Guaranteed Solution to Stop CFB Bowl Game College Athlete Opt Outs

Jan 02, 2024 | Endorsements, Marketing, NIL

The Orange Bowl was terrible TV.

Attendance was embarrassing for a premium bowl game like the Orange Bowl.

Viewership was pathetic, too.

And I have the solution to solve it.

Let me set the table for discussion:

Kirby Smart said it best that college football needs to decide what they want, and things are going to have to change. Change it has no doubt, and more change is sure to come, but something overarching has to change in order for bowl games like the Orange Bowl between 2 premium brands like Georgia and FSU to never again experience:

A. Pitiful attendance (I’m putting the empty seats on FSU; that should have been a home game. Seminoles, if you want folks to take you seriously, show up.)

B. 10M viewers (For comparison, 27M watched the Bama/Meeeeeeeeeechigan game. 27M is a lot more than 10M #math)

Nobody wanted to see full-strength Georgia skull-drag a 65-scholarship FSU team, even Georgia fans. Hats off to the FSU boys for keeping it 7-0 through the first quarter, #salute. But nobody other than some foundational UGA and FSU fans cared enough to show up or tune in.

Let’s be real; the game was awful. Turrible. The Fighting Kirbys didn’t let up 1 bit when they scored 5 touchdowns in the 2nd quarter… Heck, Will Muchamp’s son even got some yards posted to the box score.

So how do we keep another FSU Optout Fest from happening again? How does college football evolve – given the current landscape, rules, and regulations – to keep bowl games viable? What can be done so that Heisman Trophy winners play in bowl games?

@impact.fans

🚨 OPTED • OUT 🚨 The highest-impact players opting OUT of their bowl games & games IMPACTed: Marvin Harrison Jr – Goodyear Cotton Bowl 🛞 Jaden Daniels – ReliaQuest Bowl 💻 Jared Verse – Orange Bowl 🍊 Chop Robinson – Peach Bowl 🍑 Jackson Powers-Johnson – Fiesta Bowl ☀️ #bowlgames #collegefootball #optout #football

♬ original sound – Impact Fans

Not throwing any shade @ Jayden Daniels at all, or any other player for that matter. Honest. You guys have worked hard AF for ~15 years to get to a point where professional football teams will consider employing you to play for them, and you can’t have all that ruined in the off-chance you catch a serious injury.

The reward is high, the likelihood is actually very low for serious injury, but likelihood of draft is high.

That formula doesn’t add up to, “Easy decision – play 1 more game” when we’re talking years and careers + NFL money. I hate I don’t get to see great players play 1 last game, but I don’t blame them 1 bit. They’re not a businessman, they’re a business, man.

Speaking of money – if I’m Capital One – I am seriously considering why do I sponsor this game again. If ratings were THIS bad and attendance was THAT bad, is it worth the $25,000,000 per year they’re dropping for title sponsor? 10M people saw it which is $2.50 a pop… SHEESH

SIDE NOTE w/ SHAMELESS PLUG – Our platform crushes any/all metrics produced by a bowl game and for $25M I personally guarantee more/better return. If you know somebody @ Capital One, pass us their way.

But seriously – think of the bowl game title sponsors and what they’ve committed to. We have to think of the business of college football. Are the sponsors with the pocket$ going to continue to shell out m-m-m-millions to be a part of very bad football games with low attendance or viewership? No. They want eyeballs to see, ears to hear their pitch – and they need a great product on the field to draw the eyes & ears. Without the marquee players, the talented super-humans we tune in to see or buy tickets to cheer for – what’s left is 63-3 with no fans tuning in or showing up.

And like we all can agree – When the money walks, everything falls a part. And when $25,000,000 for 1 football game takes a walk, that rolls downhill in a hurry.

Which brings us to The Solution to Stop CFB Bowl Game Opt Outs:

1. The majority of the $ awarded to the teams in the bowl games should absolutely go to the players of the schools in the bowl game. If Nick Saban and his staff get $$$ bonuses for playing/winning in the CFB Playoff, the players should get bowl game $ too. I know I know, technically the NCAA doesn’t let the school pay players, but there are NIL ways around it. Let’s take Alabama as an example and member of the Southeastern Conference. For making the Playoff, Alabama will be awarded approximately $2M. I know there are a ton of expenses in college athletics, sometimes bowl game payout is what keeps an entire athletic program barely profitable. But if you want Jaylen Daniels, if you want Jared Verse – the talent that puts butts in seats and eyeballs to the screens – you’re going to have to pay the players. Plain and simple. Their ship is sailing and if you want 1 more round with the best of the best in a bowl game, you’re going to have to pad some pockets.
   AND
2. Lloyds of London. Hear me out – insure the NFL caliber players for just 1 game. Yep, get them insured for 1 game against NFL draft impacting injury. Remember, the likelihood of serious injury is really low, it’s not likely to happen, but in the rando off-chance it does, you gotta take care of the guy. He’s opting out because of his shot at $$$ so you gotta protect him. And this isn’t anything new, I’m not talking crazy talk. Archie Manning had a $5M Lloyds of London policy on Peyton for the 1997 season. That’s peace of mind for him and his family. Put that in today’s $ (adjusted for inflation) that’s $9.3M. I bet if you insure guys for that for 1 game, you get better bowl games, better viewership, better press & headlines.

That’s it. That’s what’s needed.

Pay the players and make sure their future is secure, those are the reasons they’re opting out.

Pay them, insure them, and you’ll get a better product on the field for bowl games and we can hopefully never suffer through another Georgia-FSU disaster because that’s what it was – a cringeworthy, bullying, disaster of a bowl game.

And I’ll bet you $25,000,000 that’s not what anyone wants to see.