Could the NFL’s current media rights model, which may add even more players with a new deal expected at some point this year, make its way into college sports? As both deals currently stand, the NFL has a unified structure, where it splits revenue evenly across its 32 teams. Meanwhile, college football is fragmented, with conferences such as the SEC and Big Ten seeing more lucrative deals compared to others because of its teams’ popularity and bigger budgets. There has been debate about unifying the conferences to negotiate a single TV rights deal, but while some are for it to disperse money and help every school be competitive against the powerhouse programs, others view it as a complicated problem without a simple solution. CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COMMaking an appearance on OutKick’s “Hot Mic,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., was asked his thoughts about the NFL’s potential problem as it looks to renegotiate its media rights, where streaming platforms could make fans pay more to consume the sport. Tuberville explained why he’d rather that than a different future that has been suggested by some in college sports.”Antitrust stepped in for the NFL back in the early ‘60s,” Tuberville said, referencing the 1966 AFL-NFL merger, which came after Congress allowed an antitrust exemption to combine TV deals. “Basically, the AFL and NFL got together with the federal government and [the latter] said, ‘You’re a monopoly. We’ll give you that opportunity. Go get you one TV contract with one or two TV providers, and you can do it all together.’ That’s the reason they’re making $300-$400 million dollars at the beginning of the year before they even snap a football. Antitrust really helped the NFL.BROADCASTER TIM BRANDO SUGGESTS SPORTS FANS GET CONFUSED WHERE TO WATCH GAMES AS STREAMING TAKES OVER”So, a lot of them want to do that in college. I’d rather do that at the end of the day in the future than have people buy college sporting programs. You’re hearing that now, some of these schools are worth $200-$250 million and some of these billionaires come in and buy them and basically run everything. We don’t need to get into that. This is amateur sports, and let’s keep that way as much as we possibly can.”Could high-profile boosters with billions in net worth, or private equity firms, get their hands on media rights in the future of college sports, especially in football? Tuberville hopes that’s not the case, but if it were to happen, big-name programs could look to become a team like Notre Dame, which serves as an independent that negotiated its own media rights with NBC through the 2029 season. But Notre Dame is not part of a conference despite pressure to join one over the years. They reached a deal with the ACC to play 5-6 rotating games each season, but they remain outside the rest of the conference. If billionaires were to come in and buy the rights to college programs, and essentially run everything to Tub
Tuberville suggests billionaires buying college programs would be worse than an NFL-style TV deal
