ESPN's David Hale, Bill Connelly advocate for relegation (and mention Vanderbilt) in Q&A piece about realignment

[BrentVU]

What's the wildest move you would want to see?

Hale: Let's just erase the blackboard and start from scratch. So many of college football's ills are driven by the paradoxical influences of modern revenue generation and old-school tradition. TV money will pay Vanderbilt and Illinois more than Florida State or Clemson because of contractual ties from decades (or centuries) ago. The sport is constantly trying to fit square pegs into round holes. So let's blow it up! If we're moving toward super leagues, let's shed the shackles of conference tie-ins from a time when teams traveled by train and build out a league that allows all programs who want to compete a chance to truly do so; that maintains long-standing rivalries that put actual butts in actual seats for the games; that gives players a fair slice of the pie. Oh, and have we mentioned promotion and relegation? How much time to do we have here?

Connelly: Oh, we're absolutely going to talk about promotion and relegation, time be damned. I've spent far too many hours of my life thinking about it not to bring it up at every possible opportunity. We could remodel the entire NCAA ladder, from Division I to Division III, based on a relegation model, and we wouldn't have to redraft conferences or anything. We set up conference affiliations across the board -- the SEC with the Sun Belt, the Big 12 with Conference USA, the ACC with the AAC, the Pac-12 with the Mountain West, the Big Ten with the MAC (and then, the MAC with the Missouri Valley, etc.) -- and off we go. The last-place team in the SEC (Vanderbilt) plays the first-place team in the Sun Belt (Troy) for a spot in next year's SEC! Extra drama! A level of actual merit in power conference membership! Everybody wins with relegation! Except Vanderbilt!...

ESPN.com: What does the future of realignment look like in college football?
(by ESPN.com staff)

[AuricGoldfinger]

There's a lot of things I never expected to see in college football. USC and UCLA in the Big Ten. UCF and BYU together in the Big XII. Nebraska as a perpetual doormat.

That being said, forced relegation will never happen in college football.

There's no way an AD or college president will vote for it, knowing they could be next.

[Minoadoc]

trying to duplicate European soccer, Premier League, where teams are promoted and demoted based upon performance

[dunc77]

I'm pretty sure that Auburn, VU, and Texas A&M all finished with a 2-6 SEC record last year. Since they're saying only football determines conference membership, all three need to play a game to stay?

[Nashmann]

Dumb idea...sorry

[OldDude]

Dumb idea...sorry

You're being more than kind only calling it dumb.

[Johnmn555]

Vanderbilt to play Troy with $100 million on the line. Certainly not an invitation to stretch rules and cheat.

[Go Vandy!]

The D1 football powers missed their chance. In the late 80s/early 90s, the best 64 (without the first 4) should have broken away from the NCAA. Their seasons would be a de facto playoff. That way you wouldn't have swimming teams, which are losing money as it is, from CALIFORNIA to have to fly to Maryland (or vice versa).
To happen now would royally screw all the major conferences up.

[vandy05]

I don't think relegation is a terrible idea. Its a merit based system where your performance dictates where you go and the revenue you get. Now, could it actually be executed given the sports outside of football? Very difficult.

[dunc77]

There's a lot of things I never expected to see in college football. USC and UCLA in the Big Ten. UCF and BYU together in the Big XII. Nebraska as a perpetual doormat.

That being said, forced relegation will never happen in college football.

There's no way an AD or college president will vote for it, knowing they could be next.

Another reason all of this "Vanderbilt out of the SEC" talk is nonsense - the coaches and ADs love Vanderbilt for obvious reasons. They want that "automatic" W and to take advantage of the academic standard. I went to Peabody in the 70s and had classes with many athletes. As soon as the football team began to improve, the coaches around the league began to grumble about it. Some were in favor of revisiting their approval, in the same way some baseball coaches now complain about the "unfair" baseball scholarship advantage.The talk radio/ESPN "experts" and fans can babble all they want. As the football team improves, they'll find other stupid things for clickbait.

[alathIN]

I don't think relegation is a terrible idea. Its a merit based system where your performance dictates where you go and the revenue you get. Now, could it actually be executed given the sports outside of football? Very difficult.

The NFL (and just about every other US pro sport) has found the opposite - that allowing successful teams to go on to higher and higher spending and greater dominance is detrimental to the sport and decreases fan interest everywhere except the top of the heap teams.
Many sports have mechanisms to help lower tier teams catch up; draft order in the NFL is a prime example. In F1, less successful teams get more wind tunnel and CFD time to help them catch up - because watching yet another Red Bull parade doesn't make for great TV. Indycar went to a spec car to contain costs and the result has been more competitive teams. Just about every major sport I can think of has a salary cap and some form of revenue sharing.
College football is already dominated by a small handful of teams. Increasing this trend is not likely to make for a better entertainment product, and certainly won't help fan engagement for the perennial loser schools.
Sure, rich-get-richer poor-get-poorer capitalism is the official religion of our nation - but most sports leagues have found that some selective socialism serves their capitalist interests better.

[vandy05]

I don't think relegation is a terrible idea. Its a merit based system where your performance dictates where you go and the revenue you get. Now, could it actually be executed given the sports outside of football? Very difficult.

The NFL (and just about every other US pro sport) has found the opposite - that allowing successful teams to go on to higher and higher spending and greater dominance is detrimental to the sport and decreases fan interest everywhere except the top of the heap teams.
Many sports have mechanisms to help lower tier teams catch up; draft order in the NFL is a prime example. In F1, less successful teams get more wind tunnel and CFD time to help them catch up - because watching yet another Red Bull parade doesn't make for great TV. Indycar went to a spec car to contain costs and the result has been more competitive teams. Just about every major sport I can think of has a salary cap and some form of revenue sharing.
College football is already dominated by a small handful of teams. Increasing this trend is not likely to make for a better entertainment product, and certainly won't help fan engagement for the perennial loser schools.
Sure, rich-get-richer poor-get-poorer capitalism is the official religion of our nation - but most sports leagues have found that some selective socialism serves their capitalist interests better.

I don't dispute any of your analysis. I'm just not sure what you're saying its the opposite of. Maybe its the opposite of not a terrible idea. I'm not advocating for it, but in this country there aren't mechanisms (by and large) to make sure the small local burger shop gets a leg up against McDonald's. You have to compete.

I know its not an exact analogy, but that is the way we do a lot of things in the US. I'm a pretty big market correction guy (except when I'm not )

[MikenNashville]

IMO we’re already at risk of major college football becoming a regional sport. The best example I can think of is Major League Baseball going from “America’s Favorite Pastime” to being, at best, the third most popular sport in America. When the New York Yankees and a few other rich organizations can basically buy championships by affording the highest paid athletes it seems that model doesn’t expand the fanbase for the other teams. I would venture to guess the demographics of the average professional baseball fan skews a lot older than the NFL, NHL, NBA etc. Yankees, Dodgers and a small minority of other teams not withstanding.