In Reply to: Re: Neuheisel comments this morning posted by Deplorable on July 09, 2024 at 21:54:13
We know that humans are tribal. We care more about our family than we do about strangers.
We care more about our friends than we do about strangers.
We care more about our fellow religious or political followers than we do about those on the other side.
A few decades ago, the path to the American Dream was a college degree. And most people went to college relatively close to where they grew up. There were financial incentives to do so. But also familial and social reasons to do so.
The engine that drives the interest in college sports is that viewers have a personal affiliation with the universities that sponsor the squads.
When bammy takes the field, they're playing for all the alumni. And all the kids who hope to attend bammy in the future. For all those who wish they attended bammy but couldn't/didn't. For the state of Alabama. For the confederacy. For the lost cause. On and on.
For your "vision" to come to pass, the ties that bind will have to substantially cease to matter. An average Californian will have to be as likely to become a bammy fan as a Cal Bear fan. Even though the Californian may have a niece or nephew who are going to a UC, or dating a football player at Cal, etc. I just don't see that happening. So imo, geography will continue to matter. Because we live IN THE REAL WORLD, not the metaverse. Not on message boards. If most of your "interactions" are virtual in nature, then it's easier to fall into the rabbit hole of dystopian, cataclysmic thinking. Chaos is fun! Burn it all down... yeah!
You long for cfb to become nfl Jr. But nfl franchises are divorced from any kind of philanthropic or altruistic mission. They are just soulless vehicles for the personal aggrandizement of the "owner". CFB teams are the tangible mascots for their universities, some of which date back to the 1600s. And those 100s of years of existence have a power that a soulless entity like an nfl franchise can never achieve.
What could change this dynamic?
1. College could cease to exist as a goal for Americans. If college enrollment plummets because of expense or because Americans lose faith that college matters, then 40 to 50 years from now when all the college grads have died off (if people die 40 or 50 years from now), there might be a crisis of connection. But that's a long time off. America itself might not exist 50 years from now, just like the soviet union is kaput.
2. Every school becomes like notre Dame. ND is the only program with a one-off national TV deal. Because of its "subway alumni". I'd argue that ND's religious affiliation has as much to do with its popularity as its desultory results over the last 3 decades. Is tODU with lovable curmudgeon chip Kelly going to develop a national following in the wake of 3 straight national titles? No. It's more likely that tOSU will become even more hated than it is now.
To summarize, cfb is different than the nfl. Cfb is not just about football. It's about parents wanting their kids to go to Stanford, so they take their kids to Stanford games to get the kid acclimated to the campus, plant some dreams in the kid's head that they could go to Stanford one day, maybe even play for Stanford. And if you can't make the game, the next best thing is watching on TV. With friends, and family.