College Football

Football Nationalism

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European football’s governing body, UEFA, has made clear their response to FIFA’s stated plans to sell private stakes in the World Cup.

“UEFA and its 55 member associations stand as one. We unanimously and unequivocally reject FIFA’s proposal to transfer ownership interests in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors. The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product. It is one of football’s greatest sporting legacies. It has been built over generations by players, national teams and supporters across every continent. No part of it should ever be surrendered to private investors. The World Cup is not for sale.” —UEFA

This evokes memories of the European uprising in response to twelve of the biggest clubs coordinating for their own breakaway league in 2021. The dirty dozen involved were Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Juventus, AC Milan, and Inter Milan.

“Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, AC Milan and Juventus all dropped out of the Super League on Wednesday, leaving the new competition essentially extinct before it even started.” —CBC

The interesting thing is that the new league wouldn’t have ended the domestic European leagues the clubs are all aligned with, it would have changed the “Champions League” format by giving these top clubs permanent placements and a larger share of the money from it. The Champions League is their season-long playoff system that is most easily comparable to the College Football Playoff. The plan they had discussed was far less of a fundamental change to their structure than what College Football has and is currently in the process of undergoing.

Which has me thinking, if only Europe was as conservative about its borders and Americans were as resolute about our College Football, what a vastly different world it would be.

The Sapphire Buckeyes

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Thee Ohio State University just became the newest and largest Power 4 conference team to incorporate a jersey sponsor patch. 

“Ohio State Athletics today announced a landmark partnership with JPMorganChase… designat[ing] Chase as the official bank sponsor of Ohio State Athletics and the new jersey patch partner across Ohio State’s 36 men’s and women’s varsity programs.” —Ohio State

I have put together a mock-up of what their jersey’s may look like twenty years from now. 


This brings to mind my Rhetoric class in college. When we learned about fallacies, the professor was sure to emphasize the “Slippery Slope” fallacy, yet the private equitization of college athletics continues to argue for the converse:

The Slippery Slope is not a fallacy, it’s an inevitability. 

Update: Notre Dame has just gotten into the mix. They have inked a six-year, $18-$20m a year deal with SoFi. While I may not love jersey sponsorship patches, I’m very pleased that Notre Dame’s is more valuable than OSU’s.