College football thriving with NIL, transfer portal as NCAA pushes for Congressional help

Funny enough, the NCAA and college stakeholders’ predictions have not come true in the last two years and change.

College football is thriving, coming off the most-watched regular season Saturday ever. As leaders decry what NIL and the transfer portal have done to the sport, there’s no evidence to back the claims.

Colorado was waxed at Oregon this past weekend, yet more than 10 million viewers tuned into the game. The Buffaloes didn’t even score until the fourth quarter. Like it or not, that type of national attention is what Deion Sanders has brought to the college game. The average NFL viewer is now tuning into his games. And Colorado’s first three games of the season rated 77% higher among Black viewers, according to data provided by ESPN research via AP.

Ryan Day railed on his haters and called out Lou Holtz following a last-second win at Notre Dame. With South Bend as the setting, the matchup brought in 9.98 million viewers. Add in NBC’s Adobe-measured streaming audience of 605,000, and the top-10 matchup had a larger audience of 10.59 million.

Nearly 12 billion minutes were consumed across all rated networks this past weekend. College football is having its moment.

The numbers are pointing toward the sport becoming the nation’s No. 2 spectator sport, trailing the NFL. Both ratings were on par with averages with the 2023 NBA championship series (11.6 million) and 2022 MLB World Series (11.7 million), as Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger pointed out.

This past weekend was filled with six ranked matchups, the most since 2017. But come Saturday, USC and Colorado will meet in Boulder. It should get the biggest audience yet this season. Look at it, the game combines Lincoln Riley and Caleb Williams with Deion Sanders and his son/quarterback Shedeur Sanders. Slated for the Big Noon slot on FOX, it should draw north of 11 million.

It’s not just the TV ratings, though.

Stadiums are packed; ticket prices to Notre Dame-Ohio State were some of the highest in college football history. Penn State just brought the second-largest crowd in Beaver Stadium history for its White Out.

Sure, conference realignment has upended the landscape of the sport. The real ramifications of that won’t be known for a few years. So, will that be the dagger that has a negative impact on interest? Time will tell.

Clearly, however, the portal and NIL have only made the game more exciting. Talent is starting to spread around. The SEC still has seven teams ranked in the top 25. But this is not the same SEC many have grown accustomed to with multiple College Football Playoff bid-worthy teams. The conference has a 5-6 record against Power 5 opponents.

And on the West Coast, the Pac-12 is having a renaissance. While it’s surely too late to save the league and deliver a TV deal, it’s the proper way to send out a 108-year-old conference. Six teams are ranked in the top 25 entering Week 4. All have built their programs differently, yet five of the six are starting transfer quarterbacks: Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. (Indiana), USC’s Caleb Williams (Oklahoma), Oregon’s Bo Nix (Auburn), Washington State’s Cameron Ward (Incarnate Word) and Oregon State’s D.J. Uiagalelei (Clemson).

It’s tough to draw a tie between NIL and TV ratings’ success.

But it’s clear that fans don’t have a problem with athletes signing deals, such as this week’s viral deal between four Iowa State players and the Iowa Pork Producers Association. Heck, Deion Sanders is even including his players in his endorsement deals.

How is that bad for the sport? The portal has allowed programs to rebuild quickly. Lincoln Riley was on the cusp of reaching the CFP in Year 1 at USC. That never happens if Williams can’t easily move out to Los Angeles.

The early season success of the college football product comes against an ironic juxtaposition. More pressure continues to be put on Congress for federal legislation. At last week’s Lead1 Association meetings, Sen. Ted Cruz predicted there was a “60-40” chance of an NIL bill being passed. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, provided a much different response: “They are less than 50-50.”

A day after those comments, the House Committee on Small Business gathered for a legislative hearing on NIL. As the witnesses discussed the faults in the NIL infrastructure, multiple officials pointed out just how crazy the thought of Congress bailing out college sports is.

“Is the NCAA so inept right now that this is something Congress must legislate?” Rep. John McGarvey (D-KY) said.

College coaches are even starting to come around on it, including ones who have lobbied Congress. Nick Saban was in Washington, D.C., in June for the “SEC on the Hill” event. On Wednesday night in front of Alabama’s media contingent, he called again for guidelines. Yet he also let on that he can operate in this environment.

“I think we all understand what it’s become and what we allowed it to become,” he admitted. “It’s becoming what it’s becoming. And that’s OK.”

College football is not dying.

It isn’t crumbling.

Yet the NCAA will continue to push Congress for a resolution, even when a government shutdown is impending. The traditional, old-school minds of college athletics will continue to pound the table for change.

The college football fans tuning in every weekend – they don’t care. They’ll be packing stadiums, tailgating in parking lots and following their team’s latest portal movement.

Because at least they’ve embraced the state of the sport.