North Carolina is finalizing a deal for Bill Belichick to be next Tarheels head coach [Belichick agrees to 5 year deal with UNC]
I have to say I'm surprised. I wouldn't have thought Belichick's persona would be a good fit for it. The current environment in college football has changed so rapidly just the past 5-7 years it's insane. Until the antitrust settlement money fully kicks in during next midsummer, it's a complete Wild West show right now. Millionaires and billionaires with certain ties to certain programs are dealing that funny-money like it's Monopoly.
Begs the question of whether Michael Jordan is involved with any NIL ventures at UNC? Bill's gonna need some big backers to compete in the current environment.
Definitely agree with ya on all accounts. I was just thinking it’s only going to be a matter of time before the NCAA revokes its 501C3 status just like the NFL. Once the NIL stuff started and the transfer portal shenanigans with boosters (acting as de facto agents for college football players). Not to mention the lure of the Vegas/betting money. Let’s face it, it has become all about the money and many of these division 1 programs are doing good but not so much the universities.
The NCAAs tax return for 2023 (
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/440567264) they showed their profits at $1.26B and expenses at $1.18B. The NFL made $20.24B. So comparatively speaking I think everyone can agree that there’s no way possible that the NCAA only made $1.26B between football, baseball, basketball, and all their other collegiate athletics. However, they probably made way more money but due to their “non profit/taxexempt” status they were forced to claim much less money. Similar to what the NFL did prior to 2015 until they forfeited their 501C6 tax exempt status.
Sure, the NFL and the owners pay more in taxes than ever before but they also can actually claim more revenue now more than ever before while also taking advantage of quite a few of their still 501C3 charitable organizations and their tax exemptions. So would it be so crazy for the NCAA to choose the same path that the NFL has. I know that there are many fans that believe that collegiate athletics are the last bastion of purity and true unpaid competitiveness but the reality is that’s no longer the case at least not for Division I football.
If the NCAA does go that route then I say just go the NFL route. Maximize merchandise, television/streaming and marketing revenue. Just make 2 super conferences American College Football Conference and the National College Football Conference and split up 8 - 16 (keep the SEC, ACC, BIG10, BIG12 names in the sub conference names) team conferences (126 teams) amongst the two with 2 divisions in each of the 4 sub conferences (north/south or east/west). Eliminate 8 division I programs which probably needs to happens anyways.
14 week season, 15 weeks, 1 bye per team. Maintain rivalry games but make the schedule similar to the NFL so that tie breakers, conference and divisional records can be used instead of a bowl committee. 8 sub conference winners get an automatic playoff spot then the next 8 get a spot based on their record then tiebreakers not rank. Play it out over 22-23 weeks from the last week of August until the last week of January. I’m pretty sure if Amazon or Hulu offered to stream LSU/Alabama on a Wednesday night every year (Or any SEC matchup) they would pay a pretty penny and dominate viewership for that night.
Like I said, just my 2 cents but if you do the math of what the NFL generates with 32 teams. I’d hate to see what the NCAA would generate with 126 with a similar format. That’s just if they forfeited 501C3 for just football (I’m not sure if they could just do football separately). Maybe they would, could and should do all sports because with March madness (men’s and women’s) and especially the college World Series I think the revenue streams on sports gambling alone would make the NFL money look like chump change.