What would you do if CFB created a "Super League"

Tharvot

Tharvot

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I know not many of you are footy fans, but something pretty seismic just was announced in European football. The crux of the story is 12 of the world's biggest soccer names announced they are breaking away from UEFA competition to form their own exclusive Super League. They will likely expand that 12 founders number to 15 once a few other brands hop on board and there will be 5 additional programs allowed in this exclusive league based on merit, which will rotate on an annual basis. The 15 founding members are in there as long as Super League exists.

The closest US sport I could think of that has had rumblings of anything even close to this is college football.

So, if the nation's blue bloods gave the NCAA the finger and broke off to do their own thing:

Who's in? (assume 20 total members with 15 founders and 5 rotating just like Super League)
Would you watch?
Is this better than the traditional conference regular season & bowl post season? (Assume it's set up like the NFL and we get a 10 team playoff system)
 
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I wanted to create this thread earlier but backed off after typing a few sentences. Good thought experiment!
 
RP-29 said:
Isn't college football supposed to be amateur?
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RP-29 said:
Isn't college football supposed to be amateur?
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CFBSL would be just as amateur as the NCAA, in my mind. It just kicks out the 2nd tier teams. Think of it as a league of the top 25's. I'd be thrilled with something like that, but rotate what schools are in it like the EPL. The 20-25th teams each year are rotated out for the best 5 teams not in the super league.
 
It would be a dud.

The Super Teams are used to winning and winning a lot. They need the Texas Tech, Maryland and South Carolina type teams to be successful. Most Super teams feast on inferior conference opponents to bloat their all-time records. Let Ohio State go 6-6 against a Super Schedule a few years in a row, and the HC would be canned. Plus, Ohio State wouldn't get to play Michigan any longer either!
 
78Cyclones said:
It would be a dud.

The Super Teams are use to winning and winning a lot. They need the Texas Tech, Maryland and South Carolina type teams to be successful. Most super teams feast on inferior conference opponents to bloat their all-time records. Let Ohio State go 6-6 against a Super Schedule a few years in a row, and the HC would be canned. Plus, Ohio State wouldn't get to play Michigan any longer either!
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Make the SL to have the best bowls with the highest payout.
It would make more of an issue finding the "national champ". If you have a SL team that is 10-3 to win the natty, but SCar outside the SL goes 13-0 then problems ensue.
 
78Cyclones said:
It would be a dud.

The Super Teams are use to winning and winning a lot. They need the Texas Tech, Maryland and South Carolina type teams to be successful. Most super teams feast on inferior conference opponents to bloat their all-time records. Let Ohio State go 6-6 against a Super Schedule a few years in a row, and the HC would be canned. Plus, Ohio State wouldn't get to play Michigan any longer either!
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Lol if you think scUM wouldn't be in that list.

If something like this were to unfold, my list would be something like this (spoiler: the SEC gets more teams in and not all the members are current title contenders):

From the B1G - Ohio State, Michigan, PSU
From the ACC - Clemson, Florida State
From the PAC - USC, Oregon
From the B12 - Texas, OU
From the SEC - Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, Florida, A&M
Indy - Notre Dame

There's your list of 15 founding members. 5 more admitted in based on recent merit.

Let the fighting begin
 
Tharvot said:
Lol if you think scUM wouldn't be in that list.

If something like this were to unfold, my list would be something like this (spoiler: the SEC gets more teams in and not all the members are current title contenders):

From the B1G - Ohio State, Michigan, PSU
From the ACC - Clemson, Florida State
From the PAC - USC, Oregon
From the B12 - Texas, OU
From the SEC - Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, Florida, A&M
Indy - Notre Dame

There's your list of 15 founding members. 5 more admitted in based on recent merit.

Let the fighting begin
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I think take it up to 25, still gives you plenty of sacrificial lambs.
 
fordman84 said:
I think take it up to 25, still gives you plenty of sacrificial lambs.
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Sure. Lets shrink it to 24 though and make 2 12-team divisions. NFL style, your schedule consists of only teams within the CFBSL. You have a 11-game regular season followed by a playoff. With 24 teams, maybe an 8-team playoff makes sense.
 
I wouldn't like it as for me what makes CFB so great is the nostalgia, the history, traditions, etc. However, this sort of brings up a good point. With all this debate about players getting paid, and seemingly the coaches and universities backing the efforts to get the players either more money or more support. The athletes should be asking their universities the real simple question of, why are we in the NCAA then?

Think about it. If all these universities actually believed in what they preached, they'd join together and leave the NCAA. In the big scheme of things the NCAA is nothing more than a governing body, that has absolutely no weight at all. It has absolutely no control. If USC, Ohio State, Michigan, Florida, Alabama, Etc. All decided enough was enough and they wanted their athletes to get paid, they'd leave the NCAA and form their own participating league. Other schools, if they believed the same, would surely follow, leaving the NCAA empty handed.

But then you could say, well the NCAA hosts these events and they are the ones who have the network deals and how the schools get their money. Oh the networks? The same ESPN network who employs several broadcasters and journalists who have no problem tweeting their advocation of student athletes getting paid? Surely if the networks and their employees practiced and believed in what they preached, they'd join in support of these universities who left the NCAA.
 
This isn't what they are doing. What they are doing is more like if the top 15 college basketball teams opted out of March Madness and had their own tournament instead. In futball, they will still play in their country leagues, it's just the big annual tournament will be these 15-20 teams. So the analogy doesn't really apply to CFB as well. Ok, that's everything and more that I know about futball.

I am for the P5 splitting with the G5 for football. G5 will have its own championship. That's just so we don't have to listen to the UCFs of the world complain every year that they don't get a fair shake.
 
WhosYourDawggy said:
This isn't what they are doing. What they are doing is more like if the top 15 college basketball teams opted out of March Madness and had their own tournament instead. In futball, they will still play in their country leagues, it's just the big annual tournament will be these 15-20 teams. So the analogy doesn't really apply to CFB as well. Ok, that's everything and more that I know about futball.

I am for the P5 splitting with the G5 for football. G5 will have its own championship. That's just so we don't have to listen to the UCFs of the world complain every year that they don't get a fair shake.
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So would it be closer to the top 20 teams setting up their own bowl schedule/playoffs?
 
WhosYourDawggy said:
This isn't what they are doing. What they are doing is more like if the top 15 college basketball teams opted out of March Madness and had their own tournament instead. In futball, they will still play in their country leagues, it's just the big annual tournament will be these 15-20 teams. So the analogy doesn't really apply to CFB as well. Ok, that's everything and more that I know about futball.
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It's a terrible idea which will eventually hurt the Major Clubs and destroy or lessen the EPL, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, etc.

fyi: The Missouri Valley Conference of the 1980s says "Hi". For a while, Tulsa, Wichita State and Drake were 1-A in football, and the rest of the MVC was 1-AA in football. They eventually scattered to the wind. Wichita Sate dropped football and recently moved to the AAC (without a football team); Tulsa was Independent and now in the AAC for all sports, and Drake dropped football and brought it back as a member of the FCS non-scholarship Pioneer Football League but is MVC in everything else. There is also an FCS MVC Football League. It's confusing.

If the Super teams want to leave, they need to leave. This goes for European Soccer teams and American College Football Teams. They cannot have their cake and eat it too.

Just my onion.
 
WhosYourDawggy said:
This isn't what they are doing. What they are doing is more like if the top 15 college basketball teams opted out of March Madness and had their own tournament instead. In futball, they will still play in their country leagues, it's just the big annual tournament will be these 15-20 teams. So the analogy doesn't really apply to CFB as well. Ok, that's everything and more that I know about futball.

I am for the P5 splitting with the G5 for football. G5 will have its own championship. That's just so we don't have to listen to the UCFs of the world complain every year that they don't get a fair shake.
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Yes and no. In theory, the Soccer clubs are staying in their domestic leagues. In reality, the meaning of those leagues is now completely diminished because the biggest prizes for doing well in the league (besides a trophy for winning it) are spots in European competition the following season. Additionally, the members of SuperLeague will get an estimated $250-$300 million paycheck each year from SuperLeague revenue. That puts them at a completely unfair competitive advantage to their domestic counterparts with very little drive to risk losing key players to injury during domestic competition...frankly, I don't see how the domestic leagues can possibly abide continuing to allow them membership to those leagues. But at the same time, without those big clubs, the leagues themselves are completely obliterated in stature and value.
 
OregonDucks said:
I wouldn't like it as for me what makes CFB so great is the nostalgia, the history, traditions, etc. However, this sort of brings up a good point. With all this debate about players getting paid, and seemingly the coaches and universities backing the efforts to get the players either more money or more support. The athletes should be asking their universities the real simple question of, why are we in the NCAA then?

Think about it. If all these universities actually believed in what they preached, they'd join together and leave the NCAA. In the big scheme of things the NCAA is nothing more than a governing body, that has absolutely no weight at all. It has absolutely no control. If USC, Ohio State, Michigan, Florida, Alabama, Etc. All decided enough was enough and they wanted their athletes to get paid, they'd leave the NCAA and form their own participating league. Other schools, if they believed the same, would surely follow, leaving the NCAA empty handed.

But then you could say, well the NCAA hosts these events and they are the ones who have the network deals and how the schools get their money. Oh the networks? The same ESPN network who employs several broadcasters and journalists who have no problem tweeting their advocation of student athletes getting paid? Surely if the networks and their employees practiced and believed in what they preached, they'd join in support of these universities who left the NCAA.
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Exactly. Say these blue bloods are tired of abiding by the NCAA's stupid rules. Maybe they think players should get paid (maybe they don't like being placed on suspension because some of their players got free tattoos) or maybe they think having a committee of people arbitrarily choosing who the best 4 teams are and therefore get to play in a "playoff" is stupid.

Would splitting off obliterate generations of traditional rivalries and wreck their former conferences? Yup

Would it make compelling matchups every week, a "true" national champion, and earn member schools a shit ton of money? Also yup.
 
Tharvot said:
Yes and no. In theory, the Soccer clubs are staying in their domestic leagues. In reality, the meaning of those leagues is now completely diminished because the biggest prizes for doing well in the league (besides a trophy for winning it) are spots in European competition the following season. Additionally, the members of SuperLeague will get an estimated $250-$300 million paycheck each year from SuperLeague revenue. That puts them at a completely unfair competitive advantage to their domestic counterparts with very little drive to risk losing key players to injury during domestic competition...frankly, I don't see how the domestic leagues can possibly abide continuing to allow them membership to those leagues. But at the same time, without those big clubs, the leagues themselves are completely obliterated in stature and value.
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Thanks ... I know nothing about soccer, but that makes sense.
 
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