I'm sorry. I can't get the "You have a charge on your Amazon Prime (Time) account" scams which have proliferated. I believe Prime Time to be equally scamfull.
When I say I blame the court, I'm talking about 1984 ncaa VS Oklahoma, not the NIL stuff. That decision effectively killed college football as an amateur sport. Everything we've seen since then was just a natural consequence of that decision. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_v._Board_of_Regents_of_the_University_of_Oklahoma It's a fascinating read. Highly recommended.
Don't kid yourself. It's been pro since the earliest days. The only difference is who benefits and how far they will go to discourage whistle blowers. Every permit, license, patent and copyright is built on the idea of restraint of trade. Others involve captured markets and pursuit of production and distribution bottlenecks to exploit. This decision just brought the dirty linen out in public.
National Championship was on last years list and should have been on this years. Seem like a strange omission.
Crazy talk. I'm not down with the NCAA and one TV network deciding what one game I can watch every Saturday.
Absolutely. I could not care less about the playoff games or bowl games this year. Watching games where the best players continually choose not to play…not remotely resembling the way they played during the season…no thanks. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t watch if you like it…to each his own. It kinda sucks for me, personally, because I used to care a lot about it…and I don’t much at all anymore.
This bowl season has absolutely sucked. There hasn't even been the usual handful of insanely fun games in the minor bowls. Very much looking forward to the expanded playoffs next year.
Ah yes, the good ol' days when only few games were televised and when the top 2 teams never had to play each other and voters instead just picked a national champ every year based on polls. Edit: that said, I agree with problems with the transfer portal and such. But it seems like there are simple solutions. 1 transfer max. Portal opens after the season ends. Outside of losing the PAC, I don't think the super-conference thing is as big a deal as people make it. Those conferences are so big that schools will only ever play half the conference and in any given year. It's stupid, but it doesn't create massive imbalances. It's like the SEC is just two big conferences that flip around teams every year.
Unironically yes. I don't give a **** about 1 v 2 or a playoff or what writers or a committee think. Regional championships and a truly Amatuer sport are vastly preferable to this.
Everyone involved in this is obstinate and greedy. The major bowls, especially the Rose Bowl, desperately want to survive in an era where they're merely stepping stones to something else. Nobody from Michigan or Alabama is going to care that they win the Rose Bowl tonight when they get to play in the national championship next. The schools are guilty for destroying regional rivalries in a sport that is, by definition, regional. Washington, USC, UCLA and Oregon going to the Big 10 is an affront to a century of history. But, they'll make a lot of money. The TV networks are guilty for throwing around a **** ton of money in their desperation to retain broadcasting rights for the only IP they can air that people will watch: live sports. Nobody watches Sportscenter, PTI, etc. anymore and the networks need to justify their high carriage fees to cable providers. The players are guilty for putting to bed any semblance of caring about their schools or teammates by transferring so often for so much money. I can't blame them for getting paid, but I do think they're selfish when they wear jerseys on the sidelines while their teammates who don't have hopes of transferring or going pro get murdered in a meaningless bowl game. The fans of big programs are guilty for developing a natty or bust mindset. Look at Ohio State: they want to fire Ryan Day when all he does is win 10 games every season. We stopped caring about anything other than national championships so everyone else stopped caring, too.
Everyone involved is acting completely rationally given their incentives. The problem is the incentives are toward maximizing profit. This is why the Supreme Court ****ed up. Particularly interesting clip from the wiki article I posted: This dude was right. The moment they took away the NCAA's control of television rights, it ceased to be an amateur sport, and everything we've seen since then was inevitable. Everyone loves to blame the players but they've been the last entity to get equal/proper treatment. It's like blaming the slaves for causing the Civil War.
Ir could be argued that Slaves were the cause of the War of Federal Tyranny. It's an interesting intellectual argument most buy, but I believe economics and a raw POWER GRAB were the real reasons.
You seem to be missing everyone's point that the way they regulated profit was my artificially restricting the number of football games that are televised. That's not something most people want in 2023.
The profit came from being special. Monday Night was the one and only. Now there are Thursdays Fridays, 2 Saturdays Early Sundays, Nonn and afternoon Sundays and Sunday night as well as one or two Monday games. There really isn't anything special about these anymore other than the aggravation of following your favorite team.
It's special that you can watch every game of your favorite team wherever you are. I'm not sure anyone under the age of 50 would agree it's more special to not have access to that. Just because something is rare doesn't make it special to everyone.
I agree that team access direct to the consumer is where the market will eventually go. But the money made by the old system of choke-point economics is stubborn.