As college football's elite is engulfed in a power struggle, G5 left just trying to survive: 'We are a farm system'

smort, 3 months ago

Yeah as a USF fan, I’m expecting at least the next few years to be painful. We don’t have the money to compete on NIL deals, we don’t have the money to compete on coaching salaries.

Maybe we sneak into a depleted ACC.

Maybe the big 2 conferences fuck off with ESPN and leave the rest of us to a game ruled by slightly less money

g0d0fm15ch13f, 3 months ago

As a Tennessee fan, I highly doubt we form a totally walled off league. Even if we do jump ship from the NCAA (won’t happen b/c non revenue sports but let’s say we do) I don’t think the big dogs will stop coming after the studs from teams like USF. So the question becomes how can you incentive those athletes to not leave for greener pastures monetarily. The only solution that comes to mind for me is to fight fire with fire, but that would make the G5+ no better and no different than the P2.

wjrii, 3 months ago

I don’t think the big dogs will stop coming after the studs from teams like USF.

While I don't think pro/rel is the solution in CFB, at all, I do think professional soccer has it right in how they handle similar roster pressures with nominally "equal" clubs on obviously uneven financial ground. If you pay players for a 3-4 year commitment, there is control with compensation. Big teams buy the contracts of players from smaller teams, and they pay training compensation to the teams where players first developed, and some non-negligible fees go to the players as well. Players still move, but in doing so they keep their old clubs financially healthy, the costs throw some grit into the flow from small to large, so not every player moves after every good year, and players are incentivized to maximize their value where they are. Something roughly analogous could happen in a professionalized CFB, though obviously compressed with most of the players moving on after 3-5 years.

Though, as I wander off on a tangent, admittedly the length of contracts is another wrinkle in professionalizing, and the powers that be do have their work cut out for them finding the right way to maintain a connection to the schools to keep product differentiation (i.e. how to keep it "college" football). A "lower" league can be vibrant and have passionate fans, but it needs something to make it unique and to have its rewards valued by stakeholders; in England for instance, history and community ties are enough to keep 100+ clubs culturally relevant. A "minor" league, on the other hand, is ultimately practice with uniforms and has a natural cap on how much enthusiasm it can generate.

g0d0fm15ch13f, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

I actually personally somewhat buy into the pro/rel model for cfb. I just think the model has to also accommodate regional rivalries and other cherished games. I think it could actually add a lot to the sport, could you imagine laughing at uga getting kicked to the EFL equivalent? I think what will ultimately start to degrade fan interest in lower tier programs is a decline in regular season stakes. I hate how ESPN is desperately artificially pumping up the post season, I think bowls where you celebrate a good year is all we really need, who doesn’t love arguing about the best team anyway? Like even after the ncg, we argue about it for shits and giggles. Keeping an emphasis on beating insert rival here lets smaller programs still survive and benefit from any kickback the bigger teams may have to pay and it lets big teams survive potential falls from grace with the additional coaching (and staff) carousel this sport has to survive as well.

wjrii, 3 months ago

So, maybe I'll backpedal a bit. I used to argue vigorously against pro/rel for CFB, and I still don't think it works particularly well for the American mindset and not at all if you have rosters that have (1) players early in their development curves, (2) limited player movement and (3) literally every player cycling out of the "league" in 5 years. In the older system, it causes the exact problem, competitive imbalance, it meant was invented to combat, because what is more classic than a team of seniors overachieving or one full of freshmen taking their lumps and learning on the job?

In the old days, annual Euro stlye pro/rel would be a disaster for any "interesting" newly promoted teams and an unsatisfying romp for many relegated ones. You'd eventually settle into yoyo clubs but to an even less satisfying degree than in England now. Latin America style rolling performance relegation could work, but it rarely goes smoothly in practice, and is basically dead (or at least in a coma) in Mexico. Hell, the Superleague is rearing its head again in Europe, because Real Madrid and Juventus have somehow decided that a world where they can't outspend their opponents is the same thing as soccer "dying." We might see the end of pro/rel in Europe before we see a large US organization adopt it.

Still, In the new world order of CFB? Who the heck knows. Pro/rel could work. Playoffs aren't going away, so base playoff participation (but not seeding) at least 75% on conference performance, ban contracts for advance OOC scheduling (it's sports... the "need" to schedule 10-12 years out is overstated), let players go part-time and hang around for 7-8 years if they don't have an NFL future. Rework the TV deals with parachute payments and revenue sharing. You could craft a scenario where it works, and it could be an antitrust dodge the biggest schools are willing to stomach. I don't THINK SO, but nothing makes sense anymore anyway, LOL.

Fridge, 3 months ago

Yeah, they’re a farm system. Same as Power 5 is for the NFL

We’re just getting closer to admitting that truth and paying the athletes for their work in the minor leagues, er, I mean college. And maybe someday soon we’ll come to grips with how outrageously oversized the minor leagues are compared to the majors.

wjrii, 3 months ago

We’re just getting closer to admitting that truth and paying the athletes for their work in the minor leagues, er, I mean college.

I mean, good. I want the college teams to have some essential nexus with the schools, but there are more ways to do that than the current or the prior model. The fiction that they're just regular ol' students who work out and practice and play for the love of "good ol' 'varsity" is ridiculous to the point of being insulting, and now we're in the worst of all worlds where the schools STILL pretend and therefore also won't pay the players directly to commit to them for 3-4 years, but the money is there so the players all (reasonably) follow it. Even the guys who have accepted that the NFL isn't an option (and among upperclassman starters I bet that's not very many) likely love the experience and lifestyle of playing football and/or getting a no-cost degree+NIL more than they love their specific schools.

g0d0fm15ch13f, 3 months ago

And maybe someday soon we’ll come to grips with how outrageously oversized the minor leagues are compared to the majors.

But I think this inherently must be true. Talent is gradually sifted through the system. It has too start with a wide net and then get filtered down. From thousands of high schools to hundreds of colleges to tens of pro teams. Plus with both the NFL and whatever the spring league is, I don’t think 130ish D1 teams is that ridiculously oversized. And with 130ish D1 teams, you need a ton of juco/dii+iii/hs options to fill the rosters.