“Get rid of” in what way? Tell them not to play full-contact football any more?
Tell you what; let’s start with one that hasn’t been competitive for a national championship since something like the 1940s, and other that I don’t think has been in the title picture at all…then YOU explain to every soldier and sailor, and pretty much every veteran, why there’s no Army-Navy game.
If you mean, create a new subdivision with just the “competitive” teams, you are not alone. The first question is, how many teams, and the second question is, which ones?
I have been calling for a “clean break” between the schools and the teams for years - the teams can license the schools’ colors, mascots, and nicknames, and rent out the stadiums for the home games, but other than that, there is no link to the schools. This has two advantages; it gets rid of any pretext that the athletes have to attend classes, and it also allows the team to pay the players without the school having to worry about either amateurism rules or Title IX.
And you just destroyed the tax exemption for the stadium and gym if you let colleges rent them to profit making entities. Maybe the rent covers the taxes. Of course once the stadium is profit making, you can rent it for concerts, etc. and those people who live near the stadium are going to complain about all the activity in their neighborhoods.
What makes you think the stadiums aren’t being rented out now? At least one soccer match between professional European clubs has been played at Cal’s home stadium, and I remember when the Oakland Raiders would play the occasional preseason game there. There was even a Super Bowl at Stanford Stadium, and I’m pretty sure San Jose State’s stadium was the home field for the San Jose Earthquakes for years.
Northwestern University’s stadium is near–but not adjacent to–campus. It’s in north central Evanston and borders on Wilmette. And the new stadium they plan to build will include the occasional concert during the off season.
Rice is adjacent to a rather wealthy neighborhood, and you better believe those folks complain any time there’s any sort of event at the stadium - games, concerts, etc. Most colleges are near residential neighborhoods, as far as I can tell.
I have no idea what the percentage is but I agree that a lot of stadia are in residential neighborhoods or you have to drive through one to get to them. That said, most of them have been there for decades and virtually no one who is living there was doing so before the stadium was constructed.
And the people who voluntarily chose to live nearby are up in arms about it. Who’d have thought that football stadiums are associated with noise and traffic?
I was going to mention this myself, but I don’t know whether this is the usual or not. But, yeah, it was about a 30-40 minute walk (depending on whether you were north or south campus) from the dorms to Dyche Stadium/Ryan Field. And it was in a residential neighborhood.
There’s a difference between gameday noise and traffic on a Saturday afternoon, and concert noise and traffic that goes well into the evening (and maybe not on weekends).
It’s the latter that those who live near the stadium haven’t had to deal with until now, and which they are fighting against.
There’s no reason at all why a college can’t rent out the stadium and the gym – or any other facilities – to for-profit entities without endangering their tax status. They do so all the time, including for concerts. That’s how you get Starbucks in the student union building.
Welp, for everybody who thought 12 would enough to settle things down for a while, the SEC and Big 10 are already pushing for a 14 team playoff (with each of them getting 3 automatic bids and the ACC and Big 12 getting 2) before there’s even been a single season of this new format.
Again, playoff expansion is NOT about finding the best teams or about which bubble teams are left out or some quaint notion of competitive balance or fairness. It is and always has been about revenue.
Something in that article set off alarm bells - apparently, there is reasonably serious talk about the Big Ten and SEC leaving the NCAA altogether, and I am assuming that would not just be in football. While this could work with some other sports - I can see baseball players flocking to SEC and Big Ten schools to the point where “their” baseball champion is the “true” college baseball champion - I don’t see this happening with, say, men’s ice hockey, and you try explaining to Minnesota or Wisconsin or Michigan State why their hockey teams can’t play for the national championship any more. Then again, a breakaway organization can create its own rules, including, “You can pay the athletes whatever you want (as long as you pay the women the same as the men).”
I have a feeling there won’t be a serious attempt at a full breakaway until 2032, when the men’s basketball tournament TV contract expires.
I don’t see the Big 10 ever being a hotbed for baseball (other than the California schools). None of the top-tier talent would want to play at a school where you can’t even play home games for half the season because it’s still winter there.
Okay, maybe not Big Ten baseball (or softball, for that matter, except for UCLA), but you get the point - everybody goes to the SEC because that’s where the money is.
Actually, I have heard one crazy theory as to why the playoff will be 14 teams:
The intent is to replace the playoff with separate seven-team NFC and AFC - er, Big Ten and SEC playoffs, with the winners meeting in the championship game. If you can come up with a better reason why it would be 14 instead of 16, then by all means, let them know.
There’s no way to “fix” college football in the sense of coming up with a system to crown a champion that everyone will agree is the best system. There are simply too many teams, and the season is too short, for one team to establish itself as the undisputed best in most years.
Personally, I think this new playoff system is ridiculous, because it could force some teams to play as many as four playoff games. I would prefer to stick with the four-team format, where some deserving teams will be left out, but all the teams that do qualify will be legitimate contenders. I can live with the unfairness of not having the fourth-best team in the SEC being eligible to play for the national title (as would have happened last year with this system in place). And I would like to be able to watch all the playoff games without having to have my schedule revolve around them for a full month.
My main complaint about college football is, and will probably be until I die, that they destroyed the Conference of Champions. I will always continue to root for any Pac-10 team when they’re playing anyone else (Colorado and Utah don’t really count), despite the fact that those Washington-Maryland and Stanford-Wake Forest matchups are now technically “conference” games. #grumpyoldman#changeisbad
