The sports world is waking up this morning to bombshell news that the University of Notre Dame, one of the most storied college football programs in the country — and an exceptionalism that has allowed the university to negotiate its own media rights with television networks since 1950 — is declining the opportunity to participate in college football’s postseason despite a No. 11 national ranking and a 10-2 overall record.
Notre Dame has had an air of exceptionalism for three quarters of a century, which is one reason why it has its own television contract for home games. It’s something which was done in the 1950s when universities negotiated their own media rights until the NCAA intervened in 1951. But from roughly 1955 to 2025, Notre Dame home football games were broadcast on an exclusive basis with one network, regardless of whether that network had the rights to other college football broadcasts.
Needless to say, the college sports landscape has undergone a series of changes over the last 70 autumns, one which has seen sponsors and networks offering millions of dollars to universities and governing bodies for their product.
A product which used to be amateur.
But with NLI money as well as the promise of professional careers, you’re seeing a lot of decisions being made for reasons other than the competition at hand.
Notre Dame, along with Florida State, Auburn, Baylor, Kansas State, and Iowa state, have turned down offers to compete in bowl games this season.
Mind you, the bowl-game cartel could care less as to which universities are invited to their cash-cow parties. Currently, there are 41 games, stretching from Hawaii to Boston, from Boise to Miami. Many metropolitan areas now have two, even three bowl games in the general area during the college bowl season,
But this cesspool of competition has led to the money taking over the games. Teams that accept college bowl bids also accept a flight to the site of competition, hotel accommodations, and each player gets what is called a “swag bag,” which could include electronics, gift cards, watches, and sneakers and sportswear.
At the same time, however, players have been opting out of bowl games for fear of what happened to Willis McGahee, a Miami University player who suffered a serious knee injury in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl. That injury sent him down the draft board, but was picked up by Buffalo late in the first round. He missed the entire 2023 season, but had a solid pro career over 11 seasons.
There have been stories of numerous football players opting out of bowl games the last couple of decades. But this year was the first time that we’ve seen entire teams deciding not to play in a postseason bowl game — as contrived as they are.
And the thing is, when a college sports team opts out of a bowl game, this means that the fan base of the team doesn’t get to travel to the game. It has been said that, in the old days of college bowl selections, that a prime tiebreaker as to whether a team would get to play in one bowl or another was whether the fan base “travels well.”
If Notre Dame is seen as a fan base that doesn’t travel well, is the college bowl system long for this world?