Given everything going on with the NCAA and realignment, these two books that I recently read came to mind...both incredible.
The first is Death To The BCS by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter and Jeff Passan. This book was originally published back in 2010 and exposes the grift inherent in the bowl system in a way that I'd never seen before. Really well written and fascinating, exposes how a relatively small group of people held the sport back for so many years just to make themselves rich.
The next book is actually about soccer but seems VERY relevant to where it seems we are about to go with college football - The Club: How The English Premier League Became The Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force In Sports by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg. This book is about how the English Premier League was formed back in 1992 when the top 20 teams decided to break away from the much larger English Football League (tons of teams in the lower levels). They primarily did this so that they could control TV contracts (aka $$$), but also so that they could govern the top level of the sport in a way that makes sense for those top teams. It's interesting because at one point these top teams didn't think they would be able to break away and form their own league because the English Football League said that any team leaving the league had to sit out for 3 seasons...but then somebody read the founding documents of the English Football League and found out that the 3 year moratorium was actually against their own rules! Once they figured that out, the top teams dropped out of the EFL and formed the Premier League.
Reading both of these books at roughly the same time gave me visions of where CFB could be going. The lack of leadership from the NCAA and the outlandish grift of the bowl system (and honestly the mismanagment of the conferences themselves) could easily push the top teams in CFB to drop out of the NCAA and form their own league. The new league could govern itself in a way that makes sense for schools who invest heavily in football, set up NIL rules that make sense, player contracts, transfer windows, and run their own playoff. College football would still be played in lower leagues, maybe they stick with the current NCAA and bowl system...who knows.
Also, I think a promotion/relegation system would be incredibly fun for CFB
The first is Death To The BCS by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter and Jeff Passan. This book was originally published back in 2010 and exposes the grift inherent in the bowl system in a way that I'd never seen before. Really well written and fascinating, exposes how a relatively small group of people held the sport back for so many years just to make themselves rich.
The next book is actually about soccer but seems VERY relevant to where it seems we are about to go with college football - The Club: How The English Premier League Became The Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force In Sports by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg. This book is about how the English Premier League was formed back in 1992 when the top 20 teams decided to break away from the much larger English Football League (tons of teams in the lower levels). They primarily did this so that they could control TV contracts (aka $$$), but also so that they could govern the top level of the sport in a way that makes sense for those top teams. It's interesting because at one point these top teams didn't think they would be able to break away and form their own league because the English Football League said that any team leaving the league had to sit out for 3 seasons...but then somebody read the founding documents of the English Football League and found out that the 3 year moratorium was actually against their own rules! Once they figured that out, the top teams dropped out of the EFL and formed the Premier League.
Reading both of these books at roughly the same time gave me visions of where CFB could be going. The lack of leadership from the NCAA and the outlandish grift of the bowl system (and honestly the mismanagment of the conferences themselves) could easily push the top teams in CFB to drop out of the NCAA and form their own league. The new league could govern itself in a way that makes sense for schools who invest heavily in football, set up NIL rules that make sense, player contracts, transfer windows, and run their own playoff. College football would still be played in lower leagues, maybe they stick with the current NCAA and bowl system...who knows.
Also, I think a promotion/relegation system would be incredibly fun for CFB
