College Sports Playbook

Show business. My son is in show business, that is to say, he gets paid to entertain people. The problem is, he is not an entertainer. He is one of the most highly acclaimed young visual and performing artists in the country. He is a songwriter, multi-album producer, award-winning visual artist, and live performer who has toured nationally and internationally, and has nearly 200,000 followers around the world, but he is not an entertainer. He is an artist who remains focused on creating rather than selling his work. And that is a problem for any show producer who is looking to sell tickets to people who want to be entertained, who then would prefer to book someone with an even greater draw and the greater potential to make the producer more money. While it is frustrating for my son and his fans, it is the nature of show business. For college football, it is no less true.

The rules that govern the value assessment of college athletics have changed forever. More clearly, they have been changing for quite some time. Like all social change, that process can come in the form of gradual, seemingly unrelated adjustments in policy and procedures. Or, to the dismay of those who never saw it coming, it may come suddenly in the form of a revolutionary overthrow of the past in favor of a new paradigm.
At a time when Florida State University football athletes, fans, and coaches are outraged over the exclusion of FSU football from the 2023 college football national playoffs, their claims reveal how disconnected their rationale is from the facts. They are in possession of an outdated playbook that says, “The team that achieves the best record should be included”.
Meanwhile, the evaluation of CFP officials who made the decision reveals an entirely different set of rules that focus on which match-ups will garner the biggest audiences. That’s the new playbook that has been created to serve the interests of a billion-dollar entertainment enterprise that is all about ratings and advertising revenue. It’s a playbook that operates under the appearance of college football in all of its traditional values, sportsmanship, and loyalty, but like any smart marketing strategy, uses that “packaging” to sell the product. Simply put, it’s about which teams will put on the biggest show.

We are entitled to be disappointed and infuriated. No doubt. And yet, we are dealing with the money…and that is driven by ad sales revenue for these networks, which is then passed along to universities. That’s it.
This committee extended that philosophy and that reality in their decision-making. Stephen A Smith said it precisely. We don’t have to like it, but it’s the world we live in, where the question is “Which matchups will create the most sizzle, the biggest splash, and bigger audiences?” And here we’re not talking about either/or. Figuratively speaking, it’s about “20 million viewers versus 21 million viewers”. And those numbers equal dollar signs.
Whether we think they were right or wrong, that is their rationale and that is what they consider “best” for their interests, and the interests of those they serve, and not “the best teams”. For his part, my son is quite happy and quite successful playing for smaller audiences who love his work and appreciate his unique talents.