A group called College Sports Tomorrow (CST) wants to reform college football as we know it. In reality, it’s just the latest attempt at forming a gridiron super league to sweep away old rivalries and squeeze every last drop of revenue from a cultural mainstay.
CST is a 20-person group that includes executives from universities like West Virginia and Syracuse, the NFL and Philadelphia 76ers owner David Blitzer. They saw a market inefficiency — the waning power of the NCAA, rising costs of litigation related to student athletes and vulnerability of an expanding College Football Playoff — and opted to grab their piece of the pie. Their reported plan to fix college football, laid out by Andrew Marchand and Stewart Mandel in The Athletic, is a massive overhaul that would protect Division I’s power brokers and lock them into one massive media rights contract (which may or may not be legal per current broadcasting deals and looming antitrust concerns).
There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s go over the biggest steps in the CST plan to reshape Saturdays as we know them.
1
The league would have 70 permanent members, consisting of the biggest powerhouses in college football
Syndication: Ocala StarBanner
Is your favorite football team part of a current Power Five conference (even the Pac-2!)? Congratulations, you’d be a part of the 70-team permanent class in CST’s proposal, along with Notre Dame. That means that, yes, this super league would include Vanderbilt. And no, the Commodores could not be relegated, because…
2
There would be 10 more rotating members based on performance, but the Power Five teams would be excluded from relegation
USA Today Sports
The rest of Division I would be left to compete for 10 spots at the top of the game, with promotion and relegation taking place much like it does in European soccer leagues. The exact mechanism of how many teams can filter through the ranks in a given season hasn’t yet been worked out, and could always be a bargaining chip to drop in order to entice bigger schools that may not want to play Rice or San Jose State. Still, for now, the CST is combining a longtime wish list item for sports fans while guaranteeing established programs the safety of knowing they’ll never be shipped from the Premier League to the Championship.
3
These 80 teams would compete for 16 playoff spots
Syndication: The Providence Journal
This 80-member top division would be split into eight divisions — though their makeup is yet unclear. Seven divisions would be from the 70 Power Five teams and Notre Dame. The eighth would be the 10 Group of Five teams subject to promotion and relegation.
The division champions would claim one of eight automatic bids to a 16-team playoff bracket. The remaining eight spots would be filled by wild-card teams, determined by overall record and tiebreakers similar to the NFL’s current system.
4
Revenue would not be split evenly among members
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Under the CST’s proposal, the media rights revenue would be weighted toward bigger programs. That means larger payouts for Alabama and Clemson than Oregon State or Rutgers.
5
The major programs any "Super League" needs aren't especially interested yet
Syndication: The Columbus Dispatch
The CST has reached out to major conferences in order to pitch, uh, eliminating major conferences. Unsurprisingly, they haven’t been especially receptive.
The ACC board of directors heard a presentation from the group in February. However, planned dinners with administrators from the Big Ten, SEC and Big 12 all were called off. Spokespersons for the Big Ten and SEC said commissioners Petitti and Greg Sankey, respectively, have not met with Perna’s group.
6
A signficant NFL executive is part of this push, but the league insists it's not involved
Jason Parkhurst-USA TODAY Sports
The CST has several big fish involved, but the largest comes from one of college football’s largest stakeholders. Brian Rolapp is an NFL executive who answers only to commissioner Roger Goodell. He knows football, he knows media rights and he brings immediate credibility to the proposal — even if the league itself isn’t a part of this push.
From Marchand and Mandel:
He was the mastermind of the NFL’s current $110 billion in TV deals and has been sought for top college commissioner jobs. While it is in the best interest of the NFL to have its feeder system of college football be strong, executives briefed on Rolapp’s role insist the league is not involved. Rolapp declined to comment.
7
Gordon Gee is also a force behind this, so it's probably a bad idea
Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports
Gee has long been a parasite clinging to the world of college athletics from multiple posts at the top of major colleges and universities. The former president and chancellor at Brown, Ohio State, Colorado, Vanderbilt and now West Virginia’s job is to suck money from donors, degrade the student experience and generally leave places richer than when he started and simultaneously worse. He most recently made headlines for implementing serious cuts at West Virginia and earning an overwhelming vote of no confidence in Morgantown.
If Gordon Gee is involved, football fans and students generally suffer. But hey, it means rich folks will get richer, so he gets to stick around.
