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College Sports Tomorrow, a group of executives and administrators around the country, proposed in a Tuesday press release the formation of a new, national college football league called the College Student Football League. Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud is listed as an ambassador for the group, The Athletic reported in April.

CST’s proposal intends to create a college football “Super League,” formed as a separate entity from non-football sports and their respective conferences. The current 136 Football Bowl Subdivision model would be significantly altered.

The top 72 programs, mostly composed of Power Five schools, would play in the Power 12 Conference, split into six, geography-based divisions. The remaining 64 programs, mostly made up of Group of Five schools, would compete in a Group of Eight Conference. The top eight teams from the Group of Eight would be eligible for a “promotion” to play in the Power 12 in the subsequent season, though the plan doesn’t include a relegation system.

According to CST’s release, the group believes the proposal will allow purely team record and tiebreakers to determine postseason qualification — replacing the current College Football Playoff committee — generate more fan engagement and allow a single body to be charged with managing all 136 teams.

“Historically, the beauty of college football has been how many schools around the country were competing for the championship,” Jimmy Haslam, owner of the Cleveland Browns and a member of CST, said in the release. “We need to bring college football back to the broad, national model of its golden years in a system which fosters more competitive balance.”

Syverud has been outspoken and involved about shifting college football’s landscape in the past. In January, he spoke to ESPN’s Pete Thamel about his involvement in a “Think Tank” led by Len Perna, the CEO of search firm TurnkeyZRG, to figure out a new system of college football. Syverud also was originally reported as a member of CST by The Athletic in April.

“The current model for governing and managing college athletics is dead,” Syverud told the publication.

Other members of CST — which is made up of at least 20 people, per The Athletic — include former NBA player Grant Hill, the NFL’s No. 2-ranked executive Brian Rolapp and Tennessee Director of Athletics Danny White, among an abundance of ADs. Perna, whose search firm TurkeyZRG has placed nearly all of the top conference commissioners, is the group’s lead organizer.

With its plan, CST wants to provide a solution to the firestorm of current and future lawsuits centered around the business of college football, while instilling more structure to combat financial issues regarding the transfer portal and NIL — which members like Syverud feel have put college athletics as a whole in peril.

“I really think conferences in the NCAA are at a very significant likelihood of going bankrupt in the near future because of the lawsuits, both the ones that are going to trial soon and those that will follow,” Syverud told The Athletic in April.

CST argues that the CSFL would help organize the disruption and disorder of the NCAA while also reducing the financial and competitive imbalance that separates top schools from smaller universities. The proposal suggests that per-school revenue distribution within each conference would be close to equal. Power 12 programs, however, would receive 94% of the CSFL’s revenue and the remaining 6% would go to the Group of Eight — a stark contrast.

Off the field, the CSFL would use a single, comprehensive players’ association in its collective bargaining agreement, which could allow for athletes to seek collective NIL representation without being deemed employees.

These changes would provide college athletes input on regulations while offering the CSFL protection from antitrust claims through the “non-statutory labor exemption,” per CST. The new league also has potential to use a salary cap system, and imposed a limit on athletes which would only allow them use the transfer portal two times within a five-year eligibility period, The Athletic reported.

The current model of the proposed CSFL shows Syracuse in the Mideast Division, along with Cincinnati, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and West Virginia. The schedule for all teams would be 13 games long, with five division games and eight non-division contests. Teams would compete to make a 24-team postseason, which includes 12 division winner qualifiers and 12 at-large bids.

The CSFL is still a long way from being enacted. Its ratification requires cooperation from the NCAA and a litany of its member institutions, most of whose football programs belong to conferences with lucrative media rights and television contracts.

ESPN currently has a deal with the CFP that runs through the 2031-32 season. Some other conference deals extend further than that. CST stated that it will not ask for any current contracts to be re-worked. But Tuesday’s press release demonstrated the group’s sense of urgency to instill change.

“The current system can’t continue,” Syverud told ESPN. “It’s a dead man walking.”

Published on October 1, 2024 at 9:47 pm

Contact Cooper at: ccandrew@syr.edu | @cooper_andrews