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David Hale
Several authors
Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack is the latest voice to call for serious reforms to college football, including a comprehensive overhaul of the schedule, collective bargaining with athletes and a consolidation of television media rights in order to build a sustainable future.
Wildhack told ESPN that he believes it is imperative for college sports — and football in particular — to seize the current moment as an opportunity to make significant changes to address current issues such as the transfer portal, in-season coaching departures, player eligibility and revenue gaps.
“We tend to look at things as isolated cases and we have to look at sport holistically,” Wildhack said. “When you’re in a moment where you have that popularity and fan support, you have to build on that and improve on it.”
Wildhack, a former ESPN executive who has served as Syracuse’s AD since 2016, said the sport’s popularity shouldn’t be an excuse to continue to avoid addressing key issues, but rather an endorsement to find solutions now. His concerns have been echoed in recent days by other influential figures in the sport, Georgia President Jere Morehead and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney.
At the American Football Coaches Association convention being held this week in Charlotte, coaches attempted to resolve some of the eligibility issues by unanimously supporting a plan to expand redshirt eligibility to any player who participates in fewer than nine games in a season.
Meanwhile, a subcommittee of coaches and athletic directors met in Charlotte outside of the official AFCA schedule to discuss changes to the schedule that one athletic director described as “very productive” and emphasizing “progress not perfection.”
Yet Wildhack’s public support for collective bargaining and TV media consolidation marks one of the most emphatic moves for meaningful reform from a current athletic director.
“There needs to be collective bargaining,” Wildhack said. “Players should be paid, there’s no doubt about that. But with collective bargaining, there are rules that have been negotiated. It’s a legal document that everyone has obligations that they have to respect. That’s where we have to go.”
Wildhack said a deal with “real teeth” is also needed to combat schools that are “blatantly disregarding” guidelines set by the College Athletic Commission.
Wildhack also called for a holistic reinvention of the college football schedule, which has been a hot topic among coaches and fans after former Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin left for the LSU job before the Rebels began a playoff run that ended at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl. In the lead-up to that loss to Miami, Kiffin and Ole Miss fought over how many starting assistant coaches would be available for the Rebels rather than joining the rest of LSU’s new staff in Baton Rouge.
Amid the calendar debate, college football commissioners are expected to meet this weekend to discuss expanding the College Football Playoff beyond its current 12 teams.
The final piece of the puzzle, and perhaps the trickiest, according to Wildhack, is revenue generation.
With the $20.5 million revenue sharing kicking off this year, schools have been forced to scramble to cover costs, and the revenue gap between the biggest brands in the big conferences and the “have-nots” in the little leagues has widened significantly in the process.
But Wildhack pointed to the strong audiences for this year’s bowl games and College Football Playoffs as evidence that the sport is leaving huge sums of money on the table by failing to negotiate television deals as a unified bloc.
Wildhack pointed to the ACC’s new success initiatives and brand distribution model as ways to ensure college football’s biggest brands don’t take a financial step back by agreeing to consolidated television rights, but said it’s in everyone’s best interest to consider options to increase television revenue nationally rather than by conference.
“There’s no such thing as a 100 percent approval rate, but let’s take what we currently have and improve it,” Wildhack said. “The time is now and there are so many opportunities left on the table. If we address the key issues and can start to make progress, we will improve the situation for everyone and the sport will prosper. There is no doubt about that.”
