Who Killed College Football?

Conferences didn’t used to be where all the bargaining power resided in college football, and their concerns used to be exceedingly local. Today, they’re conglomerates locked into escalating wars of spending and revenue, and leaning on their market strength (or weakness) to shape everything from the postseason to realignment. They’ve even found a way to make that business competition important to fans, and the conferences have no reason to slow down now.Producer: Michael HenahanResearcher: Alex McDaniel

After we review each suspect in our college football murder mystery, we’ll be taking questions from paid members of the WKCFB Substack community about that episode – what went into making it, topics we didn’t cover, questions about the history we laid out, whatever. We got some great questions after the TV episode and enjoyed batting them around.If you…

College football’s rise as a valuable TV product is still relatively new. For decades, the sport either couldn’t be televised or was limited at a national level. But once that market opened up, networks moved fast to get more of everything – more games, more bowls, more playoffs. They’re not just broadcast partners either. These companies have found a way to acquire partial ownership of college football, becoming business partners with conferences. Thanks to television, it’s easier than ever to watch almost every game at the FBS level. It’s also a lot harder to tell what that level’s going to look like in the future.Producer: Michael HenahanResearcher: Alex McDaniel

Before we dive into the six suspects in the death of college football, let’s begin with a confession. College football is, in fact, very much alive, with upsets being sprung, conferences continuing to realign, and expanded playoff spots to fret over. The sport remains incredibly popular, entertaining, and, at least for certain segments, financially lucrative.But the college football you used to know? That might be dead, whether you’re unhappy about the slow erasure of amateurism, swollen superconferences disregarding geography, the power of television networks to shape the future, and any number of other changes that could shake your belief in what college football was, is, or should be.If you’re feeling that way, well, so is Nick Saban. So let’s start digging into how we got here in the first place.

Producer: Michael Henahan

Researcher: Alex McDaniel

Coming soon: Steven Godfrey and Ryan Nanni attempt to find out Who Killed College Football? in a six-part series examining the major power players who have wreaked so much havoc on the sport