Proposed details of college football’s ‘Super League’ revealed

College Sports Tomorrow, a group of executives and administrators, has proposed converting college football into a “super league” called the College Student Football League (CSFL).

Details of the plan had been in the works for months but were revealed by the group on Tuesday. The plan calls for restructuring the 136 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools into two conferences. The top 72 programs in the country would compete in the Power 12 Conference, which would consist of 12 divisions of six teams each, depending on geographic location.

The names of these divisions, based on regions, include East, Middle East, Great Lakes, Midwest, Carolinas, Mid-South, Southeast, South, Plains, Texas, Southwest, and West.

The remaining 64 teams, most of which make up the current Group of 5, would compete in the Group of 8 Conference. The divisions of this conference include East, Middle East, Midwest, Atlantic, Southeast, South, Central and West.

According to the release, some of the top teams in the Group of 8 would be eligible for promotion to the Power 12 Conference the following season, but there would be no relegation of schools from the Power 12 to the Group of 8.

Below are graphics of the proposed conferences and divisions for each team.

Below are more details about the College Student Football League from the official release:

The CSFL would only apply to football; Other college sports would remain in their current conferences or return to their traditional, geographic conferences, reducing the need for other sports to travel cross-state. The CSFL would incorporate all current FBS schools into two conferences consisting of geographically based divisions. The top 72 programs would compete in the Power 12 conference, while the remaining 64 schools would compete in a second conference, the Group of 8. The best eight schools in the Group of 8 would have the opportunity to “play up” to the upper league. the following season, allowing promotion without “relegation” of any of the Power 12 schools.

Centralized, results-based league scheduling, including non-division games played between schools with similar preseason records, would make for more competitive matchups and allow more schools to stay in the hunt longer into the season. It would also allow on-field results, rather than a committee, to decide playoff participation, which in turn would lead to more fan engagement in more parts of the country during the regular season and postseason. The College Football Playoff (CFP) would be integrated into the CST proposal, allowing a single league to be tasked with managing and growing college football at all 130-plus FBS schools.

“The CSFL format is better for schools, student-athletes, fans and media partners because more schools will have playoff hopes well into November, unlike the current system where most schools are eliminated by October,” Jimmy said Haslam, longtime University of Tennessee philanthropist and owner of the Cleveland Browns and other sports teams. “Historically, the beauty of college football was that there were many schools across the country competing for the championship. “We must return college football to the broad, national model of its golden years, in a system that promotes greater competitive equality,” Haslam said.

The CSFL model would be economically beneficial and sustainable in the short and long term. Consolidating and centralizing college football will allow greater revenue to flow into a unified league, allowing universities to fairly compensate players, create appropriate competitive balance, cover rising NIL costs, and continue to support other college sports that require less Generate revenue, including women’s sports and the U.S. Olympics program. The CSFL would directly compensate all student football players, not just stars, and the NIL and transfer portal rules would be the result of collective negotiations between the CSFL and an association representing student football athletes. The CSFL supports legislation that seeks to establish that student-athletes are NOT employees, but through collective bargaining the CSFL would give players a voice in rules and economics while providing protection from antitrust claims through “non-statutory work release.” through a formal legal antitrust exemption. This approach should provide a permanent solution to college sports’ myriad antitrust challenges.

Although the idea sounds good on paper, it is very questionable whether this proposal can be implemented in the foreseeable future. Every FBS conference would have to agree to the change, and then there are the existing television contracts, some of which already extend into the early 2030s.

What do you think? Is the CSFL a good idea and will it eventually become a reality?