November 3, 2024

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Good morning and welcome to Day 2 of our FOS college football weekend newsletter takeover. From the explosion in NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals to conference realignment to the loosening of transfer portal restrictions, changes to the business of CFB have made for a season when there’s more parity on the field than we’re used to. And dare I say, that has made CFB a lot more compelling this season so far than the NFL. As always, I welcome your thoughts at [[email protected]].

Of course, there’s far more happening in the chaotic college sports business than what we can fit in two newsletters. Make sure you’re reading our daily coverage online [[link removed]].

— Dan Roberts [[link removed]], FOS EIC

Something New in College Football This Year: Parity [[link removed]]

Denny Simmons/Imagn Images

When Alabama faced Vanderbilt on Oct. 5, Alabama was 4–0, No. 1 ranked, and it looked like in the first year of the post–Nick Saban era, the Crimson Tide were set to roll to the College Football Playoff as usual. (Alabama has made the Playoff every year in the 10 years since the CFP replaced the old BCS system, and won it in three of those years.)

But then Alabama lost to a 2–2, unranked Vandy team. And then Alabama lost again, two weeks later, to Tennessee. Last year’s CFP champion Georgia has already lost once. So has Ohio State. This is the first year since 2007 [[link removed]] that no SEC team is undefeated at the start of November.

This is the first year of the expanded 12-team Playoff [[link removed]], and in two days we’ll get the season’s first CFP rankings. The Week 10 AP top 25 poll has a slew of names we are not used to seeing there, including BYU, Indiana, Pitt, SMU, and Army.

Meanwhile in the NFL, the Chiefs are 7–0, and look destined to three-peat [[link removed]]. Snooze. A recent Wall Street Journal [[link removed]] headline nails it: “They’re the NFL’s Best Team. Why Are They So Boring?”

In the college game right now, it feels like anything can happen on any given Saturday.

“Since the start of the CFP era, college football has had a parity problem,” says our FOS college sports reporter Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]. “A rotation of the same teams made the four-team bracket each year, leaving little room for the ‘Cinderella story’ effect college basketball has captured so well.” Now, with the 12-team format, we’re guaranteed more surprises—if not quite Cinderellas.

In the last few years we’ve seen major sea changes in college athletics [[link removed]]: the rise of NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals, allowing schools to lure players with promises of a payday from boosters; conference realignment mania, which in football has meant an expanded SEC and Big Ten; and the loosening of transfer portal restrictions, allowing players to jump schools more than once in a year.

Are those changes prompting the parity on the field? It’s complicated.

NIL and the transfer portal have “helped level the playing field,” in Christovich’s view. “If donors put up the money, they can help their schools elevate to the next level almost immediately by recruiting players with unlimited opportunities to switch teams.” That is the effect that schools like Indiana and Vanderbilt have harnessed to their advantage this year.

ESPN’s Pat McAfee sounds like he agrees. Saturday morning on ESPN’s College GameDay from the campus of No. 3 Penn State before its game against No. 4 Ohio State, he remarked, “I think the big story of this game, and this season with the top-5 matchups, is not only the expansion of conference realignment and everything like that, but this transfer portal and NIL has really delivered for us as college football fans.”

I also asked ESPN college sports reporter David Hale [[link removed]] for his take, and he is not as convinced that the sport’s structural changes are directly to thank for parity on the field. “It is unquestionably a year that has afforded more surprise good teams, and I would struggle to say there’s a clear-cut great team,” he says. “But I’m still a bit of a pessimist that the rich don’t consistently get richer. I think this is probably an exception year, rather than a new rule.”

The ability to use NIL money to get top recruits, plus the freedom of those recruits to jump into the transfer portal, creates a situation basically akin to free agency in other pro sports. And just like in other sports, Hale points out, “You can win in free agency, but you can also put together a really expensive roster that stinks.”

The onset of the 12-team Playoff makes Tuesday’s CFP rankings release even more anticipated than in a typical year. (I can’t think of anything else happening Tuesday, can you?) The 12-team structure means two losses isn’t an automatic death knell. Alabama, even with two losses, could very well still get in. Me? I’ll be rooting for the underdogs and reveling in the college chaos.

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Good Week / Bad Week MLB Scores, WNBA’s Coaching Carousel Starts

Robert Deutsch/Imagn Images

Good week for:

MLB ⬆ The 2024 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees delivered, notching a viewership average of 15.8 million across five games on Fox [[link removed]]—74% over last year’s matchup, and the most for the Fall Classic since 2017. Game 3, which drew 13.6 million viewers on Monday, even narrowly outpaced Monday Night Football [[link removed]], which had 13.4 million viewers on ESPN and ABC. Although it would have helped MLB and Fox if the series extended past five games, it will be difficult for the two parties to complain given the viewership numbers (in both the U.S. and Japan [[link removed]]), ticket prices [[link removed]], and record merchandise sales [[link removed]].

Women’s sports ⬆ There were several wins across different professional women’s leagues.

The Professional Women’s Hockey League announced it will soon field proposals for new teams across the U.S. and Canada. The league, which launched in January with six franchises, could add up to two more [[link removed]] as soon as the 2025–2026 season. The Women’s Pro Baseball League announced it aims to launch with six teams in 2026 [[link removed]]. The Women’s Super League agreed to a five-year broadcasting-rights deal [[link removed]] with Sky Sports and BBC across the U.K. and Ireland. UEFA pledged $1 billion to the development of women’s soccer in Europe [[link removed]].

Bad week for:

WNBA coaches ⬇ Seven head-coaching spots opened up at the same time in the WNBA following the Indiana Fever’s decision to fire Christie Sides on Sunday and, the next day, the Connecticut Sun’s parting with Stephanie White. Including the expansion Golden State Valkyries [[link removed]], eight of the 13 WNBA teams will have new head coaches entering the 2025 season. It could be a sign that the incoming money from the new media-rights deal may change the head-coaching market [[link removed]].

Yankees fans ⬇ One of the biggest gaffes of the World Series was the interference of two New York fans who pried a baseball out of Mookie Betts’s glove in foul territory [[link removed]] during the first inning of Game 4. The fans were removed from Yankees Stadium and not allowed back for Game 5 [[link removed]]. In a statement [[link removed]], the Yankees called the behavior of the fans “egregious and unacceptable.” New York would go on to lose the series in five games, and it is at risk of losing star outfielder Juan Soto in free agency.

You Might Have Missed The 24/7 NIL Director Job, The NFL’s Untapped Powder Keg

Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images

The NIL (name, image, and likeness) director [[link removed]] is the trendy new job across athletic departments nationwide. Working long hours liaising with all departments, NIL directors are leading the campus charge into this era. It’s a chaotic role, reports FOS college sports reporter Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]. Female football fandom is already huge and only growing, and it’s opened a “gold mine” of opportunity for brands and the NFL itself [[link removed]]. Some have seized the moment with licensing partnerships and ad buys, but there’s plenty more revenue to be had, writes FOS contributor Hilary George-Parkin [[link removed]]. Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Events [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Podcast [[link removed]] Written by Daniel Roberts [[link removed]], Colin Salao [[link removed]], Meredith Turits [[link removed]] Edited by Meredith Turits [[link removed]], Peter Richman [[link removed]], Catherine Chen [[link removed]]

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