It will be interesting to see if the whole sec and big10 only championship thing plays out. They’ll turn off and alienate a decent amount of fans in general if they do. Like, if my school has an absolute zero percent chance at competing for something, I’m not really interested in it. Iowa state fans are nuts about mens wrestling for gods sake because they have a wrestling team. Kstate doesn’t so zero kstate fans care about it. If you take three conferences and completely cut them out, you’re long term losing a lot of those fans and ultimately eyeballs becasue they’ll be interested in whatever the eff it is that they are doing. They won’t just magically say “sec and big is better so I’ll totally watch them”.
They aren't far from doing that now. I'm so desperate for football that I watch USFL games, but I have no interest in watching the the CFB playoff unless there's a NuB12 team or some other underdog. As soon as Cincy was out last year I didn't watch another minute.
The NFL works well because of parity and keeping everyone engaged which is one reason why their TV ratings keep going up and CFB keeps going down. From Forbes:
KEY BACKGROUND
College football pales in comparison to the NFL in terms of viewership, a gap worsened by the pandemic. CBS and Fox averaged 21.6 million and 23.1 million viewers, respectively, for their primary national NFL broadcasts during the 2021 regular seasons, while NFL viewership overall was at its highest level since 2015, up 10% from 2020, per Sports Business Journal. Television ratings for professional sports struggled during 2020 and early 2021, but have recovered strongly. College football has struggled more than the NFL in regaining viewership, potentially due to the fallout from a pandemic-altered 2020 season and more gambling interest in the NFL.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
Whether the College Football Playoff changes its four-team format. College Football Playoff leadership met Monday to discuss expanding the field to eight or 12 teams, though an agreement was not reached.