Fans continue to debate how to “fix” college football, with a misguided belief that the people running it are trying to preserve the same things that fans value. The keepers of the sport aren't necessarily solving for tradition, regionality, rivalries, competitive balance, or bowl relevance. More and more, they're solving for revenue.
One of the loudest complaints surrounding modern college football is that the sport is all about money now. The truth is, it always has been. What's changed is that money no longer feels like one consideration among many; it has become the north star guiding nearly every major decision about the sport's future.
College football has undergone a massive shift, and the changes are largely financially driven. It's not that money suddenly matters in college football. It's that the sport has crossed the threshold where financial optimization overrides almost every other consideration.
Fans want things the way they were; they keep wishing for a return to what they view as the golden age of college football. But no matter how badly they want it, there's no going back to a version of the sport that no longer exists.
The Preserve College Sports Act is a desperate Hail Mary for those who want to protect as much tradition as possible, but it will do little to cork a bottle from which the genie has already escaped.
The things college football fans want "back" are not financially viable
Every major change in college football has been driven by revenue, not by preserving tradition. When looking at the revenue-driven decision-making happening within college football, realignment is probably the strongest evidence of that axiom.
USC and UCLA joining a conference historically rooted in the Midwest; Oregon and Washington following; West Coast schools Stanford and Cal joining the ACC; Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big 12 for the SEC.
Those moves -- while bemoaned by fans -- make considerably more sense when viewed through the lens of media rights and revenue rather than geography or regional tribalism. The Big Ten's current media-rights agreements exceed $7 billion over seven years, while the SEC's expansion coincided with its move to ESPN as its exclusive football and basketball rights partner.
Television economics work against regional conferences when national brands create a more valuable commodity. USC and UCLA belonged to a conference built around the West Coast, with natural relationships to Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Cal, Arizona, and others. From a traditional college football standpoint, moving them into a predominantly Midwestern conference made little sense geographically.
From a television inventory standpoint, it made enormous sense.
When USC and UCLA announced their Big Ten move in 2022, Sports Business Journal reported that their addition was expected to increase the value of the Big Ten's forthcoming media rights by more than 15%. Their games gave broadcasters two major brands in the Los Angeles market to combine with Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, and the rest of the Big Ten's stock.
Old rivalries? They'll survive when they're valuable enough or convenient enough, but history alone won't protect them; we've already seen that. The Game, the Iron Bowl, the Cocktail Party, and other revered rivalry games are probably (maybe?) safe, even with the changing conference lineups and scheduling restrictions.
But the sport will likely continue losing traditional rivalries in the name of realignment, television revenue, and media rights. 15 years ago, would anyone have thought Notre Dame-USC, Bedlam, the Backyard Brawl, or Oregon's War would be tabled? Hardly. Those seemed like games destined for the all-eternity club.
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Traditional bowl season? The College Football Playoff has steadily expanded because playoff games are enormously valuable, certainly more valuable than an ancillary bowl game with mild viewership. ESPN's six-year CFP agreement beginning with the 2026-27 season was reported to be worth an average of about $1.3 billion annually.
Player compensation and transfers need a little more nuance. It's important that there is no blaming of the players for responding rationally to the vast economic system that schools and conferences created. But paying the players also means sharing a piece of the pie.
The House settlement fundamentally changed the model by allowing schools to directly share revenue with athletes, with the initial annual cap around $20.5 million per school, increasing over time. And that's where the crux of the problem lies. There is no realistic path back to an amateur model once direct revenue sharing exists.
College football isn't going back because every powerful participant would have to give something up.
For college football to even tease the idea of going back to the traditional ideals fans cling to, everyone with stakes in the revenue pie would have to agree to less.
Networks would have to accept less valuable inventory of games. Conferences would have to accept less television money. Schools would have to surrender revenue. Players would have to surrender compensation and mobility. And coaches? Coaches aren't going to voluntarily reduce their own market value.
There will still be political pressures, legal constraints, institutional interests, and occasional concessions to tradition, but only when tradition and revenue align. In those rare instances, tradition survives. When they conflict, recent history tells us which consideration is vulnerable.
Fans might prefer a more traditional structure, but nostalgia doesn't have a seat at the negotiating table comparable to the billions of dollars that are currently in play.
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