"The final outcome was directly affected by a replay officiating error resulting from the failure to follow an established and specific protocol governing precisely this type of end-of-half timing situation” - FBS Oversight Committee, on the final second of Michigan’s win Saturday night, reminding us they exist, but for virtually no reason.
🎙️ Leading Off
Golf is very much ON, playas. Don’t sleep on the fall calendar. Shane Lowry ran away with the Irish Open last week, and this week features more across-the-pond golf. The DP World Tour heads to London for the BMW Championship at Wentworth Golf Club. Headliners include Rory, Brooks, Rahm, Hovland, Fleetwood and more. LIV had as much competition from events like these than they did from tournaments like the Arnold Palmer. This is a more compelling field, with a title sponsor, and real television distribution. The biz model ain’t that hard!
On the domestic circuit, you can find the PGA in Asheville. North Carolina’s absolute charmer of a mountain town plays host to the Biltmore Championship. The fall foliage hasn’t arrived yet, but this is proper Mountain Golf and a unique break from the rest of the circuit. If this event gets pushed deeper into hunting season, and the leaves are peepin, then you might find KMARK and fam enjoyin Asheville’s finest. Let me ring the commish and see if we can juggle the schedule.
🏈 Hard In The Paint
(LSU Athletics
Picture this scene: a Brit and a KMARK walk an undisclosed coastal Californian golf course. Joined by an SC Trojan and UW Husky alum, the conversation bleeds into amateur athletics, promotion, relegation and the parallels of college football’s new pay-for-play model and English Football’s multi-tier professional system. The Brit remarks: how does a country a fraction of the size of the US support thousands of professional footballers when the NFL only has about 2000 active paid players (including practice squadders).
He’s right and wrong at the same time. While America doesn’t promote the best college roster to the NFL, we have a descending order of competitiveness in American football and a corresponding rate of compensation not dissimilar to what’s practiced in the UK. By most available ChatGPT estimates, around 16,000 men are receiving some form of wages across 10 tiers of British soccer. That is the genesis of my friend’s position. This year, around 14k college football players will suit up in the top division (FBS). They won’t all be paid like LSU’s QB Sam Leavitt (~$4.5m), but every one of them will receive some form of compensation.
The raw numbers suggest room to grow for aspiring 18-25yr olds wanting to get paid to lace ‘em up. Hidden in the analysis though is something more promising. The UK maintains a healthy non-Premier League roster of clubs and compensated professionals. Many older than college players sure, but also professionals paid by teams much smaller than London, Manchester, or Liverpool’s largest clubs. We’re not going to lose college football in Baton Rouge or Ann Arbor because the players are paid. The infrastructure, fundraising, and profitability of those locations are too great to disappear if paying players opens the door for some rival minor league system. Rather, consider the American pyramid football like this:
NFL = Premier League
SEC, Big 10 = EFL Championship
ACC, Big 12 = League One
Non-Power 4 Schools = League Two
Non-FBS Schools (i.e Division 2) = The National League
Perhaps a visual will make it make sense for everyone not on the up-and-up with the English Football Pyramid.
We super-charge wages in our version of the Championship rung like only American competitiveness can. And we compress three rungs of English Football into one College Football Playoff. Sprinkle in the lawsuits, the transfer portal, Congressional regulation, and any other mess generated by Lane Kiffin and it quickly becomes an imperfect comparison. But the bones are there and we should probably do way less worrying about the health of the game. Does this answer the question of: should these kids even go to class? No. Let me get back to you on that. For now, enjoy watching two $40m rosters go head to head in Oxford Saturday night. Then thank Lane Kiffin for driving up the ratings (and the wages).
📻 Over The Air
📡 JumboTron: Thursday’s Must Watch
All times PST
DP World Tour BMW Championship, whenever you wake up, Golf Channel
Biltmore Championship, 12:00pm Golf Channel
Lions vs Bills, 5:15pm Amazon Prime
☎️ The Phone Line
Best thing on the timeline today:
— (@)
— (@)
— (@)
Walkup Song
Walkup Song
George Strait
For the premier chaos agent of the SEC, Lane Kiffin:
Spotify