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USA Today
19-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
The NFL isn't college football's friend - it's the greatest threat to the CFP schedule
The NFL isn't college football's friend - it's the greatest threat to the CFP schedule Show Caption Hide Caption Ohio State head coach Ryan Day describes emotions of beating Notre Dame Ohio State's Ryan Day discusses the journey his team went on to become college football national champions. Sports Pulse We're not seeing big picture here. We're slogging through the minutia of the college football postseason instead of dealing with the big, bad shield in the room. The NFL shield. So while college football's power brokers are busy arguing straight seeding, first-round byes, campus sites and who will choose the expected 16-team College Football Playoff field, they're ignoring the greatest threat to the ever-evolving system that decided a national champion. The NFL's television schedule structure is in direct competition with the College Football Playoff. That means decreased ratings, and decreased growth for a sport trying to develop a new postseason format. This season alone, critical division matchups between the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders and Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears, fall on the same Saturday as three first-round games. No matter how important or intriguing those first-round College Football Playoff matchups prove to be, they'll be dwarfed by critical December NFL games — just like last year's three first-round games in the same window. And lost television ratings and growth means lost millions from future media rights deals — the very reason university presidents blew up the original four-team CFP in the first place. 'My hope is there are ways around it,' said Florida State athletic director Mike Alford. Yeah, well, hope is not a plan. Leverage is. MONEY GRAB: Why Florida State wants its toughest football schedule possible I've said it over and over, and will say it again: college football has leverage on the NFL. College football is the free minor league system for the NFL. If the NFL wants to keep benefiting from that free system – I don't think this can be underscored enough, free – it's time to treat college football as a partner. Not like old gum on the bottom of the NFL sneaker. There was a time not long ago that college football decided to play games on Thursday night, a unique idea that ESPN turned into a cult following. Sure enough, the NFL saw the success and large television ratings, and commandeered the night. NFL Thursday night games now dwarf the college football games, so much so, that college football has all but given up on big power conference games and now feeds Thursday night with a steady diet of meaningless Group of Five games. Two years ago, the NFL sold Thursday Night games as a standalone media rights package to Amazon, and now makes a billion dollars annually from it. Yep, billion. That's lost revenue for college football, a sport searching for cash streams while dealing with looming revenue sharing with players. By proxy, it means lost revenue for college sports, which is dealing with a potential loss of Olympic sports teams (both men and women) because cash to support those teams is now used to pay players in revenue producing sports (football, basketball). Yet here we are, deep into the process of what the new playoff format will look like, and we can't see the forest for The Shield. The problem isn't the format, the problem is the NFL. You know, the same NFL receiving free player development – again, free! – from college football year after year after year. Anyone else find it odd that college football is swimming in paradigm change over the last four seasons, in danger of the whole thing falling apart, and the NFL has been eerily quiet about the entire mess? Hasn't offered support, hasn't reached out to say, hey, since you've given us free player development from the time our game was invented (and will continue to do so), maybe we can hop off the Saturday of your first-round games? Maybe we can avoid future scheduling conflicts and work with college football to grow the postseason. Instead of ignoring it. But the NFL has no reason to acquiesce. If college football continues to provide game and practice tape whenever the NFL asks, if it continues to allow access to practice and games and everyone involved in player development during the NFL draft process, why would the NFL change anything? There are two ways to make the NFL move off its mark: affect its money, or player procurement. Here, everyone, is where college football has leverage. The NFL wants every piece of information possible on players it drafts, performing its due diligence to avoid multi-million dollar mistakes on investments. The NCAA or CFP Board of Directors (or whoever is running the damn sport at this point), should send a letter to all 32 NFL teams. No more practice and game access to all FBS and FCS teams, no more game and practice tape, no more access to coaches and assistant coaches or anyone else connected to players — until the NFL eliminates scheduling conflicts with the CFP. It's not a big ask, and frankly, there shouldn't have to be a threat. There should be someone within college football – I nominate Nick Saban, even though he doesn't want the job – who can call NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and speak hard truths. The NFL isn't your friend, it's the greatest threat to college football's postseason. Do something about it. Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
USA Today
04-03-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
From burn the ships to bend the knee: Florida State, Clemson stuck with ACC - like it or not
From burn the ships to bend the knee: Florida State, Clemson stuck with ACC - like it or not Show Caption Hide Caption US LBM Coaches Poll: Ohio State claims top spot after national title run See where your team landed in the final US LBM Coaches Poll ranking of the year. Sports Pulse After all the hyperbole and histrionics, all the wasted millions in legal fees, we now see the crux of the situation. Florida State brought a knife to a gun fight. Wait, it did less than that. It brought the fantasy of what could be. And Clemson followed. If you're shocked by the latest twist in the ACC vs. Florida State and Clemson lawsuits that's now in the makeup phase of the program, you clearly haven't been following along. It was nearly three months ago that Florida State athletic director Mike Alford told USA TODAY Sports, 'We never said we wanted to leave the ACC' — after his university spent months, and millions in legal fees, doing just that. It was last summer when multiple people from the Big Ten told USA TODAY Sports that the league never had direct or indirect talks with Florida State, and wasn't interested in adding the Seminoles, which the league deemed a 'bad partner' that was trying to break up the ACC in search of greener financial pastures. While we can argue the merits of Florida State and Clemson's reasons for trying to escape the ACC – and I agree with a few – there is no argument about the foundation of the case. Florida State and Clemson had no leverage. Had. No. Leverage. LOSE CONTROL: Hiring NFL executives to control college football has downsides POWER SHIFT: Big Ten power rankings have new look ahead of spring practice Florida State's grand plan was to get out of the ACC, and then become an attractive candidate for the Big Ten. Who among us wouldn't want the blue blood football program, and sudden mercenary, for hire? That's right, FSU – and Clemson, to a lesser extent because it wasn't publicly grandstanding – decided to risk its A-rating media properties brand on a whim and a hope. Then kept doubling down. It is here where we introduce Hernan Cortes, the famous Spanish conquistador, who in 1519 ordered his ships to be burned after landing in Mexico to prevent retreat and motivate his crew to succeed in the new land. Florida State burned the ships knowing it didn't have back channel negotiations with the Big Ten, or any semblance of a landing place if it were successful in its lawsuit against the ACC. The Seminoles did it all knowing it signed the ironclad Grant of Rights agreement with the ACC not once (in 2013), but twice (again in 2016). Did it knowing ESPN would never, ever walk away from, or alter, a favorable media rights deal with the ACC through 2036. Florida State did it knowing the ACC knew it held all the cards – and by all the cards, I mean all the cards – and wasn't negotiating with a rogue member. Only after it was clear last summer that FSU had no landing spot if it left the ACC, and that capital investment wasn't the answer, did the school arrive at the negotiating table with the ACC — burned ships smoldering in the background. FSU and Clemson have legit arguments in this fight. Without them, there is no ACC football. Who in their right mind wants to watch Wake Forest and Syracuse go it for four quarters on a perfectly good Saturday afternoon? Especially when Tennessee vs. Florida is on another network. Or Michigan vs. Penn State, or Georgia vs. LSU or Ohio State vs. Southern California or any other combination of SEC and Big Ten games you can imagine. ESPN is paying for Florida State and Clemson football in the ACC media rights deal, and to a lesser extent, Miami and as many Notre Dame games as it can get. FSU and Clemson feel as though the rest of the ACC earns off their brands, and that's a legitimate argument. But Vanderbilt and the Mississippi schools (among others) earn off SEC blue bloods, and Purdue, Indiana and Rutgers (among others) earn off Big Ten blue bloods. That's a partnership. While football is the fuel, there are other benefits of conference partnership (at the top of the list, scheduling for every other sport) that hold critical value to an efficient engine. If and until college football decides to break away from the rest of college sports and become a quasi-professional league of 50-60 teams that can afford it, this is the conference affiliation setup moving forward. That the ACC has agreed on a revenue distribution model based on television viewership – a big get for Florida State, Clemson, Miami and North Carolina – is remarkable in its generosity. The ACC didn't have to do anything. They have the contract on their side, a contract Florida State twice signed and learned after months and millions in legal wrangling, couldn't be broken. The only incentive the ACC had to get a deal done with its wayward schools was protecting its brand. Meanwhile, Florida State and Clemson didn't have a landing spot even if each paid an estimated half a billion dollars in financial obligations to leave the ACC. All three were damaging their brands with each argument in court, and only one had leverage. This is what happens when you bring fantasy to a gun fight. Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
