That could certainly happen, but I think if you take away the campus connection many alums have with a program and you basically turn the new college league into the NFL many people will just see it as a shittier version of the NFL and just like every other NFL alternative I think it will fail. College football wasn’t special because it was football. It was special for so many other reasons and those reasons are all being stripped away. It gives me NASCAR vibes. If you run off old fans and then bank on new fans loving the new version and turn your back on what made you successful you end up with a failing product.
The Walmart fans are going to go wherever their team goes but is that going to be enough? For it to be successful they basically have to turn all of us into Walmart fans. Attendance was already declining - that should be a canary in the coal mine.
I love college football but I’ll never be a hardcore fan of any team other than Charlotte. My fandom in the Panthers right now is at a place I couldn’t imagine ten years ago.
At some point, salary caps or some system of balancing talent will have to occur or it won’t be the top 30 or so, it will be concentrated to only 4 or 5 teams rotating national championships. How boring. With no limits only a few teams can afford a national champion contender.
Let’s cut to the chase. All this posting says one important truth. The only product of all sports is COMPETITION!!! You take that away and IMO it will wilt and die. If masses of fans eventually lose interest, what networks will pay millions to televise? Money drives everything. The so called super leagues don’t see it that way. They are proceeding with blinders on.
I wouldn’t mind being D2 with the ECUs, Apps, etc of the world and be regional. Where I’m from there’s nothing wrong with winning a AA state championship. But, hey, that’s just me
I think the big league break away would actually make D2 or whatever you want to call it MORE popular, which is another reason I think the minor league plan of the networks not work. One division is still playing college sports, regionalized with rivalries. One is basically the NFL developmental league with paid employees.
I know for me once they break away then I won’t watch those games at all. Zero impact to us.
The only way I see this new super league working is if they institute a salary cap to maintain competitive balance and then basically black ball all other football from TV forcing their football to be the only football. I don’t see either of those things happening though.
I think more than anything is it’s less sharing of revenue. They do not like Butler going to a final four or TCU being in the playoffs. Just look at all the talk of FSU not getting in the playoffs, but hardly any mention of Liberty being undefeated.
Back to Goldmine - I won’t give money directly. I would support via co-branded items.
Iowa’s and Iowa State’s collectives have partnered with local breweries to have co-branded beers. I expect something similar for the Goldmine Alliance.
I mean they would need lots of people to become chapel hill fans - duke alums ECU alums state alums etc - who never were on campus there but were on campus at their schools watching their football. The. You have to hope those people would rather watch chapel hill on tv than their own school.
I think you’re assuming they need Charlotte fans (etc). They don’t need them currently, why would they need them in the future? Let’s say 100 people are currently watching a CH basketball game. Then let’s say they pick up 5% new fans from teams that aren’t included in a new division. The number of people watching then becomes 105.
You could be referring specifically to the NCAA basketball championship. I could see those numbers possibly go down. But on the other hand, there wouldn’t be anymore UMBC upsetting a Virginia. In general, a UVA fanbase is going to travel farther and spend more than a UMBC fanbase.
I don’t see where it makes a difference in football at all. The P5 has dominated that for so long. In other words, if a new division meant keeping a UCF out and possibly allow a PSU in the playoffs, I can’t see how the ratings would be lower.
I don’t think they are consolidating just for Chapel Hill fans or a 5% increase. What they are banking on is that they can turn Chapel Hill into the Panthers. That’s what the super league is all about. To do that they need a lot of people to walk away from their alma maters, to make TV money work it means a lot of us quit watching and going to our games and instead watching what ever the super league puts on TV Saturday.
If it’s just about Carolinas current fanbase or a marginal increase they don’t need to consolidate for that, they already have that. What they want is to basically push everyone else out of the market. They think by rolling all the major brands into one big league they will make enough money to justify paying these schools enough to walk away from what they currently are making.
I just don’t see millions of college football fans and alums prioritizing whatever regional team is in the league vs their Alma mater. They will get the Walmart fans sure - that instead of being a state fan will be a CH fan - but I don’t think the networks understand what has made college football special.
I am in the same camp as NWA and will not follow any of the super league. But I believe they will prevail with their mission and gain a whole new level of followers that pick a team that they see on TV every Saturday.
Especially younger fans, before they go off to college, will have a team they follow and will continue to do so. It May be their second favorite team, but that is fine because their Alma Mater is basically nobody in football.
Example: Sorry, I’ll try to keep it brief.
At a local bar uptown (that I frequent way to often) watching the Oregon game with friends from my building and other random fans watching the game.
Drunk girl 1: Yells - SEC,SEC
Random Dude1: Go Buckeyes
Drunk Girl 1: LSU - LSU (she did not go there)
Random Dude2: Roll Tide.
Drunk Girl2: I’m from Chicago, I like the Bears.
Drunk Girl 1: Greg, who do you follow?
Oregon dude trying to watch game: Greg went to Charlotte.(props to him, he went there.
Drunk Girl 1: speaking to me ’ OK, but who do you follow in football’
I hate it but just the way it is.
I have no idea if this is readable but makes perfect sense to me,
