners have in all the changes happening the past few years.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
The greed driving college football (and destroying it) logically leads to pro status for the wealthiest conferences and college presidents will go along with it for the money, just as they have gone along with the destruction of conferences, absurdly high coaches' salaries, the transfer-whenever-you-want rule, and paying college players at various salary levels. The latter is a sign that true, legally professional college football is not far away. The multi-billion dollar TV agreements have driven all these changes. In other words, greed.
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So they’ll be an inferior product to the already most popular sport? Their niche is the illusion of amateurism and the provincial nature of college athletics. This is an insane take.
 

fmlizard said:
There's a theory out there like this.

What if the Saudi PIF (or another investor) put up a few billion - more than any of the conference TV deals - and just started picking off schools from the established conferences until they built a little college football elite league?

Could happen. But I think the place where this breaks down is that not everyone can go 11-2 and win their conference annually in a league like this. Hearts are going to break at some formerly prestige programs when they become bottom feeders under that system. And under the current rules there's no draft or any other competitive balancing to save them.

One could argue that the Minnesotas (a likely high end non-invited) of the world win over the Wisconsins (a likely low end top league invitee)under that system. College football is all minor league anyway.
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Many of those schools are a state entity, so I think the legal machinations would be considerable - if I was them I’d buy one of the off season leagues and compete that way.
 

It's gonna get crazier. There is the G League in basketball...we haven't seen that yet in football.
What if the Saudi's just create their own league with money to players the colleges can't match?

Lots of ways it could all go but it ain't ever going back to how it was. Hopefully, our 2023 season is one to fondly remember.
 

Think about this. I read something about this and completely agree. The NFL has always basically abided by the rule of no games on Saturday until the CFB season is over. But part of that was always that CFB was amateur athletics. Is it really that anymore? So with that in mind, imagine if for the next NFL rights contract they would say to the networks and ESPN, "We dominate the rating all day Sunday, Thursday night, and Monday night. What if we played a half slate on Saturday too? Noon, 3PM, and 7:00 pm?" The media rights would double.

If CFB doesn't like it, who cares? There is essentially a Power 2 in CFB now. None of which exist in NYC, SF/Oak, Boston, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia and Atlanta. 7 of the 10 biggest media markets. Yeah CFB has been their unpaid for feeder program, but why not have a minor league that pays guys a fair wage and televise those games during the week? The point being if CFB wants to be bigger and more professional, why would the most powerful sports entity in the world just not crush them, and take all the money?
 

Denny Green said years ago when asked about injured O lineman and being shorthanded, "I wish I could just call up someone to fill the spot like baseball does." Why not? The NFL would love it. CFB so wants to be professional like, they might want to be careful what they wish for.
 

CFB will never be professional. But I’m surprised that with all these attempts at USFL, XFL, etc., why has no one made a league focused on younger players? The teams could have salary caps and recruit players similar to how mlb teams sign international players.
 

WoodburyTim said:
Think about this. I read something about this and completely agree. The NFL has always basically abided by the rule of no games on Saturday until the CFB season is over. But part of that was always that CFB was amateur athletics. Is it really that anymore? So with that in mind, imagine if for the next NFL rights contract they would say to the networks and ESPN, "We dominate the rating all day Sunday, Thursday night, and Monday night. What if we played a half slate on Saturday too? Noon, 3PM, and 7:00 pm?" The media rights would double.

If CFB doesn't like it, who cares? There is essentially a Power 2 in CFB now. None of which exist in NYC, SF/Oak, Boston, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia and Atlanta. 7 of the 10 biggest media markets. Yeah CFB has been their unpaid for feeder program, but why not have a minor league that pays guys a fair wage and televise those games during the week? The point being if CFB wants to be bigger and more professional, why would the most powerful sports entity in the world just not crush them, and take all the money?
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I don't get what CFB being amateur has to do with the NFL not playing Saturdays? The NFL leaves college alone because they want the players to be well known and hyped leading into the draft. I'm sorry but it makes no sense for the NFL to create their own minor league when the infrastructure already exists. I also doubt they would pay underdeveloped players more than these college boosters are willing to. The NFL seems more interested in expanding to other countries than trying to crush what benefits them in the long run.
 

WoodburyTim said:
WoodburyTim said:
Denny Green said years ago when asked about injured O lineman and being shorthanded, "I wish I could just call up someone to fill the spot like baseball does." Why not? The NFL would love it. CFB so wants to be professional like, they might want to be careful what they wish for.
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There's this thing called the practice squad in the NFL...
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WoodburyTim said:
Think about this. I read something about this and completely agree. The NFL has always basically abided by the rule of no games on Saturday until the CFB season is over. But part of that was always that CFB was amateur athletics. Is it really that anymore? So with that in mind, imagine if for the next NFL rights contract they would say to the networks and ESPN, "We dominate the rating all day Sunday, Thursday night, and Monday night. What if we played a half slate on Saturday too? Noon, 3PM, and 7:00 pm?" The media rights would double.

If CFB doesn't like it, who cares? There is essentially a Power 2 in CFB now. None of which exist in NYC, SF/Oak, Boston, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia and Atlanta. 7 of the 10 biggest media markets. Yeah CFB has been their unpaid for feeder program, but why not have a minor league that pays guys a fair wage and televise those games during the week? The point being if CFB wants to be bigger and more professional, why would the most powerful sports entity in the world just not crush them, and take all the money?
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Who would be on those teams playing on Saturday? I can't tell from your post. Do you mean the NFL would move some of it's Sunday games to Saturdays? But you mention, "why not have a minor league" so are you implying minor league NFL games on Saturday to compete with college? If so, where would the players come from? Are you suggesting another pro draft, this one for kids who aren't three years removed from high school?
 

The NFL can only carry 16 on the practice squad - it was 12 prior to Covid. Hardly a full team.

My thoughts on a minor league system, why it doesn't focus on younger athletes, etc. I might be off but think I am pretty close.

A true minor league system doesn't work in football because of they physicality of the sport. Careers are only so long. While the skill would be drastically different in minor league vs. the NFL, the physicality and toll it takes on your body wouldn't be that different. It's not like baseball where you can have guys in the minors for years.

Even for a majority of the top recruits their is a major difference playing against college kids vs. 25-30 year old men. College football has the luxury of time and allowing players to mature.
 

MNfootballfan said:
The NFL can only carry 16 on the practice squad - it was 12 prior to Covid. Hardly a full team.
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If you find yourself needing to replace more than 16 players in a given season...I mean, time to focus on what to do with the #1 pick in the draft....

The initial quote was about Dennis Green wanting to bring up maybe 1 lineman or two possibly. Which is a problem the practice squad solved already.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
If you find yourself needing to replace more than 16 players in a given season...I mean, time to focus on what to do with the #1 pick in the draft....

The initial quote was about Dennis Green wanting to bring up maybe 1 lineman or two possibly. Which is a problem the practice squad solved already.
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I agree, but in Denny's context, his Left Tackle goes down, it doesn't mean he has a Left Tackle he can just bring up. Position flexibility is huge and the majority of offensive lineman can't play multiple positions. That is why when you have a guy that can play Guard or Tackle it's huge.
 

MNfootballfan said:
I agree, but in Denny's context, his Left Tackle goes down, it doesn't mean he has a Left Tackle he can just bring up. Position flexibility is huge and the majority of offensive lineman can't play multiple positions. That is why when you have a guy that can play Guard or Tackle it's huge.
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The backup then comes in and they might bring another OL from the practice squad. Vikes carried like 15 OL last year.
 


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