Football Fridays: December Madness?

Welcome to The Modern Day Renaissance Man newsletter. I, Trey Layton, write about the things that interest me, often covering topics such as startups, sports, and entertainment. If you'd like to receive these newsletters directly in your email a few times a week, go ahead and subscribe to never miss an email!

Happy Thursday, folks.

I saw a Finebaum post on Twitter asking for college football fans' strangest gameday superstitions/traditions. The replies were pretty typical. Things that we're all guilty of. For example: not allowing white in the room while watching the game, eating 29 chicken nuggets before kickoff, and... trying not to blink for the entire game. Cool😳

It came out this week that the Big 12 is in talks with Fox (ESPN-owned) to renew the conference's media rights deal. The current deal between the two parties expires in 2025, leaving looming uncertainty for the current and future members of the conference, particularly as the league's biggest money-printers, Texas and Oklahoma, bolt for the SEC that same year. Securing a lucrative per-team payout for its members would strengthen the conference's appeal as a potential destination for teams from other divisions *cough* Pac 12 *cough* looking for a new forever home.

Today, news broke that the college football playoffs could see expansion in as early as 2024 should a unanimous vote be reached tomorrow morning on the format by a board of university presidents from schools from each conference and Notre Dame.

For your sake, I'm splitting this playoff expansion argument into two parts. This week, I'm talking the economics of playoff expansion from the perspective of conferences and media companies. Next week (omg no spoilers!), I'll tell you why playoff expansion is the worst idea I've ever heard (okay, that was pretty harsh. i've heard worse. can you believe some people think the earth is round???)

The plan being voted on would likely also include an agreement on a multi-bidder future playoff rights deal whereby no single network would have exclusive rights to broadcast playoff games. ESPN currently has a monopoly on the four team structure, paying a hefty $470 million annual ($50M too much imo) sum to do so. The contract expires in 2026, thus this new deal would come into effect the following season.

For broadcasters, more playoff games = more dinero. The proposal bring voted on would value a 12 team setup at $1.2 billion annually, far more than what ESPN is currently paying and even further more than the $240M ESPN is currently paying for ALL ACC games annually. If you think Super Bowl commercials have gone stale lately, imagine those marketing departments having to stretch their Red Bull-induced fever dreams into 11 games every year.

ESPN will fight to retain its exclusive deal. Not only does this mean extra ad dollars for this poor, poor company, but it also allows The House of Mouse to push for the teams in their conference, like Bama and Clemson, to secure as many of the available spots as possible. Other conferences, such as the Big Ten under its new media deal, will fight against this for the opposite reasons, instead preferring CBS and NBC to get a piece of the pie. It's highly likely that this latter outcome occurs.

Another point of contention relates to automatic qualifiers. Commissioners are divided on whether teams should be automatically given playoff spots for winning their conference championships or whether the highest ranked teams, regardless of conference trophies, should get the nods instead. A system without autobids offers a chance for more highly-ranked teams from better conferences in, so the SEC and B1G would prefer such a system. On the other hand, the Big 12 and ACC would want qualifiers to ensure that they are represented annually. Without autobids, most years of a 12 team playoff would (rightfully tbh) include 6 SEC teams and another 3 or 4 from the Big Ten as opposed to 6 autobids and a few at-large spots, capping the number of teams from a single conference.

It's not just conferences that have interests in qualifier rules. A greater number of playoff berths increases the value of conferences for broadcasters as more people tune in to watch the best teams play, so the networks have incentive to support more of "their" teams getting in. Despite also having the rights for a few of the smaller conferences, ESPN will likely fight to avoid autobids to maximize the number of $EC teams that are competing come January.

For many, none of this means anything. They look at other sports such as college basketball, baseball, and even the NFL and laud the entertainment that comes with the win or go home stakes of a playoff. More teams --> more great games, right?

Wrong. College football playoff expansion would prove detrimental to the sport. Why?

Tune in next week to find out;)

Real quick summary of the huge weekend ahead which starts IN AN HOUR:

• Thursday: Penn State @ Purdue; West Virginia @ Pitt (This one will be spicy)

• Friday: Illinois @ Indiana

• Saturday: Cinci @ Arkansas; Oregon @ Georgia; Utah @ Florida; Notre Dame @ tOSU

• Sunday: FSU @ LSU

• Monday: Georgia Tech @ Clemson

Talk about a lineup. Couple of other sleepers to watch out for: Houston and UTSA (this one hits close to home), Memphis and Miss. St., and, the game we really care about, Elon @ Vandy. Expecting Mike Wright to dice the Phoenix up en route to another Commodore W.

Do me a favor and send this newsletter on to someone who is about to lose waaay too much money on DraftKings this weekend!

Cheers to another day,

Trey