I’d be curious to know what “broken” means. TV ratings and money flowing to schools is at record-highs. The players are finally getting paid something for their efforts and have freedom of movement. We’ve lost the Oregon State-Arizona State game, but, so? - ThreadSky

conorsen.bsky.social • 82 days ago

I’d be curious to know what “broken” means. TV ratings and money flowing to schools is at record-highs. The players are finally getting paid something for their efforts and have freedom of movement. We’ve lost the Oregon State-Arizona State game, but, so?

Reposted from Brett McMurphy

West Virginia president Gordon Gee: "Yes, (college football) is broken. The reason it's broken, we've gotten into a consumer oriented approach. W/out a doubt college football is broken. We have to fix it" #SBJIAF

Comments

carlquintanilla.bsky.social•82 days ago

I have to imagine it’s an echo of what Saban said: “All the things that I believed in, for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics.”

https://youtu.be/E-Gmjbq7Hzo?si=ol3IxiLIeRLm-3O4

conorsen.bsky.social•82 days ago

He wasn’t complaining about making $8 million/year…

studuncan.bsky.social•82 days ago

He wasn’t able to buy top tier talent anymore either.

rjprociuk.bsky.social•82 days ago

Any time the players/student-athletes start to receive additional benefits, the system is broken

rjprociuk.bsky.social•82 days ago

https://WKCFB.com

mjgarne.bsky.social•82 days ago

No, but now he is a fan like you and I, and the morphing into the NFL is getting rid of most things that makes college football different from the NFL

natetheprettygood.bsky.social•82 days ago

We just meant “purity and love of the game” for the players. Everyone else deserves to get paid for their talent. 🙃

mildthing1.bsky.social•82 days ago

His response is more PR-friendly than “I’m retiring because my entire competitive edge has been almost completely negated by the NIL”

thelibertypear.com•82 days ago

What a joker - as soon as labor isn’t free the system is broken?? Joke

brimccaskill.bsky.social•82 days ago

College, as a whole, is broken. And having hard working kids trying to learn how to be an accountant paying $60k to subsidize a football team that has nothing to do with education is a tragedy.

But, of course, he wasn't talking about that.

taylorwfuga.bsky.social•82 days ago

Im baffled Gee still garners an audience after how his Vanderbilt tenure ended…and how his Ohio State tenure ended. Forget his age, but he’s just aloof from the current climate. The sport he knows is gone. CFB does not need him as a leading voice when his big solution is Private Equity.

dburnette.com•82 days ago

Rich from the guy who as Ohio State President said he simply hopes Jim Tressel won't fire him back in 2011 during the Tressel scandal.

Major college athletics has been the tail wagging the university dog for a long time. If anything we're just codifying it as semi-professional sports.

seighless.bsky.social•82 days ago

These bozos are just mad that the student athletes aren’t under their thumbs as much anymore.

wchadpeterson.bsky.social•82 days ago

NIL is a shake down. The schools don't want to share their TV dollars with the players(like NFL). They are trying to go back to the alumni twice by making it a competition. If it keeps working, hard not to blame them. There isn't a small donor rescue for the NIL stuff. Big boys will eventually quit.

mglan80.bsky.social•82 days ago

Conor, c’mon. The conferences are a complete joke. That’s the commissioners’ mess to fix, but it’s a disservice to all athletes to have to compete in a coast to coast conference. I’m not just saying football but all the 30 odd other sports at D I schools.

conorsen.bsky.social•82 days ago

Well we’ll fix that when we do the breakaway super football conference.

mglan80.bsky.social•82 days ago

With extensive video review on every close call, all played at “neutral” sites and gambling sponsorships on the unis. A real wonderland of charm.

davesrants.com•82 days ago

People will really hate the end state of all this, where a lot of the historic rivalry games don't happen because one of the teams is just too many level below for it to continue.

davesrants.com•82 days ago

Again am not American/only recently broadened my horizons from the NFL but think this is what the options are:

smtuffy.bsky.social•82 days ago

Yeah, the sooner they carve football and basketball out into separate college leagues the better because you can have logical geographic conferences for the rest

idogcapital.bsky.social•82 days ago

Are you seriously looking forward to 80% of Division 1 schools being told they don’t matter?

conorsen.bsky.social•82 days ago

Astronaut meme

idogcapital.bsky.social•82 days ago

Wish Bluesky has bookmarks for posts like these. Several teams in the Playoff that could disprove this.

estebanenchilada.bsky.social•82 days ago

Some schools got left behind in the realignments for sure, so for them maybe it feels like a broken system now, but that’s life. Having conferences that literally go coast to coast is weird, but I imagine I’ll get used to it eventually.

plannertuck.bsky.social•82 days ago

His bow tie must be a little too tight

eman41.bsky.social•82 days ago

I’m not a fan of a particular team but I’d imagine it’s harder to be a fan of a team at WVU’s level with the transfer portal

bobbyblaeu.bsky.social•82 days ago

The transfer portal is an absolute mess. I’m slightly more engaged than a passive fan and having to learn who half the team is each year has really turned me off. There has to be a middle ground between the old lockdown and the new fr lockdown for all

fujoshi.bsky.social•82 days ago

The other big "problem" seems to be bowl opt-outs, but I don't think random low-tier bowls are something that need to be urgently preserved.

ymroddi.bsky.social•82 days ago

No salary cap and everyone being a free agent is a problem. It's like college football has to learn all the lessons the NFL already figured out. The NFL has the rules it does for good reasons.

ymroddi.bsky.social•82 days ago

Though it would be fun to see an Ivy league billionaire decide he wants to make Princeton/Brown/etc an instant powerhouse and drop $50 million to buy a team of composed of only All Americans. Princeton with a first round bye! Brown 14pt fav over Bama.

themistocleswall.bsky.social•82 days ago

the athletes are getting broken👇🏼

I played football in HS & college

Can’t watch it now

michaelmelillo.bsky.social•82 days ago

One indication could be that the PAC-12 conference currently has two teams.

jpgr.bsky.social•82 days ago

Agee with you 100%! The only thing that has changed is that the guys we pay to watch are now getting a little bit of the billions of dollars the schools and coaches have been keeping to themselves. The courts have declared the players have the same rights every other American has. It’s about time!

lelonstoldt.bsky.social•82 days ago

Bedlam didn't happen this year and won't happen again until (at least) 2031. It definitely feels a little broken.

conorsen.bsky.social•82 days ago

Okay, that’s admittedly a loss.

vevejones007.bsky.social•82 days ago

I think we all know what he means

occamshavecream.bsky.social•82 days ago

Maybe it means that the SEC is the only conference that matters now, which isn’t popular with the rest of the teams

curioustore.bsky.social•82 days ago

*Black* and women athletes getting paid, sometimes royally, is what he is referring to. Secondary reason is athletes in general making money.

christinatoms.bsky.social•82 days ago

Most of higher ed has transitioned into a consumer-oriented product, why should football be any different?

idogcapital.bsky.social•82 days ago

I’m a very active, passionate, nationwide cfb fan. And I’m at the point where I do not want to even pay attention to the names of the athletes playing for my schools, so many transfer every single year. The fan experience has been heavily degraded in recent years.

declanthewise.bsky.social•82 days ago

Poaching players and coaches mid-season is definitely an issue. And the loss of regional rivalries.

But more access to talent and championships for non-blue bloods makes the evolution a net positive.

dankeshet.bsky.social•82 days ago

"Broken" could also refer to the brains of the players after hundreds of subconcussive impacts, though I doubt that was what was meant.

stevematthews12.bsky.social•82 days ago

The players are getting paid but unlike the NFL there’s no salary cap or rules on transfers and the scheduling is a Wild West not orderly. There needs to be some order to the new system. The officiating is also a mess.

estebanenchilada.bsky.social•82 days ago

Getting replay assist like the NFL would definitely improve watchability, if that’s a word.

smtuffy.bsky.social•82 days ago

Yeah, I think tightening up the transfer window (so after the football championship) makes sense. Though not sure it will be a cure all.

Ultimately if a player is looking to transfer, not sure they can forced to play in the Hot Pocket bowl or whatever

brandons.bsky.social•82 days ago

One caveat is by the time the championship game happens, majority of schools have started their second semester.

They are supposed to be students…

smtuffy.bsky.social•82 days ago

Good point and that’s the rub really, running a professional sports business in an academic wrapper. Slowly getting eaten away any way with stuff like 7 year athletes.

davesrants.com•82 days ago

There's no reversing it. Lots of European football clubs have histories of being born out of something else and CFB is the same. Eventually you'll have NFL style divisions, or European style leagues with promotion and relegation and the clubs will carry the name of a college but not be related to it

zatapatique.bsky.social•82 days ago

lmao perfect analogy, Partizan Auburn vs Red Star Alabama

davesrants.com•82 days ago

Manchester United was once part of a railway company....

inmanroshi.bsky.social•82 days ago

Eventually the SEC and "Big 10" will breakaway from the NCAA and form their own league with their own sponsors, TV contracts, rules and regulations. Likely the players will no longer be student athletes of the school, but paid employees of the athletic departments.

smtuffy.bsky.social•82 days ago

The big question is how much the popularity rests on the patina of of “student athletics” to still exist

conorsen.bsky.social•82 days ago

Fans like rooting for laundry, high schoolers like applying to schools with football teams, I don’t see why it changes.

smtuffy.bsky.social•82 days ago

Anyway, to answer the original question is that the AD of West Virginia thinks college football is broken because he’s on the losing side of the new system

wheelsri.bsky.social•82 days ago

And also, live look at Gee and his fellow university presidents.

wheelsri.bsky.social•82 days ago

Broken = Coaches and administrators, including presidents who comprise the NCAA membership, no longer receive the vast majority of the resources generated by the athletes.

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