This week, the College Football Playoff and ESPN inked a five-year deal to expand to 24 teams in 2027 and beyond. ESPN’s Heather Dinich reported the contract’s worth as nearly $1.7 billion.
Evan Cohen, a longtime ESPN Radio host, thinks the NFL should fork over whatever amount is necessary to save college football from itself.
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On Thursday, ESPN’s First Take crew of Cohen, Louis Riddick, Gerald McCoy, and Shae Cornette discussed Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz’s reaction to the 24-team College Football Playoff becoming official.
“Times are changing, so you’ve got to adjust with the times,” Drinkwitz said. “But my question is, why are we associated with conferences anymore if we’re not playing for a conference championship? If the point now is just to be playing into a sea of 24, are we just doing it for scheduling affiliation? If we’re just doing it for scheduling affiliation, is there a reason to be flying all the way across the country to play games from a national perspective?”
Cohen offered to take the conversation one step further.
“Why does the NCAA exist?” Cohen said. “What’s the reason for the NCAA? Like, if we’re going to say, why does conferences—it’s actually an easy answer to why conferences exist. If we’re talking about in general, it’s for the non-rev sports more than it is the revenue sports.”
After bantering about the benefit of conferences for non-revenue sports, Cohen returned to his original point.
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“Why does the NCAA exist then? My only belief is that the presidents and ADs, in many cases, just want a bad guy and want a target. ‘Here’s what we want, but you do it for us so we don’t have to be the bad guys because we see the coaches every single day. But this is what we really want.’
“Of course, college sports is changing. Of course, [Drinkwitz] makes sense. But why are we doing it about the conferences and not overall NCAA? I mean, the NFL should probably just swoop in and just buy it. Buy college football. Just run all of it.”
McCoy acknowledged that’s “what it’s turning into” before Cohen interjected to emphasize, “I’m actually being serious.”
It sounds ridiculous on its face, but once upon a time, so did a 24-team College Football Playoff. And if the pushback is that fans would hate it, when has that ever stopped the College Football Playoff, the NCAA, or the NFL?
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Chris Vannini and Ralph D. Russo of The Athletic recently reported that ESPN was privately opposed to expanding the College Football Playoff. Separately, CFP director Rich Clark came right out and publicly admitted that while fan sentiment was overwhelmingly opposed to a 24-team playoff, they had to do it anyway.
With that in mind, and with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell making it his life’s mission to establish the NFL in every city imaginable, who’s to say college football towns are off limits? Bookmark this article for a decade from now.
The post ESPN’s Evan Cohen suggests NFL should ‘buy college football’ after expanded playoff appeared first on Awful Announcing.
