It would be fascinating if some form of promotion/relegation could be established for the 350 D1 men's basketball teams.

I’m not a soccer fan; I’m not even a casual observer. But what I take from this situation is that the Super League can only be successful if it is in addition to, not in replacement of, domestic competition.

As in college football, big, wealthy teams hate to lose. Winning is what drives fan interest which is why drives revenue.

The Super League can only be successful if the clubs involved still have the opportunity to throttle the European soccer equivalents of Ball St and Vanderbilt in their normal leagues.

The teams that want to start this league are basically daring the little poor teams to try and stop them. If the super teams did get kicked out and had to play exclusively against each other the whole system collapses—teams left in the domestic leagues fall apart because they don’t have the media contract revenue to be financially stable. The super clubs suffer and lose fans when they stop winning all the time against poor competition.

(04-18-2021 11:52 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote:  

(04-18-2021 10:54 PM)usffan Wrote:  

I tend to agree...

USFFan

It's possible but the first necessary step is cutting from 130 to 70-80 despite others here that want to increase FBS to 500 teams.

Big 10, Pac 12 and Big 12 are all up for new contracts in 2023-2025. ACC and SEC are wholly owned by ABC/ESPN. Leaves lots of opportunities for realignment.

(04-19-2021 02:46 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I’m not a soccer fan; I’m not even a casual observer. But what I take from this situation is that the Super League can only be successful if it is in addition to, not in replacement of, domestic competition.

As in college football, big, wealthy teams hate to lose. Winning is what drives fan interest which is why drives revenue.

The Super League can only be successful if the clubs involved still have the opportunity to throttle the European soccer equivalents of Ball St and Vanderbilt in their normal leagues.

The teams that want to start this league are basically daring the little poor teams to try and stop them. If the super teams did get kicked out and had to play exclusively against each other the whole system collapses—teams left in the domestic leagues fall apart because they don’t have the media contract revenue to be financially stable. The super clubs suffer and lose fans when they stop winning all the time against poor competition.

Correct. This Super League will be in addition to the other other existing competitions. For example, I’m a fan of Barcelona soccer...every year Barcelona already competes in
1) La Liga, the best soccer conference in Spain, with 20 teams
2) Copa del Rey, open competition amongst all soccer clubs based in Spain (regardless of division/conference; single elimination playoff for 32 teams)
3) European Champions League, top competition amongst all European club champions (plus 2d, 3d and/or 4th place finishers of the best soccer divisions; Spain generally places its top 4 La Liga teams in the Champions League)

This Super League will be a fourth venue for Barcelona to try to get a championship.

Soccer players can effectively play twice per week and need about 3 months for an off-season. The top players also play for their country’s national teams, which takes another month off the club schedule. Therefore, club teams (such as Barcelona and Manchester City) try to figure out how to best leverage star athletes to play the most meaningful (profitable) games.

(04-19-2021 02:43 PM)solohawks Wrote:  It would be fascinating if some form of promotion/relegation could be established for the 350 D1 men's basketball teams.

We already have that - see GWU, VCU, Butler, Valpo, Wichita State, Creighton, etc. for the Promotion side.

Relegation side - see the conferences those teams left (generally) plus Cincinnati, USF, Temple, SMU, Rice

(04-19-2021 03:21 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 02:43 PM)solohawks Wrote:  It would be fascinating if some form of promotion/relegation could be established for the 350 D1 men's basketball teams.

We already have that - see GWU, VCU, Butler, Valpo, Wichita State, Creighton, etc. for the Promotion side.

Relegation side - see the conferences those teams left (generally) plus Cincinnati, USF, Temple, SMU, Rice

nothing official or organized though.

VCU has no way to improve their lot. They are in the best conference they are ever going to be in

you leave behind a majority of P5s and they may just get with all the G5s and come down with a scheduling ban....let these 28 only play themselves and see how awesome the idea really is....

(04-19-2021 11:25 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 11:05 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 10:48 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  You can see the influence of American owners of EPL clubs that also own pro sports teams in the US (e.g. the Glazer family with Manchester United/Tampa Bay Bucs, John Henry with Liverpool/Red Sox, Stan Kroenke with Arsenal/LA Rams). They legitimately think it's batsh*t crazy that they paid billions of dollars for EPL clubs and there's a chance (however small it might be in reality) that they could get sent to the equivalent of the Pacific Coast League if they have a bad year on the downside AND they can't maximize their full revenue earning potential on the upside. From their perspective (which, to be sure, is quite biased), they're getting the worst of both worlds of limited upside potential and *unlimited* downside potential. If I were in their shoes with billions of dollars invested, I'd much rather have an American-style system, too.

... and this seems to be rankling many fans over in Europe. Among the comments I have seen in news media covering this, many rank-and-file supporters of these big English clubs are against the Super League concept - and some of them have talked about it as an American folly of some kind. To them, the notion of guaranteed league membership without possibility of relegation is sacrilege.

Not sure that these folks are representative, but at least from what I've seen the USA ownership influence has been taken note of, and not in a positive way - along with the financial backing of JP Morgan.

And of course there is also the influence of Russian Oligarchs and Arabian Oil Prince owners too. That rankles these supporters as well. They see these "outsiders" as not reflecting the values of football culture.

An entity called the "Manchester United Supporters Trust", which has 200,000 members, issued a statement condemning Man-U's participation in the Super League:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/...e-20414553

I doubt the Glazers care much though, LOL.

Absolutely - there's a major difference between how we look at sports leagues here compared to Europe.

Beyond the cultural differences, there's a real geographic distribution difference. In the EU countries, there's a much higher concentration of people and teams in a handful of markets (e.g. London/Manchester/Liverpool, Madrid/Barcelona, etc.) and the entire continent (consisting of many countries) is geographically about the same size as the United States. A London-based EPL club getting relegated isn't necessarily a disaster for the league because there are still several other London-based EPL clubs. Having a New York franchise getting relegated, on the other hand, would be a complete disaster for a US pro sports league. You can't have teams in NYC, LA, Chicago, Boston, etc. bouncing up and down between higher and lower level leagues in a way that's possible in Europe where the clubs are much more geographically concentrated in a relative handful of markets.

Yes, IIRC, there are six London clubs currently in the Premier League. That's totally different from USA.

What seems to bother most of these supporters is the notion of permanent membership in the Super League. The whole history of British soccer is based on the principle of relegation, which gives supporters the right to claim their squad has earned its current position, not been granted it by fiat. In the USA, we love having things granted for us by fiat - I would love if the SEC just decided to make USF a member. But that's not the culture of soccer over there. And of course to a 99% extent, a club like Man United does have de-facto permanent membership in the Premier League, as it is almost inconceivable that with their wealth and brand they would ever actually get relegated in the near future. But that theoretical possibility is extremely important, it seems.

The impression I get is that if a Man City or Man United has permanent membership, it's like their supporters can no longer look fans of other clubs in the face, that they are fops who have been granted an aristocratic title, and nothing they win has any meaning anymore. In effect, in a way it is tough for us in the USA to understand, they will have dropped out of competition, by retreating to a safe harbor free from that failure.

(04-19-2021 01:27 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 11:36 AM)ken d Wrote:  If there were a super league of some sort in college football, are there any schools currently in a P5 conference that would opt out voluntarily for either competitive or philosophical reasons (like opposing pay for play)?

Personally, I don't think so.

I know that there's a strain of argument that elite academic schools like Duke, Northwestern and Vanderbilt wouldn't want to participate in that type of environment, but I don't see it all. Instead, I see the opposite: these are schools that are charging $80,000 (!) per year cost of attendance (and still rapidly increasing annually) and one of the biggest selling factors that they have against the Ivy League and the MIT/University of Chicago-type schools is that they have big-time top tier college sports. That's a massive part of the branding of those schools - they're not merely smart, but they also play "real" sports (and in the case of Duke, it's a legitimate blue blood mega-power in basketball). Any perceived pay for play costs are merely the cost of a traffic ticket compared to the much bigger picture of attracting elite students that are seeking a "balanced school" and end up becoming more engaged alumni compared to their competitors.

I tend to agree. Nobody is leaving voluntarily. That being said, some schools are leaving a lot on the table by staying in the current model. None of those are in the SEC or B1G, which are for the most part optimizing their revenues. The ones who are leaving a lot on the table are strong programs in the ACC, PAC and Big 12, all of whom are being held back by aligning (mostly for historical reasons) with weaker programs that don't have the offsetting benefits of their historical association with either the B1G or the SEC.

The only way for them to close the financial gap in the future is to find a way to collectively add enough value for media partners to make it worth the SEC's and B1G's while to invite them. One way I believe they could do this is by increasing the number of attractive regular season games at the top of those conferences, and another is by increasing the number of playoff games in those two power conferences. My suggestion increases the playoff games from the current five (two CCGs, two CFP semis and the CFP championship) to fifteen with a single four round tournament.

Some will argue that a school like North Carolina would never ever leave Duke behind in realignment. I think that's giving UNC way too much credit for altruism. That's just one example - I don't mean to single out the Tar Heels. You could say the same about Washington, Oregon and others as well. It sounds harsh to put it in these terms, but a third way those 20 other teams justify getting paid $20 million more each is by having the teams relegated to the Premier League get paid a lot less than they do today (by giving them only the value that they bring to the table and removing the subsidy they get by being in a conference with truly valuable teams (like Oklahoma, USC, Texas, Florida State, Clemson, etc.).

Sadly, for the schools not invited to the Champions League, they would be getting the same treatment that they gave other schools in the past when they were in one of the realignment "winners" known as the P5. The shoe would now be on the other foot. They won't like it any more than the P5 wannabes do now. But in the end, money talks.

(04-19-2021 03:05 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 02:46 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I’m not a soccer fan; I’m not even a casual observer. But what I take from this situation is that the Super League can only be successful if it is in addition to, not in replacement of, domestic competition.

As in college football, big, wealthy teams hate to lose. Winning is what drives fan interest which is why drives revenue.

The Super League can only be successful if the clubs involved still have the opportunity to throttle the European soccer equivalents of Ball St and Vanderbilt in their normal leagues.

The teams that want to start this league are basically daring the little poor teams to try and stop them. If the super teams did get kicked out and had to play exclusively against each other the whole system collapses—teams left in the domestic leagues fall apart because they don’t have the media contract revenue to be financially stable. The super clubs suffer and lose fans when they stop winning all the time against poor competition.

Correct. This Super League will be in addition to the other other existing competitions. For example, I’m a fan of Barcelona soccer...every year Barcelona already competes in
1) La Liga, the best soccer conference in Spain, with 20 teams
2) Copa del Rey, open competition amongst all soccer clubs based in Spain (regardless of division/conference; single elimination playoff for 32 teams)
3) European Champions League, top competition amongst all European club champions (plus 2d, 3d and/or 4th place finishers of the best soccer divisions; Spain generally places its top 4 La Liga teams in the Champions League)

This Super League will be a fourth venue for Barcelona to try to get a championship.

Soccer players can effectively play twice per week and need about 3 months for an off-season. The top players also play for their country’s national teams, which takes another month off the club schedule. Therefore, club teams (such as Barcelona and Manchester City) try to figure out how to best leverage star athletes to play the most meaningful (profitable) games.

It would supplant the Champions/Europa League since UEFA is banning any participating Super League teams.

It's interesting... I wonder how many people on here realize how dire situations are at many of our public universities. I presume most know that states continue to cut funding significantly to public universities (https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budg...students).

Quote:Overall state funding for public two- and four-year colleges in the school year ending in 2018 was more than $6.6 billion below what it was in 2008 just before the Great Recession fully took hold, after adjusting for inflation

In Florida, the state is proposing to cut as much as $593MM from the State University System budget for the next fiscal year (https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/education/...ose-cuts).

Illinois (https://newschannel20.com/news/local/wit...major-cuts) and Wisconsin (https://badgerherald.com/news/2020/09/24...e-funding/) are facing new budget cuts, only a few years after both were hit so hard with budget cuts that they saw a significant brain drain.

Unsaid in all of this is that states simultaneously want to cut budgets to universities while refusing to let them raise tuition (https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/educat...ory.html). So, in the face of all of this, it would be irresponsible for university presidents NOT to explore every potential increase in revenue. So I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss this...

USFFan

(04-19-2021 04:40 PM)usffan Wrote:  It's interesting... I wonder how many people on here realize how dire situations are at many of our public universities. I presume most know that states continue to cut funding significantly to public universities (https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budg...students).

Quote:Overall state funding for public two- and four-year colleges in the school year ending in 2018 was more than $6.6 billion below what it was in 2008 just before the Great Recession fully took hold, after adjusting for inflation

In Florida, the state is proposing to cut as much as $593MM from the State University System budget for the next fiscal year (https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/education/...ose-cuts).

Illinois (https://newschannel20.com/news/local/wit...major-cuts) and Wisconsin (https://badgerherald.com/news/2020/09/24...e-funding/) are facing new budget cuts, only a few years after both were hit so hard with budget cuts that they saw a significant brain drain.

Unsaid in all of this is that states simultaneously want to cut budgets to universities while refusing to let them raise tuition (https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/educat...ory.html). So, in the face of all of this, it would be irresponsible for university presidents NOT to explore every potential increase in revenue. So I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss this...

USFFan

True that schools will seek more opportunities to increase revenue as a general matter, but it doesn't necessarily need to come in the form of a Super League or P5 breakaway.

A fairly logical next step to increase revenue fairly quickly is CFP expansion with auto-bids (or "contract bids" via bowl contracts) for the P5 conferences.

(04-19-2021 04:37 PM)whittx Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 03:05 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 02:46 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I’m not a soccer fan; I’m not even a casual observer. But what I take from this situation is that the Super League can only be successful if it is in addition to, not in replacement of, domestic competition.

As in college football, big, wealthy teams hate to lose. Winning is what drives fan interest which is why drives revenue.

The Super League can only be successful if the clubs involved still have the opportunity to throttle the European soccer equivalents of Ball St and Vanderbilt in their normal leagues.

The teams that want to start this league are basically daring the little poor teams to try and stop them. If the super teams did get kicked out and had to play exclusively against each other the whole system collapses—teams left in the domestic leagues fall apart because they don’t have the media contract revenue to be financially stable. The super clubs suffer and lose fans when they stop winning all the time against poor competition.

Correct. This Super League will be in addition to the other other existing competitions. For example, I’m a fan of Barcelona soccer...every year Barcelona already competes in
1) La Liga, the best soccer conference in Spain, with 20 teams
2) Copa del Rey, open competition amongst all soccer clubs based in Spain (regardless of division/conference; single elimination playoff for 32 teams)
3) European Champions League, top competition amongst all European club champions (plus 2d, 3d and/or 4th place finishers of the best soccer divisions; Spain generally places its top 4 La Liga teams in the Champions League)

This Super League will be a fourth venue for Barcelona to try to get a championship.

Soccer players can effectively play twice per week and need about 3 months for an off-season. The top players also play for their country’s national teams, which takes another month off the club schedule. Therefore, club teams (such as Barcelona and Manchester City) try to figure out how to best leverage star athletes to play the most meaningful (profitable) games.

It would supplant the Champions/Europa League since UEFA is banning any participating Super League teams.

Wow

Does that mean PSG automatically wins this year’s Champions League? That would be all-out war between UEFA and the Super League...most of the Super League teams are UEFA Champions League powerhouses.

(04-19-2021 04:51 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 04:37 PM)whittx Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 03:05 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 02:46 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I’m not a soccer fan; I’m not even a casual observer. But what I take from this situation is that the Super League can only be successful if it is in addition to, not in replacement of, domestic competition.

As in college football, big, wealthy teams hate to lose. Winning is what drives fan interest which is why drives revenue.

The Super League can only be successful if the clubs involved still have the opportunity to throttle the European soccer equivalents of Ball St and Vanderbilt in their normal leagues.

The teams that want to start this league are basically daring the little poor teams to try and stop them. If the super teams did get kicked out and had to play exclusively against each other the whole system collapses—teams left in the domestic leagues fall apart because they don’t have the media contract revenue to be financially stable. The super clubs suffer and lose fans when they stop winning all the time against poor competition.

Correct. This Super League will be in addition to the other other existing competitions. For example, I’m a fan of Barcelona soccer...every year Barcelona already competes in
1) La Liga, the best soccer conference in Spain, with 20 teams
2) Copa del Rey, open competition amongst all soccer clubs based in Spain (regardless of division/conference; single elimination playoff for 32 teams)
3) European Champions League, top competition amongst all European club champions (plus 2d, 3d and/or 4th place finishers of the best soccer divisions; Spain generally places its top 4 La Liga teams in the Champions League)

This Super League will be a fourth venue for Barcelona to try to get a championship.

Soccer players can effectively play twice per week and need about 3 months for an off-season. The top players also play for their country’s national teams, which takes another month off the club schedule. Therefore, club teams (such as Barcelona and Manchester City) try to figure out how to best leverage star athletes to play the most meaningful (profitable) games.

It would supplant the Champions/Europa League since UEFA is banning any participating Super League teams.

Wow

Does that mean PSG automatically wins this year’s Champions League? That would be all-out war between UEFA and the Super League...most of the Super League teams are UEFA Champions League powerhouses.

I would think previously eliminated teams would be given a 2nd life

No way they don't play semis and final match

The Athletic came up with its own Super League and that list may be even more controversial. They limited it to 15 teams....

https://theathletic.com/2529433/2021/04/...tennessee/

Alabama
Auburn
Clemson
Florida
Georgia
LSU
Michigan
Nebraska
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Oregon
Penn State
Texas
USC

(04-19-2021 04:57 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  The Athletic came up with its own Super League and that list may be even more controversial. They limited it to 15 teams....

https://theathletic.com/2529433/2021/04/...tennessee/

Alabama
Auburn
Clemson
Florida
Georgia
LSU
Michigan
Nebraska
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Oregon
Penn State
Texas
USC

The Athletic is hurting for money. Clickbait fantasies are a mechanism to recoup some of it.

(04-19-2021 04:59 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 04:57 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  The Athletic came up with its own Super League and that list may be even more controversial. They limited it to 15 teams....

https://theathletic.com/2529433/2021/04/...tennessee/

Alabama
Auburn
Clemson
Florida
Georgia
LSU
Michigan
Nebraska
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Oregon
Penn State
Texas
USC

The Athletic is hurting for money. Clickbait fantasies are a mechanism to recoup some of it.

I got the same vibe too

Too many $1/month promotions I have been seeing

(04-19-2021 11:05 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 10:48 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  You can see the influence of American owners of EPL clubs that also own pro sports teams in the US (e.g. the Glazer family with Manchester United/Tampa Bay Bucs, John Henry with Liverpool/Red Sox, Stan Kroenke with Arsenal/LA Rams). They legitimately think it's batsh*t crazy that they paid billions of dollars for EPL clubs and there's a chance (however small it might be in reality) that they could get sent to the equivalent of the Pacific Coast League if they have a bad year on the downside AND they can't maximize their full revenue earning potential on the upside. From their perspective (which, to be sure, is quite biased), they're getting the worst of both worlds of limited upside potential and *unlimited* downside potential. If I were in their shoes with billions of dollars invested, I'd much rather have an American-style system, too.

... and this seems to be rankling many fans over in Europe. Among the comments I have seen in news media covering this, many rank-and-file supporters of these big English clubs are against the Super League concept - and some of them have talked about it as an American folly of some kind. To them, the notion of guaranteed league membership without possibility of relegation is sacrilege.

Not sure that these folks are representative, but at least from what I've seen the USA ownership influence has been taken note of, and not in a positive way - along with the financial backing of JP Morgan.

The analogy is somewhat off. It's understandable as Americans that we see this as creating an American-style fixed league, and maybe English fans see it the same way because basketball isn't big there... but the correct analogy is that the Super League format is to soccer what EuroLeague is to basketball.

EuroLeague is the top basketball competition in Europe, featuring teams from many different countries competing in a season-long round-robin, followed by playoffs. EuroLeague has 18 teams per season. 11 of those teams are effectively permanent and the owners of those 11 make up EuroLeague's executive board. There are 4 teams chosen each year based on success in a domestic league the previous year, 1 team that won the previous year's second-tier European competition, and 2 teams chosen as wild cards.

This has a lot of similarities to the Super League format, and it's not a coincidence. The biggest driver behind Super League is the Real Madrid president. Real Madrid not only has its well-known soccer team, but also a basketball team that is one of the 11 permanent EuroBasket members.

I don't know what The Athletic's finances look like but they're hardly the only news org that has a story speculating about a theoretical college football superleague:

https://collegefootballnews.com/2021/04/...-cavalcade
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2021/04/creatio...-evolution

And you can bet your bottom dollar someone is working up a similar piece at ESPN.

It stands to reason: This is one of the biggest international sports stories in some time, and it has obvious parallels to college sports realignment. There's room for analysis and features AND game stories and breaking news.

Alabama - Last National Title 2020
Auburn - 2010
Clemson - 2018
Florida - 2008
Georgia - 1980
LSU - 2019
Michigan - 1997
Nebraska - 1997
Notre Dame - 1988
Ohio State - 2014
Oklahoma - 2000
Oregon - NEVER
Penn State - 1986
Texas- 2005
USC - 2003

Some of these just don’t fit. Especially when you don’t have Florida State, Miami or Tennessee on the list.
The Athletic is even less credible than Bleacher Report.