I think you hit diminishing returns if you go neutral site too early.

Getting 20,000 to travel three times at those prices is a big challenge. NFL is biggest thing going and doesn’t go neutral until the end. Hoops asks less than a tenth that number to travel early on.

ESPN currently is paying about $67 million per game between CFP and other NY6 games. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that 8, 12, 14, or 16 teams could hit $125 million or much more per game if you don’t have the “exhibition” games.

It is NOT to ESPNs advantage to keep the field small or see much incorporation of existing bowls. That’s all stuff they can’t monetize completely.

It’s not to the P5 advantage to see so many at-large the drama and interest of regular season games fades as it has in basketball because each league is selling those rights.

While there will be no stampede to go back to 11 it’s not implausible if 12 is an obstacle to bigger money, provides cover on injury issues and the reality is it’s not going to cost much if anything in tv money because TV’s interest is those league games not the typical non-conference slate.

There is no need for a super league because it doesn’t fit ESPN or Fox’s needs and doesn’t offer much for the P5.

Let’s take a hypothetical 8 team field with 5 autobids and one slot for G5 with two at-large. That probably generates around $875 million from ESPN and season stays at 12. G5 can get a fat raise while getting less of the payout.

2020 doesn’t count because it was a mess but what we saw in 2019 was an increase in G5 games on the ESPN family of cable channels and even OTA with ABC.

The networks have a balancing act. They want more games on the conference networks to drive carriage and maybe eventually subscriptions. ESPN is trying to push some attractive games to ESPN+ for subscriptions as well. They want eyeballs with blockbusters OTA and their flagship cable stations that creates gaps they plug with G5.

If not for length of season issues 12 is probably most palatable right now.