Alleged Format Of 70 Team College Football Super League Leaks, Might Enrage Fans

[bwh05]

I think it's an awful gamble to trade away current college football fans for speculative from-the NFL-to-college fans.

What's the upside to watching college rather than the NFL? The players are less talented, less physical, you have less familiarity with them since they have 24/7/365 free agency. Where's the upside in that for the fan?

People watch college football because of school affiliation. If you try to compete on product with the NFL, you will lose. Just like the USFL and every other pro league (which a 40 team college environment with paid players would be).

And people aren’t going to just adopt new teams if their current school is demoted./relegated to a lower tier. The NFL is long established in the major markets spread geographically across the country. You can’t just apply that system to college, expecting the general fan to just go along with it and watch the same way they did under the old system.

And I’m not watching minor league football with no salary cap & no movement restrictions.

 

[AllegeneeGenacGenac]

What's going to happen with other college athletics when the super league forms and players begin to get paid with the TV money?

They can go back to being in conferences that make geographic sense instead of flying the Rutgers women's tennis team to Eugene or vice versa every year so the schools' football teams can play regularly.

 

[Pitt_Boss]

i find it interesting that several posters have said they will watch Bama-LSU, Ohio St-Michigan, etc. because we have a team in the same league. But is Pitt really in the same league with those teams? I don't consider Bama, LSU, Ohio St, Mich, etc as football peers. They outclass us annually. You are entitled to your opinion but I generally don't watch those games because it almost feels like a different league to me.

I watch the Pitt game, other ACC games (particularly for upcoming opponents), I'll watch a little of PSU or WVU if they are losing, the random teams with a story line (Colorado last year for instance), and some teams with particularly entertaining players (which granted is sometimes those Top15 teams, but not always). Then I'll watch bowl games that I have money on. I do watch all the CFP games, even though it does feel like some club Pitt is not part of, but that is about all I can take of watching the Bamas and Ohio States of the worlds, just at the end in the CFP, I don't really want to see them all year.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

And people aren’t going to just adopt new teams if their current school is demoted./relegated to a lower tier. The NFL is long established in the major markets spread geographically across the country. You can’t just apply that system to college, expecting the general fan to just go along with it and watch the same way they did under the old system.

And I’m not watching minor league football with no salary cap & no movement restrictions.

In a generation, yes. We wont be but our kids/grandkids/great grandkids may adopt a team. Maybe that's the idea

 

[ncyajleel]

Not that what I think matters, but there has to be a lot of people like me out there. I go where Pitt goes. I only watch college football because Pitt has a team. If Pitt is not going to be represented in any way, I won't care about it. That's why I don't watch the NBA, because they do not have a team in Pittsburgh.

No, this is an assumption. We can't really know how fans will react to the SEC and Big Ten literally absorbing the most prominent 40 brands and killing the remaining 100 because nothing like that has ever happened before. Ratings continue to go up because ostensibly most fans still have a shot. So Pitt fans watch Washington-Michigan because their team was at least in the same league as them, if only on paper. Is that going to happen if Pitt is in the B League? Is it going to happen if Pitt kills their football team?

I think it would be interesting to know how many George Mason and Xavier (teams without college football) fans watch some other D-1 team or the CFB championship. Or what percentage of an area that plays at a lower level but still has football watches the CFB championship (e.g., North Dakota State). Because those numbers are probably at least a bit insightful into what will happen after a few years of the fallout from this mega conference.

 

[ncyajleel]

The NFL began with 10 or so teams and then grew to 32, they didn't have over 100 and kick out everyone else to get down to 40. It's a different scenario. You rooted for an NFL team because that was all that was available and if a franchise started near you, maybe you jumped and supported them and made them your home team.

I don't know. Obviously some amount fans, like yourself, would watch less. But is it a big enough % that the TV execs would care? Do they think they could make up that difference, and then some, over time by appealing to new fans?

The NFL only has 32 teams. Their fandom and ratings in the U.S. is not based on just fans in those 32 cities. They draw fans from all over the country that 'adopt' teams to root for that are not based on the city they live in.

College football has way less fans than the NFL. However, a TV exec could look at that as a growth opportunity: There are millions of NFL football fans that aren't college football fans - let's get even a fraction of them to watch college football. And they don't need 70 brands to do that. As noted, the NFL only has 32 brands. Get the Top 48 brands into two 24-team leagues (SEC and Big Ten) and then market the heck out of it. There is probably room to market better if focused on just these two leagues than marketing a bunch of leagues consisting of 128 FBS teams. The current product is diluted.

The only hope for schools like Pitt is that the Big Ten and SEC need broken up or reconfigured to shed some dead weight. Schools like Vandy, Indiana, Rutgers, etc. could eventually be dumped like Wash St and Oregon St just were. However, if you replace Vandy, Indiana, Rutgers with FSU/Clemson/Notre Dame...there still isn't room for Pitt. They would first have to cut deeper like Miss St, Minnesota, maybe Northwestern or Purdue, then we'd still have to beat out UNC, UVA, Miami, VA Tech, Louisville, and several Big 12 teams.

So even at 48 teams, Pitt isn't getting in. 70 teams definitely should be what Pitt fans root for, but I don't think the TV execs need 70 to make big money. The hope for 70-80 teams is that the TV execs value having more inventory. While Pitt-Syracuse is not going to make the Top 50 watched games list, it can still draw more eyeballs than reruns of Designing Women on Lifetime. Look at how even the crappiest of Bowl games do great ratings compared to what else is on at the same time (vs comparing the ratings to other football games). Football games get ratings.

 

[bwh05]

The NFL began with 10 or so teams and then grew to 32, they didn't have over 100 and kick out everyone else to get down to 40. It's a different scenario. You rooted for an NFL team because that was all that was available and if a franchise started near you, maybe you jumped and supported them and made them your home team.

Correct, the NFL is an apples to oranges comparison. In addition, many fans are actual alums of the school they root for. They're not just going to jump on the bandwagon of another school and watch with the same passion they did previously, especially with the NIL/transfer model trash fire we've moved to.

 

[happjack]

I've said this in other threads, a college "super league" will end up losing a ton of casual fan interest in the same way MLB, NBA and NHL have been the past decade or so. If you don't have a team you don't care, if you have a team that has no chance at winning you don't care, you stop watching when your team is eliminated from the post season, or you get burned out and don't care since only a few teams get the prime tv spots(see the Yanks and Red Sox on ESPN every Sunday night).

 

[lilspainishflea]

The NFL began with 10 or so teams and then grew to 32, they didn't have over 100 and kick out everyone else to get down to 40. It's a different scenario. You rooted for an NFL team because that was all that was available and if a franchise started near you, maybe you jumped and supported them and made them your home team.

Yep, even where the NFL has killed teams (Baltimore, LA, Houston, Cleveland) they tend to bring them back because it's a built in fan base. And they only do that one at a time, often spread out by years so they aren't totally disrupting their market.

I think it's crazy to assume that a bunch of decades-long fans of teams 41-120 will stay with college football if their teams are not selected for the mega-conference. It's possibly true that these mega-conference teams don't care about the total addressable market or the sport at large, and as long as they are doing what makes them more money today then they're going to do it and not care about tomorrow. But my own estimation is that a bunch of finance people are foolishly driving these decisions and the tens of millions of stakeholders who get left behind are simply not going to be considered because they don't have representation in the rooms where these meetings are happening.

 

[lilspainishflea]

Correct, the NFL is an apples to oranges comparison. In addition, many fans are actual alums of the school they root for. They're not just going to jump on the bandwagon of another school and watch with the same passion they did previously, especially with the NIL/transfer model trash fire we've moved to.

It's actively discouraged to root for schools that you didn't attend. You're going to be looked at like you have two heads if you're at an OSU tailgate and someone asks "oh I went to Pitt but I'm a Buckeyes fan now because they're in the mega-conference." You will never be accepted as a real fan.

 

[ChiefJusticeMarshall]

It's actively discouraged to root for schools that you didn't attend. You're going to be looked at like you have two heads if you're at an OSU tailgate and someone asks "oh I went to Pitt but I'm a Buckeyes fan now because they're in the mega-conference." You will never be accepted as a real fan.

Do you really think all of these superfans are alumni? Because if you do, I am afraid I got some baaaaaaad news for you. I outlined one of WVU's biggest benefactors for their sports programs was Mylan Puskar. He was a Youngstown State grad.

But you are right, if you are a fan of a program, like Pitt, and now all of a sudden you are "relegated", there is more of a chance that you find something else to do than watch "big time college football".

 

[Pitt79]

You clearly dont get why people in utah or washington or wvu watch college football in the first place.

Exactly, I don't watch college football, I watch Pitt football

 

[Pitt79]

But you are right, if you are a fan of a program, like Pitt, and now all of a sudden you are "relegated", there is more of a chance that you find something else to do than watch "big time college football".

I find it sad that some of you say you won't still watch Pitt football if it's at a lower level (G5, FCS, D2 or whatever). I plan to keep watching Pitt until I die, as long as you can still get a broadcast or stream, no matter the level, and will continue to never watch SEC or B1G, as I already haven't FOR DECADES.

 

[FireballZ]

I think it's an awful gamble to trade away current college football fans for speculative from-the NFL-to-college fans.

What's the upside to watching college rather than the NFL? The players are less talented, less physical, you have less familiarity with them since they have 24/7/365 free agency. Where's the upside in that for the fan?

People watch college football because of school affiliation. If you try to compete on product with the NFL, you will lose. Just like the USFL and every other pro league (which a 40 team college environment with paid players would be).

Honestly, outside of Pitt, I watch other CFB games to a large degree because I like to gamble.

Will that enjoyment go away if the teams I'm gambling on have nothing to do with Pitt anymore, I don't know? But legalized gambling across much of the nation will definitely keep abandoned fans "watching" in a higher volume than if it didn't exist.

 

[caleco's]

Exactly, I don't watch college football, I watch Pitt football

Well most others tune into other games besides their team because of their investment in the system. That leaves if they arent invested any longer.

 

[Pitt79]

Well most others tune into other games besides their team because of their investment in the system. That leaves if they arent invested any longer.

I watch other games, and usually parts of other games, but every weekend in the fall, I only set aside time to religiously watch 2 games only in their entirety, Pitt and the Steelers, everything else isn't scheduled, it's just that I had nothing better to do and turned on the TV.

 

[Lancer76]

They have the areas covered and all the biggest brands. People say the eyes will drop if they break away, but reality says otherwise. People will still tune in every week to watch the big and sec. And that is why they have all the power and leverage. And that leverage is the tv networks are on their side as well.

With all the big open markets the NFL will move in and start having Saturday games

 

[ncyajleel]

If Pitt isn't included, I'll just go watch my local division III team play. They are sometimes more exciting to watch anyway because they play for the love of the game, not money. Why would I need an SEC/BIG semi pro league...I have the Steelers to root for on Sundays.

Yep, even where the NFL has killed teams (Baltimore, LA, Houston, Cleveland) they tend to bring them back because it's a built in fan base. And they only do that one at a time, often spread out by years so they aren't totally disrupting their market.

I think it's crazy to assume that a bunch of decades-long fans of teams 41-120 will stay with college football if their teams are not selected for the mega-conference. It's possibly true that these mega-conference teams don't care about the total addressable market or the sport at large, and as long as they are doing what makes them more money today then they're going to do it and not care about tomorrow. But my own estimation is that a bunch of finance people are foolishly driving these decisions and the tens of millions of stakeholders who get left behind are simply not going to be considered because they don't have representation in the rooms where these meetings are happening.

Correct, the NFL is an apples to oranges comparison. In addition, many fans are actual alums of the school they root for. They're not just going to jump on the bandwagon of another school and watch with the same passion they did previously, especially with the NIL/transfer model trash fire we've moved to.

 

[ncyajleel]

I never went to Pitt, I went to Edinboro. But I have been a Pitt football fan since the early 1970s and a fan of all Pitt sports since I graduated college. I was always a Pittsburgh sports fan and the only time I didn't root for Pitt is when Edinboro wrestled them. But to me, this Super League is just a semi-pro league and if it does not include Pitt, then why watch it? If it doesn't include a Pittsburgh team, I will support whatever league Pitt is playing in, my town's DIII school, and the Steelers. Why would I care what Penn State and Ohio State does, I never have before.

Do you really think all of these superfans are alumni? Because if you do, I am afraid I got some baaaaaaad news for you. I outlined one of WVU's biggest benefactors for their sports programs was Mylan Puskar. He was a Youngstown State grad.

But you are right, if you are a fan of a program, like Pitt, and now all of a sudden you are "relegated", there is more of a chance that you find something else to do than watch "big time college football".

 

[ChiefJusticeMarshall]

I never went to Pitt, I went to Edinboro. But I have been a Pitt football fan since the early 1970s and a fan of all Pitt sports since I graduated college. I was always a Pittsburgh sports fan and the only time I didn't root for Pitt is when Edinboro wrestled them. But to me, this Super League is just a semi-pro league and if it does not include Pitt, then why watch it? If it doesn't include a Pittsburgh team, I will support whatever league Pitt is playing in, my town's DIII school, and the Steelers. Why would I care what Penn State and Ohio State does, I never have before.

I was a Pitt fan before I even thought about going to college. For academic reasons, I chose Gannon and graduated from there. I casually follow Gannon's sports and it was cool both women's and men's BB teams made the DII Final Four this year. But I don't follow them like I do Pitt. My point is, alumni will still root for your team. But if your school is "relegated" to another level, the chances of non alum and casual fans being interested will be diminished.