Monday, August 22, 2022

The B$g T$n

 Urban Meyer is coming back to Fox to commentate on its "Big Noon" college football studio show this fall, and that's just fine with the Blob. After all, he's a lot safer in a studio than he is out in the wild, where he might accidentally maul another NFL franchise.

("Personal foul!" you're howling. "Fifteen yards!")

Yeah, but ... let me finish.

The real reason I have no quarrel with Urban here is he's the perfect guy to talk about not just Big Noon, but Big College Football Inc. in general. He is, after all, the epitome of the head-coach-as-CEO, having functioned as such at two of America's premier corporate programs, Florida and Ohio State. And the timing couldn't be better.

That's because the Big Ten -- henceforth to be spelled "B$g T$n" -- just signed the mother of all TV deals, a multi-platform structure that will bring in an estimated $1.2 b-as-in-billion a year. The contract, which runs until 2030, spans five networks but primarily Fox, CBS and NBC, which each Saturday will air a featured B$g T$n noon, 3:30 p.m. and prime time game, respectively.

The deal dwarfs every other college TV contract in the nation -- including that of the SEC, the other of the Big Two conferences. And it signals the continuing reimagining, driven almost solely by football, of the college athletic landscape.

Because now, presumably, the SEC will have to put together its own media super-deal. And that will further separate the B$g T$n and the SEC from whoever or whatever is left of the rest, forcing an eventual restructuring of Division I athletics.

Here's how it might unfold, at least in the Blob's less-than-crystal ball: The SEC and B$g T$n will take turns raiding the ACC out of existence, leaving its bones to bleach from Tallahassee to South Bend (or some other overwrought metaphor). Someone will pluck Oregon -- still valuable as a football property, which is all that matters now -- from the remains of the Pac-12.  What remains of that conference will then strike a merger with the remains of the Big 12, forming the bulwark of what henceforth will be known as "Division I."

The Big Two, meanwhile, will form their own entity with its own set of rules, separate from the obsolete NCAA. Call it "Super Division I," perhaps. Or "Super Not Exactly Friends." Or what the hell, "Godzilla", in the interests of accuracy.

The College Football Playoff, expanded to 16 teams, will include seven or eight Super Division I teams, plus the champions of eight D-I conferences. Kind of like the NCAA Tournament always has seven or eight teams apiece from the Power 5 conferences, plus the champions of the Ivies and the MEAC and all the other smaller D-I conferences.

The national championship game, in a bow to tradition and history, would be played on a revolving basis at one of the historic New Year's Day sites -- Pasadena (Rose Bowl), Dallas (Cotton), New Orleans (Sugar) and Miami (Orange).

Of course, truth being stranger than prediction, this is probably not the way it will go down at all. More likely, it will all wind up in an an entirely new, but wholly familiar, bowl game.

The Litigation Bowl.

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