r/CFB • u/BuckeyeEmpire Ohio State • Penn State • 9h ago
Casual [Coffey] So let’s recap how Tony Petitti and the Big Ten played the SEC into voluntarily squandering what was about to become a massive longterm revenue advantage...
https://x.com/GrahamCoffeyDC/status/211123300132965605651
u/Simmumah Michigan Wolverines • Rose Bowl 9h ago
Tony Petitti is the worst thing to happen to the B1G and inherently, college football. Money hungry TV exec got what he wanted in the end. Sure cant wait for The Game one year when it means absolutely nothing to Michigan and OSU and we sit players in the fucking biggest rivalry in CFB (arguably). Just fuck off.
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u/tomdawg0022 Minnesota • Delaware 8h ago
Sure cant wait for The Game one year when it means absolutely nothing to Michigan and OSU and we sit players in the fucking biggest rivalry in CFB (arguably).
Having been in the FCS with my secondary flair, playoff positioning will matter a lot in the rivalry week. I can't see many teams sitting guys if it means you get a bye for a top 8 seed or you end up going on the road throughout the playoffs because you're 17th.
It might only matter if both teams are out of it but I can't see The Game turning into a glorified nonconference game where you are playing the 4th stringers.
3
u/iwearatophat Ohio State • Grand Valley State 6h ago
This year Ohio State and Indiana are playing for a chance to be in the B1G title game. Next years game we are playing for a seeding spot.
I approach CBB with a 'wake me up in March' mindset. CFB is quickly going to 'wake me up in December'.
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u/B1GFanOSU Ohio State Buckeyes • Big Ten 9h ago
Oh, I think donors would riot if that happened.
5
u/BuckeyeN7 Ohio State Buckeyes 9h ago
Back in the day, you would have said that about the Rose Bowl, too. Is anyone surprised when that game is a glorified scrimmage between scout teams and freshman now?
All it will take is one big name player getting hurt and missing the playoff for the coaches and players to decide that pretending The Game is still a big deal isn’t worth the potential risk
1
u/BuckeyeEmpire Ohio State • Penn State 7h ago
Sure cant wait for The Game one year when it means absolutely nothing to Michigan and OSU
That's just not going to happen. I understand the idea but Michigan won't get to the point where they won't need that win and Ohio State fans will call for a coach's head for sitting players during it
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u/ChocolateBubbles344 LSU Tigers • Victory Flag 9h ago
So his argument is that the expanded playoff will mean it's less likely that regular season Texas vs. Oklahoma or Alabama vs. Georgia will draw ratings. Sure, Jan.
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u/DumpItInsideMe Ohio State Buckeyes 9h ago
It devalue everything in the regular season. I for one am oh so looking forward to watching a meaningless game between OSU and Michigan with all starters benched in preparation for the playoffs.
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u/AlternativeLess5450 Alabama Crimson Tide 9h ago
Tf are you talking about
More teams will be competing deep into the season then ever before lol
-1
u/okiewxchaser Oklahoma • Red River Shootout 9h ago
I’m glad I’ll be able to watch Charlotte vs Marshal on Thanksgiving Saturday when the Michigan-Ohio State game and Iron Bowl are blowouts because one team sat all of their starters. Definitely the same thing
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u/AlternativeLess5450 Alabama Crimson Tide 9h ago
I didnt know Charlotte and Marshal competed for top 25 ranking spots deep into the season
Sounds like we are missing out
If you only care for like 10 programs though I see how thats a bummer for you
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u/okiewxchaser Oklahoma • Red River Shootout 8h ago
I am a bigger basketball fan than football, have been my whole life
I basically stop watching the last 1/3rd of a season until playoffs start. The games just get incredibly boring because the top teams have already locked in their playoff spot and the fringe teams are competing against the second string of both the teams above and below them. It isn’t fun to watch, just boring, bad basketball
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u/Big_Lawfulness_8143 Alabama Crimson Tide 7h ago
Good thing we will get more meaningful games now then
0
u/okiewxchaser Oklahoma • Red River Shootout 7h ago
Says who? The odds are just as good that we get more games where a fringe team is trying to make the playoffs against a team that either has already clinched or doesn’t care anymore
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u/AlternativeLess5450 Alabama Crimson Tide 5h ago
So that game has meaning then....
This is basic math boomer
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u/kyrev21 Kentucky Wildcats 7h ago
That’s the best part of the basketball season lol. Do you not enjoy sports for the sake of sports? Or do you only enjoy sports when playoff berths are on the line?
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u/okiewxchaser Oklahoma • Red River Shootout 7h ago
I enjoy sports the most when both teams are at full strength and going as hard at each other as possible. I’ve watched the Thunder and Spurs both shut it down for an entire month before
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u/LocoMotives-ms Illinois • Lindenwood 9h ago
More fringe teams maybe, not actually good teams
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u/AlternativeLess5450 Alabama Crimson Tide 9h ago
Since when are top 25 teams not "good"
We have more meaningful and high stakes games to look forward to then ever before
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u/Johnny_Kilroy_84 LSU Tigers • Georgia Bulldogs 9h ago
We’re going to have the same amount of meaningful games. You’re just shifting the window down. The top 10 match up means a lot less so that the 20 vs 23 match up can mean more.
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u/AlternativeLess5450 Alabama Crimson Tide 8h ago
More programs compete for the top 25 then the top 12
Shifting the windows expands the meandingful games
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u/Sir0inks-A-Lot Florida Gators 8h ago
But you’re shifting that window down into fan bases that generally are less engaged - last year’s Miami/Notre Dame argument would be an SMU/Northwestern argument this year.
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u/Sir0inks-A-Lot Florida Gators 8h ago edited 8h ago
Back when there was no playoff, basically every game was a playoff game. One loss and you were probably cooked.
Now that they’ve gone screaming past the size of every other pro sport’s playoffs, my take is meh, I’ve got other things to do on Saturdays and will just come back in December. It’s the MLB problem of no single regular season game meaning that much.
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u/Big_Lawfulness_8143 Alabama Crimson Tide 7h ago
Almost no games were playoff games because like 4 teams competed for a title and no one else did lol
-4
u/TheChildrenNeedMe Texas Tech Red Raiders • LSU Tigers 8h ago
High stakes? SEC and Big Ten teams will be able to get into the playoffs with 6 losses and will have half their conferences in every year, while the rest of the conferences get shafted, there are no more stakes.
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u/AlternativeLess5450 Alabama Crimson Tide 7h ago
No they won't lol
And yes games with playoff berths on the line are high stakes
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u/Icy_Meat9199 Texas Tech Red Raiders 9h ago
Playing for seeding is a thing and means a lot to a lot of people. Something not enough people are talking about
3
u/d0ngl0rd69 Georgia • Florida State 9h ago
Feels like rivalry weekend has to be moved to week 1 to make sure it actually matters
-1
u/RulersBack Ohio State Buckeyes 9h ago edited 9h ago
This opportunity literally already presented itself and it ended in players getting pepper sprayed and the coach having to hire private security. You're just making up problems. Now a lot depends on them getting seeding format correct but this fear mongering is overboard
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u/Rodney_Jefferson Texas Longhorns • Tulane Green Wave 9h ago
Weird flex to remind everyone when your team started a riot and then sicked the police on the Michigan team
0
u/RulersBack Ohio State Buckeyes 8h ago edited 8h ago
It's not a flex. Just evidence to counter this ridiculous argument that games won't matter any more. We can even take the pride element out of it. Players make future money showing up in big time games and coaches carry that same incentive. Seeding will be on the line
1
u/okiewxchaser Oklahoma • Red River Shootout 9h ago
OU-Texas being so early in the season may make it the most watched rivalry game in the regular season. You wouldn’t be able to rest players at that point
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u/OnVisOch Alabama • Mississippi State 9h ago
I, for one, can’t wait for games between 9-2 Bama and 7-4 Auburn to see if Auburn makes the 24-team field. Electric! 😂😂
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u/OnVisOch Alabama • Mississippi State 9h ago
I cannot believe we are now using TV ratings analysis as cope for conference warfare hahaha. But I’ll bite!
Safe to say the SEC’s media partner getting a massive win isn’t going to be a blow to the SEC lol. On the viewership numbers, even if we conceded the regular season will lose a ton of viewers (it won’t, we’re all sickos), we all lose viewers not just the SEC.
And, digging even deeper, if anyone’s at risk of losing meaningful viewers, it’s not the region of the country where this shit is religion lol. It’s the rest of you who have other cool pro sports to watch and, thus, don’t care about CFB that way.
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u/-Jack-The-Stripper Virginia Tech • Cincinnati 8h ago
The SEC as a whole bodies everybody in ratings, even the B1G. You’re right that if the SEC needed to worry about something then everyone else is in even more trouble.
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u/Mountain-Papaya-492 Georgia Bulldogs 6h ago
Yeah but appealing to those people who aren't entrenched in CFB and appreciate the unique aspects of it is why CFB is on this trajectory. Will it pay off? Will they gain more of that NFL pro sport audience in other regions? I personally doubt it.
If you're a casual NFL fan or a die hard NFL fan I doubt a 4 hour commercial laden poorly paced game experience is going to sway a significant enough portion of viewers to make this worth it in the long run. So I'll make the prediction that this eventually collapses in on itself and CFB will have a recalibration within a decade.
I just don't see teams like Colorado gaining a core contingent of Broncos fans even if they get into the post season. No shade at Colorado. It's just the nature that the NFL is by far much more popular in most regions and has already established teams for said regions.
So for those areas CFB will always be second fiddle. Which is fine but it sucks that they want to homogenize CFB into a lesser version of the NFL in a futile attempt to attract people who probably won't care either way.
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u/Tasty_Gift5901 Northwestern Wildcats • Florida Gators 9h ago
The flaw is thinking that people will stop watching regular season games of both big and sec. If people watch less football, then they only turn into the marquee games, of which the sec has more.
5
u/TrackVol Tennessee • Alabama 7h ago
That's not a flaw, that's a fact.
I'm already watching considerably less college football this year than any other year in the past 40 years.
I've watched ~3 Tennessee games, ~3 Alabama games, and the LSU / Ole Mizz game. That's roughly 7 games and it's mid October. I used to watch at least 3 games every single Saturday and usually 5 or 6 if we count jumping back & forth between channels.
And I'd usually catch the Thursday night game too.
My CFB viewership is 10% of what it was just 3 years ago.
If this playoff goes through next year, and the SEC Championship game goes away, I may not watch 7 games all year long!On 2nd thought, maybe my life just improved, I'm about to start getting a lot more productive on the weekends. My wife send her regards to the heads of college football.
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u/AbsurdOwl Nebraska Cornhuskers 7h ago
To offer an opposing, equally useless anecdote, I'm watching just as much football as ever. I watched two of the games last night, the games on Tuesday and Wednesday night, and I'll be sitting and watching ball all day today.
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u/Normal-Hornet8548 Air Force Falcons 8h ago
I’d rather talk about how Petitti conned the Pac and ACC into ‘The Alliance,’ only to cozy up and raid the Pac and destroy it by poaching its most valuable members … leaving the ACC to grab a couple of leftovers just to stay viable.
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u/luis1972 Ohio State Buckeyes • The Alliance 7h ago
That happened before Tony Pettiti.
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u/Normal-Hornet8548 Air Force Falcons 6h ago
Regardless, the B1G is the culprit and gets a free pass on destroying a conference they were supposedly a partner with.
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u/brunetteobsessed Alabama Crimson Tide 9h ago
Either Sankey felt this was an unavoidable avalanche he couldn’t stop so he felt he had to cave to make sure the SEC didn’t leave money on the table, OR he’s really banking on college football being such a quasi-religion in the south the TV revenue from the regular season will still be there. In any event, my favorite responses to this include the conferences and universities having schedules taken from them.
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u/dawgfan19881 Georgia Bulldogs 9h ago
It’s undeniable that Petitti is running circles around Sankey.
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u/Intelligent_Dress347 Alabama Crimson Tide • Georgia Bulldogs 8h ago
Greg Sankey has been a massive disappointment in so many ways.
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u/huskersax Nebraska • $5 Bits of Broken Chair Tr… 9h ago
Fascinating you think the SEC doesn't want a 24 team playoff.
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u/d0ngl0rd69 Georgia • Florida State 9h ago
Well, the SEC was the holdout, so yes. To be fair, it wasn’t for pious reasons, it was because the SEC Championship was the most lucrative CCG, which is money that wasn’t shared with other conferences.
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u/StevvieV Seton Hall • Penn State 9h ago
SEC doesn't want it. SEC schools do though
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u/Ok-Reach-2580 Ohio State • Kent State 8h ago
I think this is an important thing to note. People act like these conferences are a monolith and everyone in it has the same stance as what the conference officially had. But the reality is the SEC was pretty split the entire time on the 24 team playoff. Its just the terms got favorable enough for the schools that the 24 team playoff group became the majority and the SEC had to change its stance.
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u/StevvieV Seton Hall • Penn State 8h ago
It just shows the conference office doesn't run the conference the schools do. The office might think one thing is best, try to convince the schools what is best for them but ultimately if the schools all push for the opposite the conference is going to go with that.
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u/michhoffman Miami Hurricanes 9h ago
Yeah, it all but guarantees 7-10 SEC teams will make the playoffs every year which is disgusting.
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u/jamnewton22 Auburn Tigers • UCF Knights 9h ago
I highly doubt 10 sec teams will ever get in cmon man. More than half the league? Just no way
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u/tomdawg0022 Minnesota • Delaware 8h ago
I highly doubt 10 sec teams will ever get in cmon man. More than half the league?
I think half is a reasonable bet more often than not. Same with the B1G. The other 8 or so will be divided up among the plebs (Notre Dame, ACC, Big XII, G6)
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u/michhoffman Miami Hurricanes 9h ago
Just last year we had 5 SEC teams make a 12 team playoff. And we've consistently had 8-9 SEC teams ranked in the top 25 this year.
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u/Tony_Paychecks Houston Cougars 7h ago
This is also the first year they play 9 league games so it's way more likely they have less teams in the 19-24 range once the season ends, with those extra guaranteed losses piling up. It will ultimately be up to the committee to show us how much they value winning vs strength of schedule. I think the sec is looking at 6-7 each year when this all shakes out.
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u/hairythroats 9h ago
Conferences won't exist relatively soon anyway, and it isn't like the regular season has mattered in a while, so all this doom & gloom is kinda ridiculous
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u/aselinger Michigan Wolverines 9h ago
As long as conferences negotiate the TV deals, and as long as some are rich and some are poor, I don’t see it going away.
Why would they go away?
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u/hairythroats 8h ago
Because of exactly what you just said. As long as conferences negotiate the TV deals. That is going away.
As you know, ND gets its own contract with NBC, so we know big brands can get big paychecks. The thing is, ND is not in a conference, so that doesn't apply. What most people don't know or paid attention to, is that Duke recently negotiated the rights to their neutral-site basketball games with Amazon Prime. Not only that, but they received the blessing of the ACC commissioner to do so. I'm not sure people really understand the gravity of that deal. I certainly didn't until recently. That almost guarantees the opening of the floodgates towards event-based streaming. If it's a success, and it probably will be so long as they advertise it correctly, other streaming platforms are going to make a push. We already see Prime, Netflix, Disney, etc. going after certain events without being bogged down by others. That's going to continue.
Do we think Fox would continue to negotiate with the entirety of the B1G or would they pivot to negotiating to Ohio State & Michigan directly for the broadcasting rights to The Game? It means they can get the rights to big brand events without being beholden to Northwestern vs Purdue. If ESPN can get the rights to the Iron Bowl without having to broadcast Vanderbilt vs Miss State, do we think they do it? I do.
This will eventually lead to the dissolution of conferences, which will eventually snowball into the super-league we all know is coming. One that's essentially a ratings based system. This is how broadcasts will get their prime cut while simultaneously trimming the fat.
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u/CevicheMixto Michigan State Spartans • Paper Bag 9h ago
There's a reason we call him B1G Tony. He made them an offer they couldn't refuse.
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u/OITLinebacker Notre Dame • Kansas State 9h ago
It's funny that anyone thinks that the B1G or SEC aren't coming out of this without getting more than their current deals. They may be run by some real jackasses, but that doesn't mean they aren't looking out for themselves as far as the money goes.
Some teams are almost guaranteed to make the playoffs just by beating their bye games plus the few weeks of their conference. Most are still going to have to play every game to get in. I would think the bye weeks will mean more not less, same with having home field. End of season rivalry games between two playoff teams will still matter for the most part. Sure an undefeated Ohio State will probably not fall below the bye line, but the probability of facing weaker teams in their first playoff game goes way down. Plus if losing puts Michigan in the playoffs somehow you know they won't like that (even if the B1G would practically pay them to roll over).
Conference championship games were sort of bullshit anyway. If the conference is so damn big you can't figure out who the best team his his head to head matchups, your conference is too damn big. Unbalanced conference schedules suck (just ask Florida). The variability of getting a schedule packed with weak or top teams is too high and can cause some fraudulent teams to end the season with a higher than deserved ranking or under current circumstances an underserved conference championship game appearance.
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u/Evtona500 Georgia Bulldogs 7h ago
So basically we are being punished for watching more SEC than B1G games?
-6
u/BuckeyeEmpire Ohio State • Penn State 9h ago
2024
- B1G athletic director whose own school just went through a historic scandal is suddenly elevated to the chair of CFP selection committee and trots out lines like “teams can only play the schedules they’ve been assigned.” The CFP rankings are stacked by the loss column after the 12-team format promised to create more meaningful out of conference games between big brands
2025
Sankey wants CFP expanded to 16 teams after SEC becomes nervous about how much harder it’s schedules are than everyone else’s…
Petitti agrees to go to 16 if SEC moves to 9 league games, but pulls out after Sankey uses an interim president to push through a vote to move the SEC to 9 league games.
Now the SEC programs are even more distressed about access.
Meanwhile, the B1G’s TV partners are dismayed over how much lower their regular season ratings are than the SEC’s.
2026
The SEC’s fantastic regular season TV ratings are setting them up for a huge contract boost in the next round of negotiations. The B1G schools won’t see the same amounts of revenue in their future TV deals if nothing changes.
Petitti and the B1G office start pitching a 24-team playoff. Fans hate it. They believe it will devalue the regular season.
SEC gives in on 24 instead of waiting and pressing it’s ever growing advantage. SEC folds a hand that would have led to it’s schools having TV contract revenues that would have likely been worth tens of millions more than their B1G counterparts in a decade.
Fans react to news by saying they will watch less regular season college football, which means the B1G’s problem is probably only a couple years away from no longer being a problem. If nobody lives and dies with the SEC’s regular season games any longer then their huge market advantage is gone. Now it will all just become filler until the postseason tournament starts.
The SEC was a short wait away from having an insurmountable advantage. Today’s news ended that possibility. Petitti didn’t make his league any stronger in all of this, but the SEC’s longterm position will likely end up being much weaker than it was before the move to 24.
Devalue the regular season, devalue the SEC.
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u/SoutieNaaier Florida Gators • Columbia Lions 9h ago
Its more that Petiti FAFO because the entire point of this was to get playoff access for Fox and now they have to buy inventory directly off ESPN because they didnt expect ESPN would actually pony up the money to keep exclusivity
Most TV finance people seem to think this makes no buisness sense because the sports tele market is likely to decline in the next 10 years, but ESPN is now kingmaker on all the playoff revenue and most likely to survive
1
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u/-Jack-The-Stripper Virginia Tech • Cincinnati 8h ago
Yea on its surface this seems like a terrible gig for FOX and the B1G. ESPN is going to own the most valuable inventory in the sport (the playoffs) and the conference with the highest viewership (the SEC). So when renegotiations come around, ESPN is going to be the network with the reason to pony up even more cash to keep all of that. FOX is going to see the B1G with their worse ratings, with zero playoff inventory to add to that, and wonder why they’re dumping absurd amounts of money into CFB just to be getting boat-raced by ESPN.
I think what the guy you’re responding to makes sense up until the point you made… which is that the B1G’s network partner ultimately came away with nothing.
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u/Icy_Meat9199 Texas Tech Red Raiders 9h ago
Another argument is that the bubble of the SEC created by years of cheating was about to pop. And if so the brands they've hoarded massively screwed.
These teams are treated like Georgia and Bama of old, when they are really in a dog fight with the rest of the top 30 teams and talent is spread out.
You can only lie for so long. They needed this playoff access and believe they'll dominate 20-25.
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u/OnVisOch Alabama • Mississippi State 8h ago
I think you’re thinking this was done because of football when it was done because of money.
The SEC’s media partner just tightened its grip on CFB’s balls by getting the sole rights to an expanded playoff. How we get from that to “this is bad for the SEC” is a fascinating journey. But safe to say if you think ESPN has too much sway over CFB as is (it does), and you think it puts out way too much pro-SEC propaganda (it does lol), that just got put on an even bigger scale.
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u/Irishchop91 Notre Dame Fighting Irish • UCF Knights 8h ago
Yes I stop watching the Yankees because of the wild card game. I most certainly do not turn it on when the Red Sox or Rays are on /s
The SEC position got weaker the minute NIL became legal. Wealthier schools who are no longer constrained are going to do better and the car salesman paper bag donations are no longer king...
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u/CallMeBigPloppa USC Trojans 9h ago
Once I become emperor of the B1G I will reverse all of this. I promise the people that all will be well, and we will usher in an era of pax footballa. In addition, I promise to use the B1G TV money to purchase Notre Dame and liquidate all of its assets.