A More Perfect College Football: The College Football Champions League
Executive Summary
This college football competition model allows for all 130 FBS teams to compete in four 32-team dynamic playoffs played throughout the regular season, instead of only 12 teams playing in a playoff after the regular season. The calendar schedule of this model looks like this:
This proposal allows every FBS team playing in a bowl to play a meaningful bowl game of consequence, as bowl games will decide championships, promotion, or relegation for every competing school. Each team will play a season of consequence, vastly increasing the attention and support of fans, win or lose. Instead of only the Top 12 teams having something for which to play, all 130 teams would matter in this proposal:
This proposal creates 260 Playoff-like/Champions League games during the regular season, immensely increasing the national media rights of every conference, as half of these games will be played as home games for each school. All 50 to 58 bowl games created by this model would be games of consequence, with promotion and relegation implications affecting programs the following year. This is vastly superior and more lucrative for every conference and school than hosting an additional 8 games after the regular season, which only serve to devalue the regular season games even further.
The College Football Playoff (CFP) management committee will consider expanding the CFP to a 12-team format this week. Expanding to a 12-team format will not fix the current problems facing college football as a whole. The newly expanded format will only help to obfuscate the biggest issues facing the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Changing the college football season to a European Soccer Champions League style season with four 32-team in-season tournaments has the potential to address almost every issue facing college football, while additionally making more money for every school and conference than a 12-team playoff would. This is the proposal the College Football Playoff should work towards implementing in the future.
Kirk Herbstreit said it best: “Our postseason is as bad as there is, and we have got to figure out a system that opens up opportunities… We’re at a fork in the road right now on a lot of levels and we’ve got to look at some potential changes.”
This proposal addresses these concerns by giving hope to every FBS program every year. The 12-team playoff format adds an additional 8 games to give 8 more teams a chance. The college football system can be transformed to a Champions League system to include every team every year, enhancing over 300 regular season and bowl games to consequential tournament games to truly give every school a chance at a championship and quantifiable consequential success.
This proposal is a college football system that gives all 130 FBS teams something to play for every week of the season. This system gives fans of every team a reason to care about each game across the country every week, increasing the national broadcast rights and fan attendance of every single regular season college football game east coast to west coast (looking at you PAC-12). This system produces a minimum of 50 bowl games with each participating team facing a significant consequence for winning or losing. This is the College Football Champions League, an alternate proposal to a 12-team playoff.
What is the Champions League?
For those unfamiliar with European club soccer, each European professional soccer team plays a regular season in its country’s own domestic soccer league, similar to how most college football teams play a regular season schedule primarily comprised of teams from their own conference. The best teams from these European domestic soccer leagues come together to play in the Champions League during their regular seasons. The best leagues (some might say “Power” leagues) get multiple teams in the Champions League based on how good these teams and leagues performed in the prior season. During the regular season, teams accumulate points and are eliminated through regular season wins and losses combined with a knockout playoff. The Champions League final determines the European Champion, just as the Super Bowl and College Football National Championship game determine the champion of our football leagues.
The Champions League is a multi-tiered system. The top 32 European soccer teams play in the top tier Champions League, the next 32 teams play in the second tier Europa League, and beginning next year the next 32 teams will play in a third tier named the Europa Conference League. Each tier crowns its own champion. College football can implement this tiered system with 4 tiers to include every team in FBS, holding a championship (or 4-team playoff) for each tier.
How would a Champions League system work in College Football?
The easiest and most direct explanation of a College Football Champions League is it would be a 32-team dynamic playoff occurring during the regular season. Instead of 4 teams (or the proposed 12) competing for the National Championship after the regular season is over, 32 teams would compete to win the National Championship by playing a dynamic schedule throughout the regular season and bowl games. The schedule for each College Football Champions League week would be set one month in advance. Losing does not eliminate a team, but rather allows them the opportunity to matchup and play with other teams who have also lost and have similar records, potentially climbing their way back into the championship grouping by continuing to win. With 130 teams in FBS, the system can be comprised of 3 tiers of 32 teams and a fourth of 34, meaning every single team in college football has a national championship to play for every year. Any team that finishes undefeated will win the National Championship of their tier, guaranteed.
A College Football Champions League system would provide a dynamic regular season for college football, allowing the best teams to play the best teams every season. The system matches up every team with a similarly situated team in non-conference games, providing the best non-conference matchups throughout the regular season. Just as the CFP committee chooses the matchups for the current CFP, the committee would set the matchups in the new league based on its rankings to ensure the best teams play each other in the regular season. Winning teams will play winning teams, while struggling teams will play other struggling teams to give them the opportunity to turn their season around. No longer will there be a possibility of multiple undefeated teams in the regular season. Because matches are set one month in advance, all undefeated teams at the end of October will play each other at the end of November or in a National Championship playoff game. If an undefeated UCF wants to play Alabama, the committee can send them to Tuscaloosa to play them in October or November of the regular season. Every one loss team will get the chance to play other one loss teams and prove who is the best on the field and deserves a shot at the National Championship, eliminating the need for the committee to use the eye test to determine who gets a chance to win a championship.
To address the potential issue of a Tier II, Tier III, or Tier IV team going undefeated and not having the opportunity to play for the National Championship, beginning in October, the CFP committee can move an undefeated team at its discretion from a lower tier to Tier I and schedule them to play the highest ranked team in the country. Correspondingly, the lowest ranked team in each tier would be moved down until all tiers contained 32 teams again.
To make this work without adding additional games, Champions League games would take the place of most (but not all) non-conference games by eliminating cupcake games and making every non-conference game a bowl-like matchup picked by the committee. Currently most FBS teams play 4 non-conference games plus a bowl game. Just as a 32-team playoff consists of 5 rounds, the College Football Champions League would consist of 4 regular season non-conference matchups plus a bowl game, equaling the 5 playoff rounds necessary to crown a champion.
Once a team loses a few games and can’t reasonably win the championship of their tier, unlike the current playoff format, there are still consequential reasons for players, coaches, and fans to still care about the outcome of every remaining game. This is because each team can be promoted and relegated from the tier in which they are currently playing. Tier 1 teams can be relegated to Tier 2 if they finish in the Bottom 16 of Tier 1 and lose their bowl game. Tier 2 teams can be promoted to Tier 1 by finishing in the Top 16 of Tier 2 and winning their bowl game. Tier 2 teams can also be relegated to Tier 3 if they finish in the Bottom 16 of Tier 2 and lose their bowl game. The same goes for every team in each tier. The Top 4 of each tier are automatically promoted to the next tier, while the bottom 4 are automatically relegated. Whether a team is undefeated or winless at any point in the season, the next game has consequences that effect the team’s chances of being promoted or relegated for the next season. In other words, there is always a reason for fans to show up to games and for players to keep playing instead of opting out.
Every bowl game would now have meaningful consequences. Each bowl game will decide a championship, whether a team gets promoted, whether a team gets relegated, or whether a team can avoid relegation. No longer will teams feel like their season is over mid-way through the year or that they are playing in a meaningless bowl game. Every game, including the smallest of bowl games, has program altering consequences for years to come. This is exponentially better than a 12-team playoff which would only further deemphasize the bowl system and every game played which isn’t a part of the 12-team playoff.
What does the College Football Champions League schedule look like?
If you are having a hard time imagining what this looks like, use this breakdown of a potential season to help you visualize:
Essentially, the system provides for bowl-like non-conference playoff matchups at the end of each month in the college football calendar. The Round of 32 is the last week of August, the Round of 16 is the last week in September, the Quarterfinals are the last week of October, the Semifinals are the last week in November, and the Championship games are during bowl season. There are 65 games each regular season weekend, meaning 65x4=260 playoff/Champions League games during the regular season. These 260 games would be a part of every conference’s TV media rights package, immediately giving each conference, Power 5 and Group of 5 alike, a large number of playoff games to market as a part of their media rights package. As the season progresses, these games will always include multiple Top 16 matchups, Top 8 matchups, and Top 4 matchups. No longer will highly ranked out of conference matchups cease to exist in October and November. This system will require these matchups from every highly ranked team, finally eliminating system biases and truly allowing the teams to settle it on the field. Adding 260 playoff games has the potential to add billions of dollars to the combined media rights of every conference in FBS, much more so than adding an additional 8 games to the college football playoff.
Procedurally, the CFP committee (renamed Champions League Committee) would decide each Champions League matchup following the completion of each Champions League week. This gives teams and fans a month to prepare to travel to an away game, and also gives athletic departments a month to prepare to host a non-conference game not previously scheduled before the season. BYU and Coastal Carolina staging a game in one-week last season has proven the proof of concept needed for a dynamic schedule to work going forward, especially if given one month lead time to make preparations. For fans, this is much more preferable to having to potentially travel to four straight away or neutral site games in four weeks under the proposed 12-team playoff.
Since games are scheduled dynamically throughout the season, instead of scheduled decades in advance, the CFP committee will be able to take all regular season games into consideration in creating the next round of Champions League matchups, not only the Champions League games themselves. If a team wins their first two Champions League games, but loses all of its conference games in September, the CFP committee will match the team up with a similarly situated team with multiple losses in October, instead of being required to match the team against an undefeated team in a set playoff bracket. This dynamic aspect to the league ensures that the best teams from each conference will always play each other at the end October and November, ending debates of who should play for the National Championship and settling it on the field.
Let’s use Alabama and the final AP Poll for rankings as an example for how this would specifically work for a team, and let’s assume Alabama wins every game and remains #1. In Champions League Week 1, if ranked pre-season #1, Alabama could schedule any Tier I team they wished to play, or they would be scheduled by the CFP committee to play the #32 ranked Tier I team, who was Washington. For Champions League Week 2 Alabama would then play #16 Tier I school, who was Iowa. For Champions League Week 3, assuming Alabama wins and remains #1, they would be scheduled to play #8 Cincinnati. In Champions League Week 4, Alabama would be scheduled to play #3 Clemson, because #4 Texas A&M is in the SEC and already on their schedule. A Champions League format transforms Alabama’s non-conference schedule to playing Washington, Iowa, Cincinnati, and Clemson, giving fans four Top 32 non-conference matchups against the #1 in the country. This would never happen without a Champions League format, and no other format would provide these matchups throughout the regular season.
For an example of Tier II schedule, let’s use Washington State and Bill Connelly’s SP+ for rankings, which ranks WSU at #64(Tier II #32), so the assumption is WSU will lose every week for contrast. On Champions League Week 1, WSU would play #33(Tier II #1) Michigan, on Week 2 #47(Tier II #17) Boise St, on Week 3 #57(Tier II #25) Arkansas, and on Week 4 #61(Tier II #29) San Diego State. All of these games are much better matchups than Washington State’s currently scheduled out of conference schedule, plus all of these games are very consequential, because in each game WSU is playing to win to get out of the Bottom 4 of Tier II. By improving their ranking from #64 to #60, WSU gets to avoid automatic relegation, get to go to a bowl game, and have the chance to win that bowl game to avoid going to Tier III next year. So even though WSU loses every Champions League game going into Champions League Week 4, WSU still has everything to play for in their last game in November, because winning could take them out of the Bottom 4 and into a bowl game.
A 12-team playoff has the potential to devalue regular season games between non-playoff teams even further. This proposal for a College Football Champions League not only prevents that devaluation, it enhances the value of each non-conference game exponentially, which should result in increased revenues from attendance and media rights.
Why rankings of all teams matter in the College Football Champions League
In the 4-team playoff system, or in a potential 12–team playoff system, only the Top 4 or Top 12 rankings actually matter. The Playoff Committee can rank teams all the way to 25, but there isn’t any difference between being ranked 13th or 25th with few exceptions. This leaves 118 FBS teams without anything of consequence to play for in a bowl game. Approximately 100 FBS teams never really stand a chance of having anything of consequence to play for all year from a national perspective. Every single ranking, all the way to 130th, will matter in a College Football Champions League. This is why:
In each tier, whether a team is winning or losing, the team will always be trying to get out of the Bottom 4 to avoid automatic relegation to a lower tier, out of the bottom 16 to avoid a bowl game to be potentially relegated, into the Top 16 to try and get into a bowl game having a chance at promotion to the next tier, or into the Top 4 to play for a championship and earn automatic promotion to the next tier.
How this looks for all 130 FBS teams:
As you can see, no matter where a team is ranked #1 to #130, there is always an incentive to win your next game and potentially improve your fate by improving into the next group. Having the consequence of promotion and relegation from Tier I to Tier II to Tier III to Tier IV immediately gives coaches, fans, and administrators quantifiable reasons to care more about improving their team’s play and ranking each week of the season, no matter how well or poorly the team’s season has transgressed thus far.
Watching College Gameday or listening to a College Football talk show the past few seasons has encompassed non-stop debate about only the best teams and the games they were playing. With a College Football Champions League, focus can be given to every team and the individual consequences each team is facing week in and week out. No longer will discussion only involve the top FBS teams, but now each and every team can receive equal coverage because every team faces a consequence for winning and losing each game. These additional consequences will cause fans to become more invested, driving an increase in attendance to games while also improving the overall social footprint of each college football program in FBS, just as promotion/relegation and the Champions League increases revenues for European soccer clubs.
The serious problems with a 12-Team Playoff are solved with a Champions League
The potential problems with a 12-team playoff are numerous, already documented and expounded upon. A College Football Champions League system can address these issues.
- There is no longer an issue of where the playoff games will be staged, whether it be home or neutral site. The 12-team proposal allows seeds #5 through #8 to host playoff games, then staging the next 7 playoff games at neutral sites throughout the country. Under the Champions League proposal the games are played throughout the regular season with 2 games played at home, and 2 games played on the road for each team. Only the 5th (and potentially 6th) game is held in a neutral site bowl game. Every team plays the exact same schedule home and away and has an equal standing and a level playing field.
- The schedule is now potentially 4 games longer for seeds #5 through #12 under the new 12-team playoff proposal. This means a conference champion could potentially have to play 17 games in order to win the National Championship, the equivalent of a full NFL schedule. This is far too much of a physical burden to put on a college student who isn’t being paid additional monetary compensation. This College Football Champions League proposal keeps the college football season at the current number of games for any potential champion, requiring no extra physical punishment or risk of injury for a team competing for the National Championship.
- Traditional bowl games, such as the Rose Bowl, will lose their tradition and prestige in a 12-team playoff. There is no question, the value of every bowl game not involved in the expanded playoff will continue to become less important and prestigious. In order to accommodate the much longer schedule, New Year’s Day games will by necessity need to be moved to later on the calendar. This proposed Champions League system keeps every bowl game scheduled exactly where it is, adding importance to every single bowl game since there will be promotion and relegation on the line for the teams involved.
The main issues the College Football Champions League could create and their possible solutions
If you are a Conference Commissioner or an Athletic Director reading this, especially one of a Power 5 school, there are some immediate problems you see with this plan. This section seeks to address those concerns.
- Most Power 5 schools currently play 7, if not 8 home games a year. This includes 4 conference home games, 2 or 3 non-conference pay (cupcake) home games, and one difficult home or neutral site game. The College Football Champions League allows for 4 conference home games and only 2 Champions League home games. How will Power 5 schools make up the revenue of losing 1 or 2 home games each year? How will smaller budget athletic departments make up the lost revenue of playing in these payday games?
Answer: This is true in that switching to the College Football Champions League will lower the number of countable home games for most Power 5 schools. However, this can be easily remedied by transitioning these games into what they truly already are in most cases: exhibition games.
Instead of playing 2 or 3 cupcake or pay games throughout the season which count as meaningless wins, Power 5 schools can schedule 2 or 3 exhibition games whose results will not count win, lose, or draw for their season. This has the potential of raising the number of home games from 7 or 8 to potentially 9. The vision for the exhibition games is for them to be played before the season starts in August and during what would otherwise be bye weeks in a typical season. Playing exhibition games allows for numerous positives that would otherwise be impossible:
First, a team’s starters can all rest and not take part in the game unless they needed the extra practice. Losing an exhibition game doesn’t affect the team’s overall record, and it will become standardly recognized that a school’s first team is not going to line-up and take the field in these games. There will be no pressure for any player to play in the game who doesn’t want to play or needs the rest. No statistics from these games will count towards NCAA records and instead should be counted in their own area of a team’s media guide.
Second, this gives disgruntled younger players who are upset at a lack of playing time a chance to show their coaches what they can do in a game. Transfers are at an all-time high, and playing these exhibition games will give younger players an opportunity to play in front of fans and hopefully curb the growing trend of players transferring at first opportunity.
Third, since the game has no lasting consequence, coaches can play players buried on the depth chart, scout team members, and freshman who otherwise would never have an opportunity to play in front of their home fans. This is an opportunity that currently doesn’t exist for these players and should be viewed as a welcome reward for all of the hard work put forth by them that currently goes unrewarded in a public setting.
Fourth, with the coming addition of NIL rights being granted to student-athletes, starters who aren’t playing and members of the school’s other sports’ teams can use the exhibition game as an opportunity to make money by signing autographs, taking pictures with fans, and gaining some direct exposure with fans which would otherwise be impossible if a game with real consequences was being played.
Fifth, access to these games will be much easier than other home games, allowing fans who might not otherwise be able to afford traveling and attending a game to attend one at their favorite team’s campus. As is already the case with cupcake games currently, the ticket prices for these games would be much lower than a conference game, allowing for more fans from more socio-economic classes to attend games than currently do.
Last, the marketing and donation raising aspects of these games are limited only by a school’s imagination. Since this isn’t a real game without real consequences, there are no rules. If Auburn or Georgia wants to suit up Bo Jackson or Hershel Walker for an alumni quarter, raising money for every yard rushed, there isn’t a rule to stop it. These games should be viewed as a fun way to celebrate a team, raising money for the athletic department, while also providing much needed revenue to the athletic departments of schools who have been recipients of paydays for scheduling these games in the past.
By adding exhibition games, Power 5 schools can keep, if not increase, the current number of home football games and avoid the loss of revenue a switch to a Champions League format might otherwise require.
2. Won’t coaches and administrators start to schedule easier teams to avoid losses to keep their ranking higher?
Answer: This is a possibility, but one that can be avoided by potentially implementing the following alternative rules:
One alternative is when the committee evaluates teams for ranking purposes, they are only allowed to use games of their tier. This means a Tier I school only gets credit for Tier I wins, but gets dinged for losses in Tier I through IV for ranking purposes. Similarly, a Tier IV school doesn’t get dinged for losing to a Tier I through Tier III team, but does get credit for every win Tier I through IV. By writing the rules this way, every Tier I team is treated the same for ranking purposes and creates a very large incentive to only schedule other Tier I teams.
A second alternative is instead of using the committee to rank teams, the College Football Champions League could use a points system like those seen in hockey and soccer to order the teams in each tier. A Tier IV win could be worth 3 points and a Tier I win could be worth 12 points, giving extra incentive to coaches and administrators to schedule more difficult opponents. Additionally, an overtime game could award 1/3 of the points to both teams, then the final 1/3 of the points could go to the OT victor. The advantages to a point system are there is no punishment for losing, as a loss counts just as much as not playing a game. Therefore, it would be to every team’s advantage to schedule as many upper tier teams as possible to increase the possible points earned each season.
While there are potential issues that could arise in a College Football Champions League, there are vastly more easily implementable solutions than currently exist in a 4-team or 12–team playoff.
There are currently no meaningful successes, failures, or consequences for the majority of the 130 FBS programs. Almost every team and fanbase has little reason to continue showing up once one or two losses eliminate them from contention for the CFP or their conference championship. This is reinforced throughout the season by non-stop CFP advertisements asking “Who’s In?” Expanding to a 12-team playoff does very little to open these opportunities to the majority of schools.
Changing college football to a Champions League system eliminates the major problem of inconsequence plaguing FBS. No longer will the question be “Who’s In?” Every team will be in. The only question going forward is “Who’s going to win?”