WHY STOP NOW? IMAGINE ONE COLLEGE FOOTBALL SUPERLEAGUE OF 12 ELITES
As long as premier programs are subdividing, why wouldn’t they weed out the conference riff-raff and play among themselves in the ultimate TV-fueled sandbox — Alabama, Ohio State, USC, Georgia, etc.?
The shift to an inevitable aristocracy is so seismic in college football — say, a dozen programs inside a hermetically sealed Thunderdome — that the terminology already is outdated. What’s described as a landscape of “gated communities” ignores a truer future of expansive estates and oligarchs.
Think mega-mansions. Think private islands. Think LIV Golf without the sheikhs, though the Saudis always could plant their blood-moneyed flags on campuses and turn Urban Meyer into their Greg Norman.
Do you really think the sport’s elites will settle for long on two leagues of 20-to-24 teams? Why share billions with Rutgers and Vanderbilt? Or, for that matter, with Illinois and Arkansas? Or even Iowa and Tennessee? The speed train has no use for whistle stops when a revolution — accelerated by conference realignment, NIL compensation, the trusty transfer portal and the dueling media forces of ESPN and Fox — is fated to end badly for a few dozen stragglers hoping to keep riding the coattails of superpowers.
The crystal ball shouldn’t be focused on the short term. Rather, how will the coup play out by decade’s end? Based on a “prestige” formula of recent on-field achievement, NIL collective potential, TV viewership appeal, home attendance, status as a reliable generator of revenue and relevance as an American university — in sum, prominence — I envision a weeding-out process of second- and third-class pretenders akin to relegation in the Premier League. Forget the Southeastern Conference and Big (fill in the number). Forget everyone else.
Each season, with a pot of gold similar to the NFL’s $113-billion media haul, the monster programs will duel one another in weekly, massively hyped showdowns that funnel the best four into a playoff televised by — wait for it — Amazon and Apple, outbidding the linear competition for the holiday tournament. The entitled dozen are listed in what I assume is an accurate cumulative power ranking based on recent events, sustained tradition and credibility and projected developments involving filthy-rich donors hellbent on making millionaires of teenagers so they can brag at the club:
1. Ohio State. 2. Alabama. 3. USC. 4. Georgia.
5. Notre Dame 6. Texas. 7. Texas A&M. 8. Miami.
9. Oklahoma. 10. LSU. 11. Michigan. 12. Florida.
That abruptly, the likes of Penn State, Wisconsin, Auburn and Clemson — Dabo Swinney leaves to coach the Carolina Panthers — will have to fend for themselves in lesser tiers. Those programs aren’t going away, nor will Oregon and Washington, Baylor and Utah, UCLA and Stanford, Florida State and Michigan State, North Carolina and Duke, Lane Kiffin and Mike Leach. Because every sport needs a Ted Lasso story line, UCF and Cincinnati will remain in their usual lanes. College football still will be played in hundreds of stadiums across the country, where TV networks of all sizes need programming and students need alcohol and hook-ups.
But every time Nick Saban talks about a “caste system,” every time Kirby Smart mentions that 95 of his Georgia players have had NIL deals and every time we hear another conference commissioner sound like an army general when assessing the furious movement — will our next Civil War be an outgrowth of SEC vs. Big Ten crossfire, with the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 absorbing the casualties? — you know, I can’t help but think the reconstruct is just beginning. If the Mon-stars are determined to drive bulldozers into the money piles and accrue as much wealth as possible, why would they socialize with the also-rans and let the riff-raff cash in? Why does Purdue deserve $100 million a year from the new Big Ten media deal? Why does Mississippi State deserve almost as much from the SEC media deal?
As it is, the sport is dominated by a select few. Since 2011, seven of the 11 national championships have been claimed by two programs — Alabama with five, Clemson two — and Ohio State, Georgia, LSU and Florida State each have won once. The current environment of program-poaching and NIL payoffs is creating a new strata of one-percenters that impacts our perception of the universities. Do you really want to send your kid to a place deemed inferior by the gods of sports and television? Academically, Stanford is still Stanford, Northwestern is still Northwestern, and Duke is still Duke. But when their leading alumni aren’t inclined to write big checks to football players, will those schools be viewed as something less if their teams aren’t playing USC, Ohio State and Miami anymore?
“Megaconferences will create more of a caste system, maybe, in college football, and everyone has to decide if that's the direction we really want to go or not," said Saban, who said his players — starting with Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Bryce Young, at $1 million-plus — have made more than $3 million in NIL money. “On the recruiting trail right now, there’s a lot of people using this as inducements to go to their school by making promises they may or may not be able to keep in terms of what players are doing. I think that is what can create a competitive balance issue between the haves and have-nots. We’re one of the haves. Don’t think that what I’m saying is a concern that we have at Alabama because we’re one of the haves.
“But everybody in college football cannot do these things relative to how they raise money in a collective or how they distribute money to players.”
Thus, we have a divide more gaping than the Grand Canyon. Alabama will remain one of the haves as long as Saban, pushing 71, preserves the sport’s most regal brand. Same goes for Ohio State, whose athletes have earned $2.98 million through NIL (as boosters are begging for more), and Georgia, which has risen to the upper crust with a national title. They’ve operated pro-style programs for years, and now, they can pay players legally like NFL teams and reload immediately via the transfer portal. Along with recruiting the nation’s No. 2-rated class — despite his priceless bemoaning of his one-time friend, Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher, for buying “every player” in the No. 1 class — Saban also replaced prized NFL draftees with the likes of All-SEC defensive back Eli Ricks (from LSU), wide receiver Jermaine Burton (from Georgia) and offensive lineman Tyler Steen (from Vanderbilt). With extraordinary built-in brand advantages, expect Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State to keep cleaning up and showing up consistently in whatever constitutes a national playoff.
Notre Dame, too, will carry on as a TV money machine, preferably as an continuing independent. And why not? Armed with negotiating leverage, the program can perpetuate what’s left of the Fighting Irish mythology — kids today don’t care about legends, ghosts and Touchdown Jesus — and convince NBC to quadruple its current $22-million-a-year outlay, set to end in 2025. Otherwise, Notre Dame jumps to a superconference for even more money. Either way, the Irish always will have a spot in the precious elite, if only for their industry uniqueness — not for a pedigree that hasn’t included a national title since 1988. Just don’t make that argument to former head coach Brian Kelly, who fled South Bend to LSU for a $95-million deal and, he said, “the ability to run a program at the highest level.” The networks will take care of Notre Dame, always.
Where the earth suddenly moves, beneath the greater paradigm, is within underperforming programs with boosters ready to spend absurd sums on talent. USC is blessed with such a ridiculous abundance of resources — affluent subsidizers in Los Angeles and the entertainment industry, not to mention the best, sunniest weather in a nation stuck in meteorological extremes — that the Trojans are bound to dominate the names, images and likenesses race. Lincoln Riley barely had arrived in town, from Oklahoma, before attracting a mother lode of transfers. Among the gifts are a superstar quarterback, Caleb Williams, who has used NIL to create a mini-corporation for himself. He hasn’t played a down for USC, yet he’s already one of L.A.’s biggest sports figures. You don’t think top high-school QBs will step right into his blueprint when he’s in the NFL?
Also poised to leapfrog into a better world, from a middling existence in the forgotten ACC, is Miami. Not that the Hurricanes are wowing anyone on the field, but the NIL game in ambitious, sexy South Florida — add corrupt — is aggressively lining the pockets of players. Donors have no conscience in such places, willing to pay millions to high-school juniors for signatures. Texas A&M, which likes to see itself as a big boy despite no national titles since 1939, is positioned to use bloated collectives as well. Texas landed the Next-Gen Manning — Arch, whose family hardly needs NIL money — and be certain more oil money will be funneled to Longhorns players and recruits. Ditto for Oklahoma. Smart is among those appalled by the practice of paying kids long before high-school graduation, as he can afford to be at Georgia. He thinks NIL is enabling teens to have too much prosperity too soon in life, leading to complacency.
“What I can't accept is some young man getting $10,000 a month for four years or three years of college?” Smart said. “That's $120K a year. What do you think he's doing with that? Is that actually gonna make him more successful in life? Because, I promise you, if you handed me $10K a month my freshman year of college, I probably wouldn't be where I am today. I believe that.”
Good thing. Because the coach just signed a record 10-year, $112.5 million deal. He also worries the pay disparity will disrupt team morale. “I think education is the key to NIL," Smart said. “You start with an NFL model. Why does Lamar Jackson or Deshaun Watson make more than the left guard? Well, that's the price they demand. That's the market value they demand. So once you start educating players on that, they understand why Bryce Young gets multimillion dollars in endorsements but yet the next guy might not. That's also a cancer; a disease that can destroy a team. The quickest way to get no NIL deal is to lose.”
The best solution is offered by Kiffin: an NIL compensation cap. But then, he has an agenda at Ole Miss, which has no chance to compete for titles in any pay-for-play sandbox with the elites. Besides, who implements and regulates the cap? The NCAA is in a death spiral. Congress, despite rumors of possible intervention, won’t be entering the college football fray. “I think ideally, if we're going to be in an NIL world — somehow you're going to do it right — it's going to get capped so there's some way of controlling it and keeping playing fields close to the same,” Kiffin said. “Otherwise, you're just going to have these glaring differences within Division I football. That's based off of looking what happens in professional sports. There's salary caps. The coach and the general manager/owner manage that.”
Look, the elites don’t want a cap. Plus, until universities agree that athletes are paid employees, a cap would be illegal. So never mind.
What we have here is pro football for young men. The sport’s quirky sage, Mississippi State’s Mike Leach, knows the days of Alabama and Georgia coming to Starkville are dwindling.
“It’s not sustainable, so something’s going to change,” he said of the emerging status quo. “College athletes have more privileges than anybody at any other professional level. Go up to your favorite NFL guy and say, ‘Hey, I heard in the NFL they’re going to have unmitigated free agency, 365, 24/7. And, by the way, there’s not going to be any salary cap or draft, you’re just going to have bidding wars. Just watch the expression on their face. Don’t look at anything else or write down notes because the expression on their face will be well worth it.”
Which is why any crystal ball must be set to 2029. By then, Saban will have retired, Smart might be the governor of Georgia, Fisher and Texas’ Steve Sarkisian will have staged a death duel in a Houston recruit’s living room, and Riley will be coaching the L.A. Rams. Even Fisher, who stands to benefit from the new way of doing business, expresses concern. “What does human nature make you scared of? The unknown,’’ he said. “We have so much unknown. That’s why we’re all on the edge and panicked about what’s going on.”
The richest programs, like the richest entrepreneurs and the richest countries, have nothing to fear. When in doubt, for now and forever, follow the money.
“Buy or die” is the mission, leaving the sport with an eventual dirty dozen. In the interim, we’ll do higher academia a favor: No longer will this blatantly professional exercise be referred to as college football.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.