2024 college football offseason thread

Wouldn’t bowl affiliations be updated to reflect the new jumbo B1G and ACC? Not to mention the expanded CFP.

 

Are they slotting the 1 and 2 seeds into the Rose and Sugar respectively? I imagine the money is so huge they really don't care if they send say LSU or Bama to Pasadena and USC to New Orleans. But given you have two more rounds of playoffs after the New Years games, it might be nice if they gave fans a break on travel costs and just placed the higher seeds to their closest venue. But I know this isn't about the fans...

 

Map those out on your calendar, then slot in all the NFL games. The NFL will have games on every night except Tuesdays this season. It's gonna be wall to wall football overkill.

 

I do like the byes. Keeps the regular season relevant and makes the conference championship games have stakes. But some of these home games in December will have brutal weather. I do look forward to seeing SEC teams playing in snow and sub 40 degree temps.

 

Wait for it.

 

Oh. My. God.

 

Oh crap had to watch it twice to see what I was missing

 

Barron's has a cover story about private equity starting to invest in sports. The article did not cover private equity investing in college sports. But if that starts to happen it will be time for colleges to spin off the football team as a separate business and be done with it.

I am not trying to debate if private equity is a positive or negative force in our society but I if private equity is involved those guys will want to maximize their profit. Whatever ties still remain between the academic mission of the university and the athletic program (and they already are getting pretty damn slim) will be completely cut.

 

Or right thinking alumni will want them cut.

 

Just wait until private equity realizes there ARE no profits in college athletics. How many college athletic programs operated in the black? Five, maybe? How many without student subsidies? And now with NIL and the House settlement? And cross-country trips to conference games? And don't forget Title IX.

 

Generally speaking, the only schools that don't subsidize intercollegiate athletics are in the Big 10 or SEC. I think a couple of ACC schools do not.

But trust me, the private equity guys will be looking to get their money somehow. I cite as an example the newspaper industry. Unlike college athletics, newspapers face declining revenues but private equity still manages to pull money out.