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Lawless College Football Risks MLB Style Loss of Fans and Stature

College Football’s free agent extremism threatens competitive balance and the ability of fans to relate to it.

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Nov 4
Nov 4

By Rock Westfall

College Football’s free agent extremism threatens competitive balance and the ability of fans to relate to it.

How to Destroy an Emerging College Football Market 

On December 28, 2023, the Arizona Wildcats beat the Oklahoma Sooners 38-24 in the Alamo Bowl. In just his third season, Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch improved the Wildcats program from 1-11 in 2021 to 10-3 in 2023. A bowl win over one of college football’s power brands ignited momentum for a program that was primed for a breakthrough.

One week ago, Arizona was a young football program with unlimited upside. They would be one of the favorites to win the Big 12 Conference in 2024 and contend for the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.

Although known as a basketball school, Arizona fans were as excited for their football future as at any time in history. Fans were eager for what they expected to be a 2024 season of glory. Season ticket sales and donations were primed to skyrocket.   But a nuclear bomb has detonated in the desert.

Fisch left Arizona for the Washington Huskies. As bad as that was, it was still manageable because of the talent Fisch left behind. Or at least that is how it used to be. Instead, Arizona is likely to lose most of its roster and best players, many of whom will follow Fisch to Washington.

College Football just blew up an emerging hot market and a lot of goodwill.  

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If Arizona fans never attend another college football game and ignore the sport forever, who could blame them? What could have been the best team in school history instead disappeared in the dark of the night. Of greater concern is that this scenario will be playing out soon at a school near you.

Player’s Rights Pajama Boys Forgot a Key Element – LAW!

As NIL and the transfer portal emerged as new factors in college football, the pajama boy sports media squealed in delight. The lazy and tired old argument was that if a coach can leave anytime he wants for millions of dollars, why can’t players?

Of course, the media ignoramuses forgot to add that college football coaches work 24/7/365. They are on call more than elite medical personnel or the President of the United States, even when on “vacation.” They have zero privacy and are the target of unrestrained venom during tough times, often having to shelter their families in virtual bunkers during the uproars.  Players don’t face such demands. Not even close.

But these are the same putrid, pusillanimous pollyannas who screamed that college football players were playing for “free.” In their unbridled, if not intentional, ignorance, these player’s rights social justice warriors did not consider the value of a college education even as most of them whine about their “oppressive” student loan debt.

College football players were getting six-figure educations with three hots and a cot, all paid for. No doubt they earned those benefits, but that’s how America is supposed to work, or was, anyway.

Now, college football players can leave on a whim. If a coach actually coaches them, they can screech about being offended or insulted and take their ball and go to the next school. Or, in the case of Arizona, Alabama, and any school that loses a coach, they can leave.

The players got their rights and bags, and the pajama boys got to think they stuck it to the man. But the only folks really getting the shaft are the fans.

There is no law.  But there will be consequences.  

Now That College Football is a Pro Sport, Adapt or Die

The next great cause for the media minions is the unionization of college football players. Of course, this will be utter insanity. Can anyone say “STRIKE?” A season stoppage will sure as hell happen, just as it has in the major professional leagues.  And the great irony is that the media that covers the sport will support the strike, just as they fiercely advocated for COVID-related lockdowns and cancelations in 2020.  It takes a unique type of mind to advocate the destruction of the sport you cover for a living, but, hey, that’s the brilliance of the college football media.  

Instead of handing the game over to player’s unions that will hold the game hostage, college football would be well advised to develop frameworks where players sign contracts that lock them into their schools for multiple seasons. With that comes the necessity of a salary cap to ensure a competitive balance. 

The NFL and NHL have relatively hard caps and strong competitive balance. But these sensible ideas require vision and the collective sharing of power. Which means they are unlikely.

College Football faces the risk of degenerating into Major League Baseball, where a few mega markets dominate the game, and the rest of the teams serve as developmental farm teams that feed talent to the mega-market brands such as the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.

A Warning From History

Younger sports fans would be shocked to learn that the sad-sack Kansas City Royals were once a perennial MLB World Series contender. From 1973 through 1989, the Royals were in the hunt almost every season. Before the current expanded participation trophy wild card expansion, KC made the playoffs seven times when it was much more difficult to do so. The Royals won two pennants and a World Series title. They even had a superstar who played his entire Hall of Fame career in KC, George Brett. Kansas City was a thriving baseball market and among the MLB leaders in attendance.  

But with the proliferation of large market cable TV networks and their willingness to pay big for championship content, Kansas City was blown away and left behind.  100-loss seasons and an empty stadium are now the norm in KC. Sound familiar?

It is now impossible for small-market MLB teams to sustain success. Franchises such as the Oakland A’s, who won three consecutive World Series titles (1972-74), are currently farm clubs. Concurrently, the A’s play in front of three or four people per game as they await a desperate move to Las Vegas.

Is this the college football future of Arizona, Iowa State, Purdue, Northwestern, Mississippi State, Wake Forest, Illinois, Pitt, Syracuse, and countless other schools?  Probably so.  

A Failed Opportunity and Two Success Stories

Baseball had a chance to save itself when it canceled the end of the 1994 season, locking the players out. But in 1995, the feckless fools who ran the game caved in, and the big markets became permanent powers.  The 1994 playoffs and World Series were canceled for nothing by gutless, gelded cowards unwilling to hold the line.  

But two other sports were not afraid to clang their church bells.

In 1987, the NFL players walked out on strike after a couple of games. Led by then-Dallas Cowboys president Tex Schramm, the NFL used replacement players and played on. The regular players quickly returned. The union was brought to heel, and the NFL has had control of its business ever since.

In 2004-05, the National Hockey League owners took the ultimate hard line, nuking an entire season rather than surrendering to fiscal insanity. The tail stopped wagging the dog in hockey.  The NHL now has tremendous competitive balance and market stability.  

College football faces the same fork in the road as the sports mentioned above. Will it continue with its current laissez-faire era that will end up driving away fans and permanently busting out schools? Or will it put the hammer down, NFL and NHL style, and get its affairs in order?

https://twitter.com/TylerRittinger/status/1690184282403409920

We See the Future, And It Doesn’t Work 

It is agreed that college football needs a pro sports type of commissioner or “czar.” But do you really think SEC commissioner Greg Sankey or Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti will surrender any of their current substantial power for the greater good?   And for that matter, do you really believe lightweights such as ACC commissioner and warden Jim Phillips would do so either when he can instead hold schools as prisoners for the next decade in a league that has devolved into a maximum-security prison?

Because of ego, selfishness, extreme self-interest, lack of vision and courage, and Gordon Gekko-style greed, the result of college football’s current state will be the loss or demotion of programs, the permanent power status of a few schools, and the inability of fans to relate to the game.  A mass exodus of customers will follow.  

College basketball was once a thing, a big thing with a meaningful regular season. Now, it is a three-week binge of gambling and brackets in March. Fans can’t connect to a sport where the players come and go through a revolving door, much like with small-market MLB teams.

College hoops and baseball are niche sports these days instead of the powerhouses they used to be. College football, you’re next.

College football’s current situation is reminiscent of an unfortunate village caught up in the Viet Nam War. An American military officer being interviewed on TV said of the village, “We have to destroy it to save it.”

The self-destruction of college football is highly likely. And it may be the only way to save the sport from itself.

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