🔧 Fixing College Football With... Soccer?

There are some music artists that I only listen to during certain times of the year. A hot summer day? I’m blasting the Surfaces.

A cool October morning? That belongs to the Lumineers, Mumford and Sons, and maybe some Zach Bryan.

Speaking of which, I just saw him in concert (sick flex) but my favorite song of his recently has been a College Football Remix two guys made on TikTok. I’ll share that at the end of today’s newsletter.

Anyways, here’s what’s in store:

🗞 The Big Story: Fixing College Football

📉 Biggest Loser: “Mean Girls,” Volleyball Edition

🏆 Winner’s Circle: Kobe Bryant

⬇️ Listen: ESPN is currently for sale, find out how much money we’ll all have to pool together to buy it (and why we probably don’t want it in the first place).

🗞 The Big Story

College football seems broken. It might not look like it this year, but it is. And all of these half measures to save it aren’t going to work. We have to swing for the fences.

The Big Idea: I stumbled across this graphic from Projection Sports on Twitter last week and now I can’t stop thinking about what college football would be like with a relegation system. Honestly, I think it’s the perfect solution.

Current Issues: College football’s pain points (in order):

1. Too much consolidation at the top

2. Lack competitive balance in scheduling

3. No playoff pathway for smaller schools

For the Brand: This new model doesn’t shy away from consolidation at the top, it encourages it. And for the business of college football that’s a good thing, we want to biggest brands playing the biggest brands.

But at the same time, we don’t want to see Alabama womp Utah State 55-0 every year so that they can go undefeated. We also like Cinderella stories, and under the current structure a 12-0 Mountain West team will never make the College Football Playoff.

What Changes: With promotion and relegation the cream rises to the top and college football becomes a meritocracy once again. The big brands only play the big brands and no longer beat up on the little guy.

Plus the networks get more playoff games, and even the bad teams have something to play for at the end of the year under threat of relegation.

Find a flaw, I dare you…

📉 Biggest Loser

When does “tough love” turn into “verbal abuse?” And is the line any different in the context of a coach-player relationship. I’ll lay out the facts and let you decide which category these allegations fall into.

The Facts: Texas high school volleyball coach, Brianne Barker Groth, had over 20 former players and parents call for her job earlier this year over allegations that she verbally abused her players to the point of depression, eating disorders and self-harm.

The Allegations:

• Barker-Groth would publicly humiliate players by belittling them in front of the team or on the bus for over an hour after some matches

• Language included telling players they “didn’t have the right body type” given their size or that they needed to “tone up”

• Multiple players reported going to therapy, developing eating disorders and self-harming as a result of these comments.

The Consequences: Over 20 former players and parents wrote letters to the school, which resulted in 30 players being interviewed. The school claimed that they could not fire Barker-Groth because the allegations “could not be sustained” due to lack of credible evidence.

My Take: This “mean girls” environment (as one parent described it) is really the coaches word against the word of 30 players in the eyes of the school.

And, unfortunately, it seems like the school sided with their coach who has a 126-34 record and a state championship in the last five years.

Translation: In Texas, winning matters more than how you do it.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

This week, Kobe Bryant would have turned 45 years old. But his death hasn’t stopped people from trying to cash-in on his legendary status.

A Quick Timeline:

• 2014: Kobe Invests $6 million in Body Armor for a 10% stake

• 2018: Coca-Cola acquires 15% of Body Armor for an undisclosed amount

• 2019: Molly Carter, president of Kobe Inc., sues Kobe because she claims that he promised her 2% of his earnings from the initial deal

• 2020: Kobe tragically passes away in a helicopter crash

• 2021: Coca-Cola fully acquires Body Armor for $5.6 billion, valuing Kobe’s 10% stake at $400 million

What Happens Next: This is when Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s wife, files a counterclaim against Molly Carter claiming she called Kobe:

• “An asshole”

• “A douche nugget”

• “A dickwad”

And that Molly called her:

• "The fucking devil”

• “A bitch”

• “A psycho”

Vanessa even claims Molly said her newborn baby had “botox lips” and complained about hanging out with “fancy ass Black people.”

The Outcome: Molly lost the lawsuit and had to pay the Bryant’s $1.5M in attorneys fees.

This is 3 months after Vanessa settled for $28.5 million with LA County over leaked photos of the crash that killed her husband and daughter.

⏱ In Other News

• The NFL is back on its bullshit.

• Shannon Sharpe has a home, and Stephen A has a successor.

• Reggie Bush sues the NCAA for defamation.

👋 Happy Friday, get hyped for college football with this Zach Bryan “Revival x Open the Gates” Remix from MC4D (@mc4dmusic/TikTok).