It's a difficult challenge in all kinds of places. Link is about Georgia Tech. Ability to spend freely is challenged because the 15% - 40% of GT grads who are millionaires evidently are finding other uses for their funds.

https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2021/1...orgia-tech

Very interesting situation. It tells me that even if W&M had joined the ACC in the early '70s, under Davis Paschall's leadership, that the Tribe would still most likely be in the same situation as Ga. Tech is today. Even the Power 5 conferences are going to have a shake up (or, more correctly, a shake out) and the haves will totally separate themselves from the have nots. Look for it to happen shortly after the expiration of the current CBS/NCAAT contract. The haves will create their own basketball tournament among just themselves (they won't do it until then because they still want to grab the lion's share of the current CBS money). The last laugh will be on them, though, because many people like me watch it only to see the underdogs and the upsets. With no true underdogs, their tournament would be boring.

It is my understanding that the CBS/NCAAT contract runs until 2032. I'm not sure I see the P5 sticking around that long in football. There may be some sort of interim hybrid arrangement.

Some of my P5 friends are highly indignant that Cincinnati @ 12-0 kept their teams (Notre Dame & Ohio State) out of the playoff. Never mind that ND lost to Cincinnati, Cincinnati isn't P5...

I really think that a 16 team playoff is the best solution in FB for all divisions (separately of course). I would abolish the loser bowls for the rest, but that probably won't happen in the chase for TV $'s.

(12-18-2021 03:15 PM)LeadBolt Wrote:  It is my understanding that the CBS/NCAAT contract runs until 2032. I'm not sure I see the P5 sticking around that long in football. There may be some sort of interim hybrid arrangement.

Some of my P5 friends are highly indignant that Cincinnati @ 12-0 kept their teams (Notre Dame & Ohio State) out of the playoff. Never mind that ND lost to Cincinnati, Cincinnati isn't P5...

I really think that a 16 team playoff is the best solution in FB for all divisions (separately of course). I would abolish the loser bowls for the rest, but that probably won't happen in the chase for TV $'s.

I had heard 2025 on the NCAAT contract, so it looks like it must have gotten extended. The football schools will have broken off long before then. The surmise that the basketball schools would stay in the NCAA shows that they know that the intense interest in the tournament is because of the underdogs....so they must be guessing (correctly) that many fans will tune out of their big boy tournament.

Re Cincy, that P5 attitude just blows me away with its arrogance and stupidity. There would be tons of upsets if college games were played on neutral fields with neutral officials (and even more if the P5 ever played true road games at non-P5 venues). Without home field and home cooking the only advantage the P5 has is that they pull in better athletes. But better athletes don't always have the most heart. So the P5 attitude is just the greedy rich wanting more, more, more and not wanting anyone else to have any.

The reason the loser bowls still exist and, moreover, why they are increasing is because ESPN has to have live programming to show to bring in their millions of dollars of Geico commercials and to justify their exorbitant rates to cable providers and streaming services. (Just last night, with only 4 minutes left in the JMU/NDSU game, the YouTube TV contract expired with ESPN. So I didn't get to see the end and I can't watch the great Montana St. atmosphere that someone spoke of in the other thread. I wonder how long I can go without ESPN....).

And then there are the places where money seemingly is no object.
It's fun to speculate about what would unfold if tax exempt status for the big boys was no longer a given...

Will probably die on the vine but House Ways and Means member is stirring the pot:

"Congressional interest in the recent run of mega-contracts for college football coaches ramped up a notch Friday, when the chair of a House Ways and Means subcommittee announced that he has written letters to the presidents of two schools raising questions about how their athletics programs are “furthering the educational purposes” for which the schools receive tax-exempt status."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nc...939143002/