The college football landscape is rapidly changing. Traditional conference affiliations have collapsed as teams position themselves to maximize media right profits. Realignment heated up in August of 2022 when UCLA and USC surprisingly announced they would join the Big Ten and abandon their 60-year PAC 12 affiliation. The announcement came days after the Big Ten and Fox Sports agreed on a 7 year $7 Billion tv media rights deal. A year later when the PAC 12 renegotiated their tv agreement with ESPN, ESPN offered each school $30 million a year in TV revenue. That small evaluation resulted in the collapse of the conference as 6 other schools left the alliance.
News of this filled the ESPN radio airwaves in September of 2023. On my favorite radio show, Bishop and Friends, the host tried to make sense of the situation. As an enthusiastic college football fan, and someone who likes to make sense out of messy situations, I created and emailed this Tableau dashboard to the show. A few days later, the show began with a 10-minute discussion of my conference realignment solution. They loved the creation of the Championship League, the selection of teams in their proposed conferences, and the non-subjective Playoff format. Interact with the entire dashboard here.
- Using parameters to create the League Swap switching between the Championship and Promotion League sheets
- Using navigation buttons to display the Model Format and Playoff Format pages
- Inserting school logo images onto a map
- Using Figma to prepare the school logos and create a playoff bracket
- Using groups and sets to create leagues and divisions
- How will the money from tv media rights deals affect CFB realignment?
- What happens to the remaining 80 Division 1 football programs?
- How can this work?
- How can playoff teams be determined in a non-subjective manner?
With college football becoming a national media product, media deal profits now create even large disparity between programs. School operating budgets range from $5 million to $250 million. The Championship Leage combines the top 48 programs into the Big Ten and SEC. This affiliation produces top notch programing for FOX and ESPN while providing viewers competitive weekly matchups.
Not every college football program can compete with the Championship League's budgets. The Promotion League provides the opportunity for the remaining 80 Division 1 teams to compete for their own Championship. Major television networks can use the Promotion League to fill programing on streaming apps and second tier channels such as Fox Plus. The intrigue of the league winner's promotion to the Champions league will increase viewership.
Student athletes traveling across 3 different time zones each weekend while attending classes during the week can result in additional stress. Utilizing a regional format based on divisional play reduces travel. Divisional play also provides a non-subjective way to determine playoff teams. Teams winning their division will play in the playoffs.
The current playoff format consists of a 13-person Playoff Selection Committee determining the top 4 teams based off of inconsistent criteria. One team may be selected to the playoffs based on a strong strength of schedule, while another team may be selected because they look like a playoff team. Subjective opinions often result in deserving teams being left out of the playoffs. Even though the number of playoff teams increase to 12 in 2024, the subjective process remains.
The Playoff system above displays a simple non-subjective playoff system. The winners of each conference division in the Champions League will be seeded based on record. The top seed will host the 4th seeded team at home while the 2nd team hosts the 3rd seed team. Winners of the first-round games will play for the Conference Championship on a neutral field. Finally, the Conference Champions will face off on New Year's Day in The Rose Bowl for the National Championship.
The playoff format for the Promotion League follows a similar format. Conference Champions will be seeded based off their record and play in either the Fiesta Bowl or the Cotton Bowl. The Promotion Bowl will be the first game on New Year's Day.
Since the creation of this dashboard in September of 2023, many aspects have materialized. In December 2023, the president of the NCAA, announced the formation of a subdivision. Universities with an annual budget over $100,000 would make up this league with the idea that they would pay players $30,000 a season. The Big Ten and SEC lead the way in the formation of this new subdivision, currently referred to as Power 2 or P2. The ACC faces litigation from Florida State as Florida State fights to leave the conference and join the Big Ten. Florida State leaving the ACC would cause a domino effect resulting in the remaining teams forming this model's Champions League.