New pro league impact on college football?

It's funny cuz if the college kids eventually win bargaining rights (JHF argued they should unionize), then that will drastically change college athletics. There's enough crazy judges out there (thanx BHO) to make this real. I'm predicting in my lifetime the kids will win said rights.

It will be a huge upheaval. And the landscape will change.
 
It will have no impact on the college game whatsoever. Assuming the skinniest of rosters so 50 guys a team, they will need $2.5 mm per team to cover employee salaries. Plus they'll have to pay coaches, get facilities, etc.

The revenue model is non-existent because they will find it virtually impossible to get 3000 people to show up even with free tickets. No way they'll get any decent TV revenue, either.

I'll be shocked if the league lasts two years. No one wants to watch dudes they don't know playing for teams they don't know. College ball works because of the tremendous amount of goodwill each program has in the fanbase. Even Iowa Stat can sell tens of thousands of season tickets.
 
I'm not sure of O's numbers, but let's assume he is right. He has some strong arguments why it's destined to fail. There wasn't a lot of specifics in the article, but it might work is if the league is funded by NFL teams. I agree attendance is not going to pay the operating cost.

I could see where the league could have a "Draft" of high school seniors that want to skip college for a chance to play in the "D" league. Players could supplement what they earn as player with outside income from a job making it more attractive for many players from the inner-cities.

Most NCAA rules are an attempt to keep college football "collegiate", however, we can all see the hypocrisy of it each recruiting season.
 
No impact, this is a league that helps those football players that are not interested in going to college. I like the idea and I hope it takes off as it would be the first true developmental league for the NFL and I wouldn't be surprised if the NFL ends up sponsoring it.
 
An alternative league peaked with the XFL. Vince McMahon, He Hate Me, those guys. This new league will be a clunker.
 
I could be wrong, but I think in 20 years, club teams will be the level between high school and pros...as colleges move away from sanctioning the sport of college football due to what I believe will be a cavalcade of litigation in the coming years due to Concussion studies, CTE, etc....and for that matter, high school football could become endangered as well for the same reasons.

Give this a read....this is harrowing, heartbreaking...but it gives you pause. http://www.gq.com/story/the-concussion-diaries-high-school-football-cte
 
okeefe4prez said:
It will have no impact on the college game whatsoever. Assuming the skinniest of rosters so 50 guys a team, they will need $2.5 mm per team to cover employee salaries. Plus they'll have to pay coaches, get facilities, etc.

The revenue model is non-existent because they will find it virtually impossible to get 3000 people to show up even with free tickets. No way they'll get any decent TV revenue, either.

I'll be shocked if the league lasts two years. No one wants to watch dudes they don't know playing for teams they don't know. College ball works because of the tremendous amount of goodwill each program has in the fanbase. Even Iowa Stat can sell tens of thousands of season tickets.
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Where you been, Ken.....

Good to see you back.....

:cool:
 
JonDMiller said:
I could be wrong, but I think in 20 years, club teams will be the level between high school and pros...as colleges move away from sanctioning the sport of college football due to what I believe will be a cavalcade of litigation in the coming years due to Concussion studies, CTE, etc....and for that matter, high school football could become endangered as well for the same reasons.

Give this a read....this is harrowing, heartbreaking...but it gives you pause. http://www.gq.com/story/the-concussion-diaries-high-school-football-cte
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I know this sounds far out there, but I don't see there being football in general as we know it in 20 years.

My son plays in a youth tackle football league here in NW Iowa, and the drop in numbers has been absolutely crazy to the point of (in our town at least) 2 of the 4 grade levels not having enough kids for a team let alone any subs, where ten years ago there were so many kids that we had at least 2 teams per grade. The single reason I've heard from parents is head injury risk. The numbers in youth football are plummeting all around the country, and that can only follow to high school ball as time passes. We've already seen high school numbers down, though not as much as at the youth level.

The science and public awareness has gotten to the point where it isn't deniable anymore, and I think that as time goes on we'll see less and less participation. Unfortunately that probably means the majority of kids playing in 20 years will be from disadvantaged situations trying to get a way out. A good athlete from a rich family who wants to be a doctor or lawyer isn't going to smash his brain up playing football, and won't have to. A kid from a poor family who might not be good at school but can run a 4.4 and bench 225 for a bunch of reps doesn't see many other options.

TL;DR, I don't think football exists the way it does now in 20 years.
 
Fryowa said:
I know this sounds far out there, but I don't see there being football in general as we know it in 20 years.

My son plays in a youth tackle football league here in NW Iowa, and the drop in numbers has been absolutely crazy to the point of (in our town at least) 2 of the 4 grade levels not having enough kids for a team let alone any subs, where ten years ago there were so many kids that we had at least 2 teams per grade. The single reason I've heard from parents is head injury risk. The numbers in youth football are plummeting all around the country, and that can only follow to high school ball as time passes. We've already seen high school numbers down, though not as much as at the youth level.

The science and public awareness has gotten to the point where it isn't deniable anymore, and I think that as time goes on we'll see less and less participation. Unfortunately that probably means the majority of kids playing in 20 years will be from disadvantaged situations trying to get a way out. A good athlete from a rich family who wants to be a doctor or lawyer isn't going to smash his brain up playing football, and won't have to. A kid from a poor family who might not be good at school but can run a 4.4 and bench 225 for a bunch of reps doesn't see many other options.

TL;DR, I don't think football exists the way it does now in 20 years.
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I think you make some good points . . . but I'm gonna have to go mental on one aspect.

The part where you mention how sad it is that poor people will have to play the game and rich people won't.

There will never be a time when some people don't have it better than other people. There is no such thing as "fairness" in the Universe as humanity defines the word. Nature doesn't work that way. Is it fair that elephants will soon be extinct? Humanity believes in Utopia. It doesn't exist. It can't exist. Inequity is the price of evolution and biodiversity. Nature's balance and humanities utopia are different and incongruous.
 
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This will only impact the college game if players really think it will work.

I think you see some, but not all, of the top high school prospects go this route if it does get kids to the NFL. This will open doors for some kids that are on the fringe to get a shot at FBS ball which might even open up more chances for these kids to grow and make it to the NFL.

But the most likely outcome will be better perks allowed by the NCAA for players.
 
GesterHawk said:
This will only impact the college game if players really think it will work.

I think you see some, but not all, of the top high school prospects go this route if it does get kids to the NFL. This will open doors for some kids that are on the fringe to get a shot at FBS ball which might even open up more chances for these kids to grow and make it to the NFL.

But the most likely outcome will be better perks allowed by the NCAA for players.
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Even if college students think it's a good thing it'll never fly. The article mentioned $50K per year. Do some simple math and you'll see it wouldn't work. OK4P mentioned it first above. Here's a ridiculous example that ignores what P5 football budgets normally are (which also get conference money).

Average salary per player, $50,000 x (I'm going to say) 75 players = $3.8 million.

Coaching staff salaries with say, 8 coaches = probably 4-6 million. Think that's too high, guess what? Quality coaches will go to the NCAA where they can make that money. That's the goal, right? NCAA/NFL-level coaching but on a paid team.

Facility fees = Lets take a WAG and say $250K

Travel expenses = Let's go with $2 million even though there's no way it'd be that low. B1G teams spend $6-10 million a year or more on travel budgets. Gotta fly, gotta eat, gotta sleep.

Miscellaneous = Call it $1 million for advertising, insurance, recruiting, other stuff I forgot.

So...now you have potentially $13 million in expenses per team per year and that's just scratching the surface. Let's assume that the team sells $1 million in fan gear. That leaves $12 million. Divide that $12 million by 6 (fair number of home games), then further divide it by an average ticket price of $45, and you'd have to sell almost 45,000 tickets per game to break even.

This is obviously a grossly oversimplified example, but it at least shows how stupid the idea of just creating a minor league football league is. The agents and businessman promoting it are just as smart as everyone else and they realize it too, but there are quick bucks to be made and they're going to take advantage of what they can get. There's a sucker born every minute.

If there was a sustainable market for minor league football there would be minor league football. The NFL would never in a million years get on board with it because it wouldn't generate them any money. They already get the top 500 new football players on the planet every year without having to do anything.
 
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If the NFL would support a D league it would probably work but the problem that creates is money out of the owner's pockets. And that won't fly. Plus they're never going to support a D league when they already have one that doesn't cost them a penny.

Unless the NFL PA supports it and fights for it during the next collective bargaining agreement, I don't think it will last.

However, I do see the NFL relaxing its policy on needing to be 3 years out of high school in order to eligible for the NFL draft. That would have a dramatic negative impact on college football.
 
Xerxes said:
However, I do see the NFL relaxing its policy on needing to be 3 years out of high school in order to eligible for the NFL draft. That would have a dramatic negative impact on college football.
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No way this will happen. The NFL litigated its policy heavily when Clarett wanted that waiver and I think they are even more concerned now about maturity than they were back then. The league has become really young as teams are basically now only paying 6 guys well, they'll re-sign a few solid veterans, but other than that are completely reliant on guys on their first contract so as to stay under the cap. With this reliance on young players, the quality of the product has tanked and the NFL's ratings are sliding (which is due to a multitude of factors, but quality of the game is certainly a material one).

I honestly watched probably 5 hours of regular season NFL, mostly on Thanksgiving. I was looking forward to watching some playoff games this past weekend and was shocked at how terrible the games were. The NFL can't allow younger guys in, it will destroy the league. These young o-linemen have absolutely no clue how to handle blitz packages.
 
Fryowa said:
Even if college students think it's a good thing it'll never fly. The article mentioned $50K per year. Do some simple math and you'll see it wouldn't work. OK4P mentioned it first above. Here's a ridiculous example that ignores what P5 football budgets normally are (which also get conference money).

Average salary per player, $50,000 x (I'm going to say) 75 players = $3.8 million.

Coaching staff salaries with say, 8 coaches = probably 4-6 million. Think that's too high, guess what? Quality coaches will go to the NCAA where they can make that money. That's the goal, right? NCAA/NFL-level coaching but on a paid team.

Facility fees = Lets take a WAG and say $250K

Travel expenses = Let's go with $2 million even though there's no way it'd be that low. B1G teams spend $6-10 million a year or more on travel budgets. Gotta fly, gotta eat, gotta sleep.

Miscellaneous = Call it $1 million for advertising, insurance, recruiting, other stuff I forgot.

So...now you have potentially $13 million in expenses per team per year and that's just scratching the surface. Let's assume that the team sells $1 million in fan gear. That leaves $12 million. Divide that $12 million by 6 (fair number of home games), then further divide it by an average ticket price of $45, and you'd have to sell almost 45,000 tickets per game to break even.

This is obviously a grossly oversimplified example, but it at least shows how stupid the idea of just creating a minor league football league is. The agents and businessman promoting it are just as smart as everyone else and they realize it too, but there are quick bucks to be made and they're going to take advantage of what they can get. There's a sucker born every minute.

If there was a sustainable market for minor league football there would be minor league football. The NFL would never in a million years get on board with it because it wouldn't generate them any money. They already get the top 500 new football players on the planet every year without having to do anything.
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Yeah, exactly. When you think about the value that a college player gets even without the education component included, it sounds like it is per player more than the $50k they are gonna pay these dudes.
 
There's a couple ways that I can see football as a sport dying and I don't think it's through courts and litigation. One would be a generation of parents not letting kids play and then that just ballooning.
Another way is what I'll call the 'sports bubble' for the lack of a better term. I think the money in sports is so crazy high right now and with how people watch TV is ever changing that the advertising $ is going to start shrinking. Look at what's happening with ESPN. They have had layoffs and had to cutback on things quite a bit to lack of viewers/people not renewing it on their TV subscriptions. The cutting the cord deal is a real thing and starting to hit the pockets of some big companies. Not just sports but especially sports. For years everyone with cable or dish has been paying to support ESPN right? Just about every package has it whether you wanted it or not regardless of if you watched it you were paying for it. Well more and more people are tightening up their TV packages and 'ala carting' or cutting the cord all together to just watch what they want. That's going to put a huge dent in sports not only football going forward and it'll be interesting to see in time how it plays out. Live sports has value yet with advertisers as it's one of the few things people will still want to watch live and not DVR and skip over commercials with. But is that enough when you cut out all those that don't want any sports?...
I don't think these leagues are prepared to go backwards. Look at basketball and baseball... It's been widely reported about how crazy the $ is in those sports due to TV.... There's a line in the sand somewhere as to how fast they are spending money and where it'll stop and I think we'll see the day...
 
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