"Berkeley," FWIW.
They are definitely screwed in a 40-ish team super conference. Wisconsin is probably a bubble team in that world.
One of the things I was toying with while ChatGPT was drawing maps and figuring out distances for me was how to treat the minor players in the CFB world: Purdue, Vandy, Wake Forest, Oregon State, etc. Schools like Boise State and BYU probably bring as much to the table, or more, as some of these schools.
One of the problems college football has is that there are only a very small handful of schools that are truly willing to spend at the "elite" level. Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon, USC, Notre Dame, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, and probably Tennessee, LSU, Penn State, and Florida (maybe a few others, but not many). That's not enough to have a college football ecosystem that generates the kind of TV revenue that the current model does.
This is nothing like the NFL where even the small market teams have a shot. No, they don't all have Dallas Cowboys money, but they all have enough to have a competitive chance. Are Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, and Alabama willing to share enough that Purdue, Wake Forest, and Vanderbilt have anything close to "competitive" resources? I doubt it. But those top-tier programs need other teams to play. In some ways the college sports landscape is a little more like European football, where the clubs/teams are king, not the league. Even teams like Indiana (or Brighton Hove Albion) have fans that want to see their teams play. They are ok with playing in a world where Ohio State and Man City can just outspend them, as long as they still get to compete on the same pitch.
Working out how to spread the money around so that 40+ teams feel like they are getting a fair deal is going to be a neat trick.
And what's left for everyone else is, too. College sports are still part of college. FCS teams show all the time that people like having college football, even when it isn't a big revenue driver. Wisconsin, and schools like it, present an interesting problem. Would it rather be a cellar dweller in a league that generates more revenue for it, or a prince or even King in a league where it has a real shot at winning. And is there a TV market for that second tier league that could actually generate similar revenue for it, rather than taking money for being OSU and Michigan's bitch. It wouldn't surprise me if there is.
Which all comes back to: figuring this out will be a neat trick.
