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It *MIGHT* be possible to have a NIL/Salary cap by class. I think the schools would LOVE this because as it stands now HS all stars are going to demand boku bucks to come to your school but we all know that plenty of "can't miss" HS phenoms end up as college busts so a stratified cap by class would prevent ridiculous bidding wars for totally unproven (at this level) players.

I'm thinking something like:

• $90k for freshmen
• $270k for sophomores
• $810,000 for juniors
• $2,030,000 for seniors

OK, this could work, but I'd put in some more teeth. You leave after your freshman season, you get freshman pay in year two. And so on.

I think it is very possible and I will not shut up about it. They said home field in playoff games was impossible, too. In effect, it is pretty easy to do a lot of these things if there is broad agreement. The biggest impediment for promotion/relegation won't be from schools and their budgets, it will be from television networks.

No.  It doesn't work, and it's a stupid idea for college athletics.

Notre Dame can't plan its budget for the next 10-15 years for its entire offering of athletics, and then get relegated 2 years from now and lose half or more of the budget playing down in the lower league.

So unless EVERY school that's in both the upper league and the lower league is being paid exactly the same and they know exactly what those revenue payments will be over the next 10-15 years, then relegation is impossible.

Edit: But I do agree that the TV networks won't like it much either.  College football doesn't have the large following that the NFL does.  You can tell by the TV ratings, even the crappiest NFL matchups have ratings that rival or eclipse the top college matchups.  For some reason, people actually watch the JAcksonville Jaguars, even though I'm pretty sure I've personally never seen a single game they played in.  But in college football, the majority of TV ratings are brought in by just a handful of schools at the very top. 

No.  It doesn't work, and it's a stupid idea for college athletics.

Notre Dame can't plan its budget for the next 10-15 years for its entire offering of athletics, and then get relegated 2 years from now and lose half or more of the budget playing down in the lower league.

So unless EVERY school that's in both the upper league and the lower league is being paid exactly the same and they know exactly what those revenue payments will be over the next 10-15 years, then relegation is impossible.

It's not random chance. Relegation is based on certain factors, not a lottery. They don't plan on being relegated. A lot of protections would likely be in place for major brands like Notre Dame to avoid relegation. However, it helps with a thorny issue in football, where most of the brands aren't Notre Dame, and are either hanging on to the other bigger brands or can't develop into that no matter what they do. It is very possible, and makes more sense in college than anywhere else. 

It *MIGHT* be possible to have a NIL/Salary cap by class. I think the schools would LOVE this because as it stands now HS all stars are going to demand boku bucks to come to your school but we all know that plenty of "can't miss" HS phenoms end up as college busts so a stratified cap by class would prevent ridiculous bidding wars for totally unproven (at this level) players.

I'm thinking something like:

• $90k for freshmen
• $270k for sophomores
• $810,000 for juniors
• $2,030,000 for seniors

The schools, conferences, and whatever governing bodies they come up with, can't impose ANY limits on NIL money, in most states.

The schools, conferences, and whatever governing bodies, might be able to come up with a way to structure direct pay-for-play in this manner, but they can't touch NIL.

The Bottom 70 or so schools stand to make a tremendous amount of money if they are grouped with the big schools as compared to each other. They have all the motivation in the world. It's the top schools that would have to be convinced there is merit to the idea, not the other way around. But OSU shares revenue with Rutgers, so it isn't impossible.

If you're right and the top schools get so many guarantees it won't happen to them, then they won't care about it one way or the other.

So the organizers go to the next 70 schools who all say, "We love the idea, we're in, but we line-item veto the relegation aspect because it's a terrible idea that doesn't work at all for our business models."

Then the organizers go to the Top 10 and say, "Hey, the rest of the guys are in, but they said no effin' way to relegation."

And the Top 10 say, "Fine, it doesn't affect us either way, and we agree it's a terrible idea for the way a college athletic department has to work, can't believe you actually pitched it to them, we were laughing the entire time.  We're happy to go forward without the stupid relegation thing."

And the Top 80 league is formed, without relegation, which would be terrible for all but the Top 10 or so.

Again, I like relegation in Euro soccer.  And theoretically I like the idea of how it could affect competition in college football.

But in reality, that's a completely different business model that simply doesn't work for college athletics. 

Eh, the idea that the bottom 50 wouldn't jump on anything that could drastically increase their income seems pretty naive, to me. "Sorry, we aren't interested in all your dollars, as it doesn't work with our business model."

Who's going to force them into it?  The Top 10 won't care, it's not a hill they're going to die on. They wouldn't scuttle the deal on an issue that they have zero interest in.

So the Bottom 50 get in regardless.  

My proposal for "promotion/relegation" was just in terms of divisional play.  Once you get to whatever the final number is, maybe 60?  You just have 6 divisions of 10.  Only the top division is playing for a title, but there is promotion/relegation for the other tiers.  It's all one league with total revenue sharing.  You make the same money in Division 1, 2, 3, whatever, in terms of shared revenue.  Would Notre Dame struggle to sell tickets in Division 3?  Maybe, but I doubt it.  But would a game between Purdue and Michigan State, with promotion from Division 3 to Division 2 on the line sell more tickets than a random game right now between a 5-6 MSU and a 5-6 Purdue?  Absolutely

If it's all within the same league structure and the future payouts are known and stable and predictable, then I don't see the economics as a stumbling block.  I do think it's highly unlikely it could reach that point without the deal falling apart, but if it did, then the financial model is fine.

I do wonder how the TV ad folks would view the games, if the marquee brands dropped down a division or two, and were playing fewer important games?

And the point is valid that if a marquee team is playing fewer important games, will their fans be as willing to fill the stadium?

But right now, most marquee teams play plenty of "undesirable" games anyway, so I'm not sure it would matter.