If Florida politicians want to strike back at the College Football Playoff, this is how they should
Florida attorney general Ashley Moody continued the state’s assault on the College Football Playoff on Tuesday by issuing a subpoena that demands the CFP turn over records that Moody hopes will prove some sort of vast conspiracy against Florida State. Moody, a Florida grad, noted in a video that she is setting aside her own school loyalty in order to avenge the 13-0 Seminoles’ exclusion from the final four-team CFP. The cabal responsible for this injustice allegedly includes the conference commissioners who run the CFP, the SEC specifically (because Alabama got in instead) and ESPN.
The plan — in addition to everything else Florida politicians have floated so far — won’t work. The records Moody wants probably don’t exist, and there is no use waging a public relations battle when the majority of the college football-watching population is indifferent to whether Alabama or Florida State made the field. If Florida’s elected officials actually want to make life miserable for the lords of the CFP while also scoring points with the general population in their own state and 49 others, all they need do is draft and pass a bill. Why waste energy with theatrics that don’t actually affect the people you wish to affect? Why not hit those people where they’re most sensitive?
To figure out what Florida leaders could do if they actually wanted to hit back at the people who run the CFP, I called someone uniquely qualified for this task. Corey Staniscia was the chief of staff for state Rep. Chip LaMarca when LaMarca led the charge for a name, image and likeness rights bill in Florida. Staniscia is now a lobbyist, but since NIL came into existence in 2021 — thanks to Florida and its decision to pass a bill with the earliest effective date — Staniscia also has moved into the NIL space. He’s the director of Fowler Avenue, the collective that serves USF sports. So he knows Florida politics and college sports as each exist in 2023.
What would Staniscia do if he were advising Florida legislators? He’d tell them to draft a bill that would make it illegal in the state for the schools to make rules to keep bowl games from sharing money with the players. In other words, the Orange, Citrus, Gator, Pop-Tarts and Gasparilla Bowls would be allowed to pay the players. It’s the leak in the dam that would lead to full-on revenue sharing with the schools themselves. Or, if they really want to shake the tree, Florida legislators can pass a bill that also allows schools in Florida to make name, image and likeness deals with their own athletes.
That second suggestion would codify the suggestion NCAA president Charlie Baker made last week in a move that blindsided the conference commissioners and athletic directors. It just wouldn’t be coming in the way Baker wants. Baker wants the U.S. congress to extend antitrust protection to the NCAA and schools and write into law that athletes aren’t employees. These are pipe dreams that the schools will never get.
Florida’s politicians could give Baker the thing he wants, but not in the way he wants it. Hey, that’s politics. Baker, a former Massachusetts governor, should understand that.
Staniscia knows the thing college conference commissioners fear most is sharing more money with players. They’re currently all lobbying the U.S. Congress to try to ensure they and athletic administrators and coaches continue keeping most of the money. The states foisted on them, and that has slightly shifted the way the money flows. But don’t worry, the administrators have new revenue sources kicking in — including an upcoming new CFP TV deal. As the case of former Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher’s $76 million buyout at Texas A&M demonstrates, they’ve managed to spend just as stupidly as ever even though some more money goes to players now. Two-and-a-half years after the effective date Staniscia suggested, the world hasn’t ended as those administrators predicted. In fact, college football’s popularity is surging. Talent is dispersing in a more equitable manner.
So the next boogeyman for the conference commissioners who run the CFP is revenue sharing. They predict sports you don’t actually care about now (because we know you don’t watch them) will go away if they have to split more money with football players. Florida legislators could stress test that idea by passing a bill that allows bowl games in the state to give money to the players participating in those games.
While the idea of a partially edible Pop-Tarts mascot might convince me to play in the bowl game that will take place in Orlando on Dec. 28, a more sure way to incentivize the best players from Kansas State and N.C. State to play is cold cash. Sure, some NFL prospects might still skip the game for fear of injury. But most have a price that would make them more comfortable with the choice to play, and while they might publicly protest out of loyalty to conference officials, bowl officials probably would be happy to try to meet that price.
The Citrus Bowl, Gator Bowl, Reliaquest Bowl and Gasparilla Bowl aren’t going to convince many soon-to-be NFL draft picks to play with Best Buy gift cards, but they might do it with a significant cash bonus. The title sponsor of the Citrus Bowl is Cheez-It. Perhaps Tennessee coach Josh Heupel wouldn’t have to worry about some of his best players skipping the game against Iowa if they got a five-figure bonus for playing and yelling “I WOKE UP FEELING THE CHEESIEST, COACH” into a microphone at some point.
The big one, of course, is the Orange Bowl. Beginning next season, the Orange Bowl will be a College Football Playoff game. That might only last two seasons because every aspect of the CFP is on the table prior to the 2026 season, but it would be particularly impactful for those two years. Players probably wouldn’t skip a CFP game anyway, but the Orange could guarantee everyone’s participation in its game either with a revenue share that offers players an equal amount (like the NFL’s playoff bonus). The game also could tap title sponsor Capital One to make individual deals with stars. This might matter as the bowls and organizing committees — which also bid on national title games — jockey for position for the next contract.
The domino effect of this would be quite predictable. California, which already has introduced a bill that would require schools in the state to share athletic department revenue with athletes, would almost certainly follow suit. Now the Rose Bowl would be allowed to pay. Louisiana doesn’t like to be at a competitive disadvantage in these situations. Now the Sugar Bowl would be in.
The conference commissioners who have been telling congress that any sort of revenue share or employee status will kill college sports would see their lobbying efforts become even less effective than they are now. Because once again, the market would adjust. The world wouldn’t end.
Most of the public has come around on the idea of the football players people tune in to watch sharing in the massive piles of cash their games generate. The Florida politicians would get their PR win.
But that’s not the real goal, and everyone knows it. They want to stick it to the people who created the system that stuck it to Florida State. Politicians who make a bowl revenue share law happen certainly could take credit for hitting the commissioners where they’ll hurt. This would be the first step toward an entirely new world that most of them don’t want.
Given what we’re seeing in the courts, that world is coming anyway. Players eventually will be employees getting paid directly by schools and abiding by the rules of a CBA that eliminates all of these court cases. So making that world come faster won’t really hurt anything in the long term. But if the people who run the state of Florida really want to strike back at the people who run the CFP, this is the map.