NFL works with college presidents to form “Super League”

[BTTA]

How so?

Meritocracy by definition requires equal starting points and level playing field.
American economics has never had that nor aspired to it.

This isn't about capitalism or not capitalism. It is about a superorganism known as the human race that's chewing through its resources as fast as it can under the hubris of "growth" and some kind of superstitious "faith" based justification.

For football to end up consolidated into a single, centrally-governed structure is entirely predictable, which unfortunately doesn't reduce the disappointment.

 

[Vindicate]

Not as bad as billionaires taking money from the public to build their stadiums.

I agree the stadium stuff is ridiculous. However, the context to which the top public salary speaks is undergirded by the fact that public sector employees providing life-building, necessary-for-society-to-exist services are getting paid less than the old guy with a loose **** in his sweatpants to scream at a kid like Myzell Law, Jordan McNair, and countless others only to have them die of heat exhaustion does rub me as insanely insidious.

The people who are instrumental in building futures for every single human - educators - should be prioritized over sports, each and every single time. If they aren't, you have a systemic issue. I love, love love football. But I will never prioritize it over education.

 

[Vindicate]

Meritocracy by definition requires equal starting points and level playing field.
American economics has never had that nor aspired to it.

This isn't about capitalism or not capitalism. It is about a superorganism known as the human race that's chewing through its resources as fast as it can under the hubris of "growth" and some kind of superstitious "faith" based justification.

For football to end up consolidated into a single, centrally-governed structure is entirely predictable, which unfortunately doesn't reduce the disappointment.

Those are the same thing.

 

[Bill Lee]

The problem is football is the revenue driver for all other sports and this only addresses the football programs so then where does that leave everything else? This would be a huge upheaval for college sports as a whole and if they let greed dictate things (which they will) other sports at these schools could suffer. Seems like people love to look at things like this and only think of the Caleb Williams's and Marvin Harrison Jr’s of the world without considering the thousands of kids who won’t ever make a dime off of being a college athlete. Those are the ones who will suffer because football decides the other sports futures.

Indeed. The whole narrative of college football has been 'we build young men' but as you say it also funds programs that benefit young women too.

Now a bunch of Park Street dandies see a way for them to monopolize the sport and create windfall profits for themselves by focusing on the big schools and leaving the small schools to wither on the vine.

Meanwhile the average American is so brainwashed their first instinct is to say "what's wrong with that?".

They are the same people who have been eating Cheese Whiz their entire lives and have no idea what real cheese tastes like, and never will.

What gets me about this is that they are blowing up the relationship between schools, students and players. Only old alumni will end up caring in the end. We're already seeing student body attendance drop at the games. TV interest is as strong as ever. But let's face it, so much of the money coming into these programs comes from alumni interest. If you start severing the relationship between the students and players (i.e. players are no longer students but hired pros), I wonder what's going to drive the interest. No doubt in Alabama they will still be absolutely engaged since there's really nothing else there, but I wonder about Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan.

A counter point is that I'm a UConn grad watching who is reacting to their Final Four appearances for both men's and woman's bball and it's not just alumni who care. I suppose since there is no top-level sports in the state (I think?) they do need something to attach themselves to.

I see a bunch of my high school classmates who I know didn't go to UConn (or any other college in most cases) are really into UConn sports. Good on them. It is their tax dollars that provide the baseline support for the University system, and they're supporting it at a much higher level than they did when I was a student there. Might as well get some return on those dollars.

Alumni of my age (graduated before Jim Calhoun came to town) largely don't care. To me the whole alumni scene was a bunch of brown nosing social climbers sorting out the pecking order amongst themselves while not giving a damn about anything else going on outside their clique. The sport of interest in my day was soccer where both men and women had national championship caliber teams.

Two corrupt, greedy, and selfish organizations like the NFL and the NCAA coming together to create a league. What could go wrong? College football obviously has a ton of work to do as far as conference alignment, NIL, the transfer portal etc but I don’t think the NFL is the group to help them. The TV deals are already screwing up all the conferences and unless the current conferences are abolished and everything becomes regional the non power 5 teams better just pack up shop now.

I don't see any way to put the toothpaste back into the tube. The rich schools want to be richer and there's not much the other schools can do to slow them down. The only agent of change that will take force is if/when their greed drives the entire ship against the rocks.

 

[XLIX]

I don't see any way to put the toothpaste back into the tube. The rich schools want to be richer and there's not much the other schools can do to slow them down. The only agent of change that will take force is if/when their greed drives the entire ship against the rocks.

I think ultimately there will be a split between the professional college football teams and amateur college football teams.

 

[203Pat]

Indeed. The whole narrative of college football has been 'we build young men' but as you say it also funds programs that benefit young women too.

Now a bunch of Park Street dandies see a way for them to monopolize the sport and create windfall profits for themselves by focusing on the big schools and leaving the small schools to wither on the vine.

Meanwhile the average American is so brainwashed their first instinct is to say "what's wrong with that?".

They are the same people who have been eating Cheese Whiz their entire lives and have no idea what real cheese tastes like, and never will.


A counter point is that I'm a UConn grad watching who is reacting to their Final Four appearances for both men's and woman's bball and it's not just alumni who care. I suppose since there is no top-level sports in the state (I think?) they do need something to attach themselves to.

I see a bunch of my high school classmates who I know didn't go to UConn (or any other college in most cases) are really into UConn sports. Good on them. It is their tax dollars that provide the baseline support for the University system, and they're supporting it at a much higher level than they did when I was a student there. Might as well get some return on those dollars.

Alumni of my age (graduated before Jim Calhoun came to town) largely don't care. To me the whole alumni scene was a bunch of brown nosing social climbers sorting out the pecking order amongst themselves while not giving a damn about anything else going on outside their clique. The sport of interest in my day was soccer where both men and women had national championship caliber teams.


I don't see any way to put the toothpaste back into the tube. The rich schools want to be richer and there's not much the other schools can do to slow them down. The only agent of change that will take force is if/when their greed drives the entire ship against the rocks.

Couldn't agree more with everything you said. These suits will hire bean counters to look at spreadsheets and figure out everything above this line makes money and everything below it doesn't and guess what happens to everything below that line? All of a sudden tennis, women's cross country, and swimming are all gone while football gets a 50 inch TV in every locker. The need to monetize any and everything in this country is the reason why the top 1% could buy and sell the other 99% without batting an eye. The profits at all costs view completely contradicts what college athletics is supposed to be about. I am all for NIL and players getting paid but for the other 95% of college athletes whose names and likeness aren't worth anything they just want to compete in a sport they love won't always be able to pay their way if their sport even exists still.

You brought up UConn which is a great example of what a football-centric approach to college athletics can do. Football killed Big East basketball for years and Big East football completely failed. Now that Big East basketball has been mostly re-formed UConn and many other teams in the conference are thriving. Maybe basketball, or any of the other sports, will never bring in the big profits like football but when a kid is competing out of sheer love for their sport to take that away from them over money is criminal.

 

[Thelonious]

Once upon a time, we used to say, with at least SOME reason, that "sports builds character," and this perception formed the basis of a rationale for having organized athletics being associated with our educational institutions. I no longer believe this rationale applies. I once studied the matter for an academic debate. Such evidence as exists suggests that my skepticism is well-founded.

The NFL needs a minor league. Let them establish one, as other sports have done, and get organized athletics - professional athletics,truth be told: surely no one any longer buys the "student athlete" scam - out of our schools, replacing them with activities which actually do build character and establish life-long habits of physical exercise. Football, in particular, has no place in educational settings, as the evidence shows, clearly, that due to injury and perhaps to habituation to public acclaim for one's efforts, the sport actually make former footballers LESS likely to be life-long exercisers than non-athletes in general; and no one, I think, would claim that the ethos associated with footabll is entirely desirable or admirable.

Football is a spectacle, and we enjoy it on that basis. Let's not pretend it is anything more noble than that.

 

[Bill Lee]

Couldn't agree more with everything you said. These suits will hire bean counters to look at spreadsheets and figure out everything above this line makes money and everything below it doesn't and guess what happens to everything below that line? All of a sudden tennis, women's cross country, and swimming are all gone while football gets a 50 inch TV in every locker. The need to monetize any and everything in this country is the reason why the top 1% could buy and sell the other 99% without batting an eye. The profits at all costs view completely contradicts what college athletics is supposed to be about. I am all for NIL and players getting paid but for the other 95% of college athletes whose names and likeness aren't worth anything they just want to compete in a sport they love won't always be able to pay their way if their sport even exists still.

You brought up UConn which is a great example of what a football-centric approach to college athletics can do. Football killed Big East basketball for years and Big East football completely failed. Now that Big East basketball has been mostly re-formed UConn and many other teams in the conference are thriving. Maybe basketball, or any of the other sports, will never bring in the big profits like football but when a kid is competing out of sheer love for their sport to take that away from them over money is criminal.

It's weird for me to go back to campus every decade or so. It's so clear that so much of the improvement there is due to bball. Not just for student athletes but for all students. It's the tribalism of sports that engages so many people outside the campus community. Having a governor who was a UConn grad during the peak of Calhoun's era certainly helped engage the legislature and funnel money into the campus. None of this was happening when I was there when CT was in massive decline after a decade of the Vietnam War pumped massive amounts of money into Pratt, EB, Lycoming, Colt, etc then it all stopped in a very short period of time. Now I see an engineering building sponsored by UTC, which is the kind of engagement we never had in the old days.

The main problem is: how do you keep the benefit of all that money and publicity from bball in balance with the need to run a genuine University and prevent the University from becoming nothing more than an adjunct to the bball program? It's a tough problem, not just for UConn but for all Universities. IMO this "super league" concept only makes the problems tougher.

 

[Bill Lee]

Meritocracy by definition requires equal starting points and level playing field.
American economics has never had that nor aspired to it.

This isn't about capitalism or not capitalism. It is about a superorganism known as the human race that's chewing through its resources as fast as it can under the hubris of "growth" and some kind of superstitious "faith" based justification.

For football to end up consolidated into a single, centrally-governed structure is entirely predictable, which unfortunately doesn't reduce the disappointment.

Reminds me of the saying they used to have in Communist Russia: Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.

It suggests to me that human greed transcends both capitalism and communism.

Modern China is a fine example of that.

 

[Bill Lee]

Interesting article about the kind of players we'll see less of if college football gets "pasteurized" by a super-league:

From Rice to Payton to McNair: Small-school studs for all 32 NFL teams

NFL stars -- legends like Jerry Rice and Walter Payton -- can be found anywhere, not just at traditional college football powers. Here's one for every team.

www.espn.com

For us they went with Malcolm Butler, whereas I would have gone with Julian Edelman myself.

 

[FortressX]

A college "Super League" could bring NFL-style features (salary cap, draft, trades) to college football

College football would essentially become pro football.

www.nbcsports.com

 

[XLIX]

A college "Super League" could bring NFL-style features (salary cap, draft, trades) to college football

College football would essentially become pro football.

www.nbcsports.com

There is no way they have a draft or trades at the college level.

 

[Vindicate]

Given there's some decent discussion in here, I want to share some readings that are proximal to college athletics, money, professional college football, etc. :

Most Americans don't realize state funding for higher ed fell by billions - higher ed funding plummeting (I'm sure by this point we've all heard/seen this, but it's important because is a reason why higher ed institutions have to rely on investors, who have the interest of profit first and foremost.)

A critical article from 2012 detailing University of Texas' athletic department and it's role in the economy: Billionaire Ball. (Maybe to your point, @Thelonious - as the subtitle is "Epitaph of the 'Student-Athlete'"

Report on campus debt uncovers larger problems facing public higher education - something from UMass Amherst on capital debt in colleges.

Another article: Sports - Who's Funding Who?


Main reason I post these: Cities, colleges, and more have hitched some large part of their economy to the NCAA - the interest of it existing is beyond just the NCAA and its athletes.

The reason the NFL/NCAA and other sports groups exist isn't just because they make money through the sport, it's because they have crept into every facet of economy they can.

Someone recently asked me why I thought eSports has less stability beyond it being relatively new, and this is some of the stuff I found when putting together a detailed response.

Enjoy! Or don't, whatever.

Edit: added another article