Bowl games used to be the pinnacle of college football. But over the past few years, they’ve been rapidly losing their value. Most notably, they’ve become bloated beyond belief. This upcoming season there will be forty-four bowl games, with a good chance that a few teams with a losing record will still qualify. More recently, star players have been skipping some of the less prestigious bowl games to focus on their NFL future. Then when the CFP announced the plan to move to a new 12-team playoff with some of the biggest games of the postseason moving onto campuses, it seemed like the nail in the coffin. That future got a little murkier yesterday when Barstool Sports announced that they were both sponsoring and broadcasting this year’s Arizona Bowl. No matter what happens this New Years Eve, it will give us a glimpse into the future of bowl games. Continue reading
Category: Sports
Oklahoma and Texas Are On the Move. Who’s Next?
College football is the gift that keeps on giving. July is supposed to be the most boring month of the CFB calendar, but not this year. Yesterday, a report came out in the Houston Chronicle that Texas and Oklahoma are in talks to leave the Big 12 and join the SEC, according to an anonymous source from an unknown school *cough* A&M *cough*. Some minor chaos ensued at SEC media days, with Texas A&M athletic director and master of uncomfortable press conferences Ross Bjork admitting that he would do everything in his power to stop Texas from joining. However, commissioner Greg Sankey and spokespersons from Texas and OU all offered clear non-denials, meaning that there’s smoke to this fire. We’ve officially entered the only time better than college football season: conference realignment season. Even though nothing concrete can happen until the Big 12 TV deal is up in 2025, let’s take a look at a couple of hypothetical routes this round of expansion might take. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: Ozymandias
Picture the headquarters of a massive company. A business so large that it has been described as “part of the fabric of America”. Just down the street, there is a small town where all the employees of that business live. It has everything a normal town does: housing, dining, shopping, a chapel, a school, and even some recreational facilities. All these employees don’t receive a regular salary. Instead, they’re paid in monopoly money that they can only spend in the town. They’re free to come and go as they please, but they don’t have any real money they can spend in another town, and leaving would mean finding a new job in an entirely new industry. For all intents and purposes, their entire lives are tied to living in that town and following the boss man’s rules. What do you think I’m describing? A company town built by one of the robber barons of old, like Carnegie or Vanderbilt? Well yes, but I’m also describing the other Vanderbilt. Continue reading
12 Was College Football’s Magic Number All Along
College football fans are not known for being the most understanding or cooperative people. But there’s one thing that we have always been able to agree on: the sport’s postseason has been flawed from day one. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: The Beginning of the End
Welcome back to Failure to Monitor. Last time, we talked about when the NCAA handed down the death penalty to SMU football in a desperate attempt to regain control over the member schools. It worked for the most part, with teams falling in line out of fear that they would be next. For a while, all the league had to deal with was the occasional run-of-the-mill recruiting scandal. One such incident happened at the University of North Carolina, where multiple players, including Marvin Austin, Greg Little, Robert Quinn, and Michael McAdoo were all permanently banned from the NCAA for taking money from an agent. But these payments weren’t the only thing the league uncovered. Little did they know, this seemingly simple investigation would dig up something much deeper. Something that would end up striking at the very heart of the NCAA. Continue reading
The Cost of Relegation is Too Much for the MLS to Bear
I want to say right off the bat that I’m a fan of the promotion and relegation system in international soccer. It does an incredible job of preventing tanking, promoting meritocracy, and keeping some games from becoming meaningless at the end of the year. However, introducing this system into Major League Soccer like many have tried to do in the past would destroy the league, and set American soccer as a whole back decades. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: The Death of Dallas
Welcome back to Failure to Monitor. The series about the NCAA, and how they’ve been shaped by scandal. Last time, we talked about the case of Board of Regents v. NCAA, where the Supreme Court ruled that the organization had breached the Sherman Antitrust Act, opening the floodgates for money to pour into individual schools. Once that line was crossed, the member schools didn’t look back. Big time programs started flaunting their wealth in the face of the NCAA by brazenly paying players and recruits outrageous amounts of money. Nowhere was this more prevalent than in the old Southwest Conference. One school decided to go even further than the rest, and the NCAA saw an opportunity to take the power back. Continue reading
The Corporate, Hairless Future of College Sports
In case you somehow missed it, this morning my alma mater South Carolina announced a new partnership with Manscaped, a company that sells men’s razors and trimmers specifically designed to shave their nether regions. They’re known for having unsettlingly aggressive marketing, and today’s press release did not disappoint. Continue reading
Failure to Monitor: The Turning Point
Welcome back to failure to monitor. Last time, we recounted the saga of Jerry Tarkanian, and how the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA had total control over governing and discipline their member schools. However, in 1984, everything changed. Continue reading
Football Is For the Fans. For Now…
On Sunday night, twelve of the biggest teams in European soccer announced that they would be breaking away from the current Champions League and forming their own Super League. The new venture would operate exactly the same as the current setup but with one key difference: the founding members would automatically qualify every year. Instead of having to earn a spot through success in their domestic leagues, the biggest brands in soccer would now be guaranteed a seat at the $6 billion table. Two days later, it looks like the league is already dead. Continue reading
