The Future of CU Football – Part Three: 2030

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The Future of Colorado Football – Part Three: 2030

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Later this week, Big Ten executives will meet to discuss the possibility of adopting a 20-year, $2.4 billion deal with a California pension fund.

If the deal comes to fruition, UC Investments would infuse $2.4 billion into the conference, at least $100 million per school (at an average of $135 million for each of the 18 Big Ten programs), in exchange for a 10% equity stake in Big Ten Enterprises, along with an extension of the grant of rights (a deal where schools give the conference permission to sell its media rights) from 2036 to 2046.

Michigan, though, is standing pretty alone as being steadfastly against the deal. Mark Bernstein, chairman of the Michigan board of regents, has compared the UC investment deal to a “payday loan.” While Michigan is balancing its budget, the same can’t be said for other schools in the Big Ten. It may sound crazy – considering how much Big Ten schools are receiving in media rights money compared to the Big 12 and ACC – but eight Big Ten schools, including Ohio State, reported athletic department deficits in their 2024 fiscal year financial report.

Welcome to Big Time football.

Meanwhile, this past week, the new-and-not-so-improved Pac-12 announced it has found another media partner for the 2026 season and beyond. USA Sports announced Thursday it will televise 22 football games, 50 men’s basketball games and up to 10 women’s basketball games beginning next year.

The conference, which lost all but two of its programs in the latest surge of realignment, will be back to nine teams for 2026-27 with Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Gonzaga, Oregon State, San Diego State, Texas State, Utah State and Washington State making up the reworked conference.

The Pac-12 also has new contracts with the CW Network (including 13 football games) and with CBS (with most games being broadcast on CBSSN).

The terms for all three of the Pac-12’s media contracts were “undisclosed” …

… and there is little reason to wonder why.

Anyone want to bet that the payout to Colorado State (and to each of the other Pac-12 schools) over the next five years from all three contracts combined will still only total to be a fraction of the payouts being discussed for the Big Ten? (Jon Wilner at the San Jose Mercury News speculated that the payouts will be about $7 million per year per team).

Welcome to Small Time football.

In between, there are schools like the University of Colorado.

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As the college football world keeps spinning, the countdown to Armageddon, a/k/a as the end of this decade, creeps ever closer.

Media rights deals for the four Power Conference schools all expire between 2029 and 2031, and that is not a coincidence. In the last round of deal making, schools and conferences would only agree to five-year contracts. They were not willing to make longer term contracts with providers – or with each other – which might cost them when the next round of realignment comes.

And it is coming.

What realignment will look like, no one can say with any degree of certainty.

Will there be a “Super League”? If so, how many teams will be invited? 24? 30? 36? 48?

More importantly, at least for members of the Buff Nation, the question becomes: Will the University of Colorado make the cut?

As CU begins its search for a new athletic director, as well as its seemingly never-ending search for success on the gridiron, there are actually two questions in play:

— Can Colorado put together a run over the next few seasons to demonstrate – both on and off the field – that it belongs with the big boys?; and

— Should CU even want to?

Let’s find out …

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The Super League

There are as many theories about the future of big time college football as there are dollars in the SEC’s media contracts.

The most common theory includes thoughts of college football following some sort of NFL model, with perhaps 32 teams banding together to form a mega-conference with unfathomable riches from the media payouts.

The NFL model, though, can’t work in college football. There are several fundamental reasons why:

— Revenue sharing. This has to be at the core of any mutual agreement about a Super League, but one which is unlikely to ever come to fruition.

Revenue sharing is what has allowed Green Bay (population 107,000) to compete with teams from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Revenue sharing helps create parity in the NFL, and what has helped to make the league the media giant it has become.

In college football, revenue sharing is a pipe dream. There isn’t anything close to equal revenue-sharing now, even among the Power Four conferences. Washington and Oregon are taking partial shares from the Big Ten, and will continue to do so until the 2030-31 school year. SMU was so desperate to join a Power Four conference that it agreed to take zero dollars from the ACC for nine years.

Down the road, you think Georgia (SEC) will want rival Georgia Tech (ACC) to get equal television money? Think Iowa (Big Ten) would be excited about being on a level (monetary) playing field with Iowa State (Big 12)?

Think again.

— Salary cap. Want to know one of the major reasons why the NFL is king, and why the nation’s pastime, baseball, is an after-thought? Both have salary caps, with the idea that parity in roster payouts helps to create parity on the playing field.

But major league baseball allows its major market teams to basically ignore the salary cap (the same problem exists in the NBA), which leaves small market teams in those sports to scramble every year for players – and wins.

The “Super League” of college football could create a salary cap as well, but, like the current $20.5 million “cap”, it would be ignored. The current NIL loophole is so large (see: Texas Tech’s $50 million lineup) that the $20.5 million cap has become a floor for major college football programs, not a ceiling.

— The Draft. In the NFL, the worst teams get the opportunity every spring to get better, with their choice of the best college players.

In college football, the exact opposite is true, with the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. What’s worse, even if a lesser school finds a needle in the haystack, and finds a three-star player who plays like a five-star, they still end up losing him to a bigger school (e.g., there were many reasons why cornerback Christian Gonzalez was a first-round NFL draft pick out of Oregon, instead of a first-round draft pick out of Colorado … and most of those reasons begin with the letter $$$$$$).

— Scheduling. This is the only card smaller programs have to play against the big boys, but they don’t use it now … and likely never will.

In the NFL, teams which win their division play a tougher schedule the following year, having to face other division champions. Meanwhile, teams which finish last in their division face other last place finishers. This is one reason why the run of the Kansas City Chiefs, who have won the AFC West nine years in a row, is such an anomaly … it runs against the grain of what the NFL hopes to achieve: parity.

One potential flaw in the proposed “Super Leagues” for college football would be this: Let’s say they big boys go with an NFL model and have 32 teams. This just in: When two teams play, one of them loses. For every 9-3 team, there’s going to be a 3-9 team … and with those losing records will come some very unhappy fan bases.

What the big boys (particularly the SEC) have done to appease their fans in the past is to schedule cupcake non-conference games. Next weekend, for example – the weekend before Thanksgiving – the SEC has marquee matchups like: Texas A&M v. Samford; Georgia v. Charlotte; Alabama v. Eastern Illinois; Auburn v. Mercer; and LSU v. Western Kentucky.

Those games are shameful, and shouldn’t be allowed to continue to exist in college football in November. But, if there is a Super League with super matchups the networks are paying billions to broadcast, those networks won’t put up with these types of games. They will insist on Georgia v. USC; Ohio State v. Alabama; and Michigan v. Texas.

And, in each of those games, one of those teams will lose.

So, while the networks won’t go for 52-3 blowouts, they may be convinced that Washington v. Washington State, or Iowa v. Iowa State, or Nebraska v. Colorado, might be worth their time. The Big Boys write big checks to the leftovers, and the leftovers accept the losses to teams which are paying their quarterbacks $5 million per year.

The way to prevent this, of course, is for the “leftover” schools to refuse to play those games. If the Super League won’t share their riches, the leftovers can band together, and collectively say that they won’t play those games, games being played  just to allow the Super League schools to inflate their win totals.

The problem, of course, is that the leftovers won’t be able to maintain a united front. Too many schools bank on these money games to fund their programs. Montana State was paid $685,000 to get killed by Oregon in the season opener. The 59-13 bombing, though, didn’t bother the Bobcats, who took the money … and are currently ranked No. 3 in the nation in the latest FCS poll.

Speaking of Montana State, let’s talk about non Big Boy leagues, and where CU might be in a few years …

CU in 2030 

In 2022, Colorado finished with an 1-11 record, being outscored by an average of 49-15. If you had asked an average Buff fan at that time if the University of Colorado deserved to be considered as an elite team which should be part of a Super League, you would have received laughter in response.

In 2023, Coach Prime came on the scene. CU was a national story, despite finishing 4-8. Dreams of becoming nationally relevant once again were no longer irrational.

In 2024, with the Buffs going 9-4 and producing a Heisman Trophy winner, the notion of  CU being included in a Super League seemed not only possible, but logical.

Now, as the 2025 season comes to a close, with the Buffs back to their losing ways … an invitation to the Big Boy table at the end of the decade again seems like a distant dream.

Where will CU in five years, when the engraved invitations are handed out?

Hard to say, but unless Coach Prime can turn things around in a big hurry, CU’s credentials as a Top 30 in all-time victories – and one of only two dozen schools in the country with both a national championship and a Heisman trophy winner – won’t mean much to the folks at ESPN and Fox, who will largely be in charge of handing out the golden tickets.

The template for success is there.

It’s not a secret.

Either you need to already be in the Big Ten or SEC, or have a good reason to join their club.

And you don’t have to have a history of success to get there.

The last time Texas Tech won an outright conference championship in football was in 1955, when the Red Raiders took it to the remaining members of the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Now, though, Texas Tech has a top ten team, and a clear path to the Super League.

All it took was a payroll of $50 million dollars.

Even with all of the attention Coach Prime has brought to the Buffs, Colorado isn’t in that league when it comes to donors. Sold out games, merchandise sales, and increased enrollment applications are nice, but they won’t buy CU an offensive line which can dominate the Big 12.

I’m afraid that, unless the South Park creators become huge football fans, and decide to donate all future Book of Mormon ticket sale proceeds to the athletic department, CU is going to continue to swim upstream against the current of college football success.

Say what you will about the current CU roster and its coaching staff, but, barring an infusion of unforeseen donations supplementing CU’s coffers (an infusion which will need to be duplicated annually), the Buffs aren’t going to be consistently great. A 9-4 season here and there? Sure. But a Top 25 team year-in and year-out … with Coach Prime already on retirement watch?

Hard to see.

So, what if the Buff do get relegated? 

There are 136 FBS teams this year. If only the top 32, or even the top 48, have a place at the Super League table, there will still be a huge number of FBS teams playing football.

Even discounting the programs in conferences like the MAC and Sun Belt, there are still plenty of nationally relevant programs to form a second-tier league.

Will it feel the same, playing in a second-tier division? Will it feel different competing for a national championship, instead competing for the national championship?

Hard to say.

What I can tell you is that I have lived in Bozeman, Montana, for most of my life. During that time, Montana State has won two of their three national championships.

The Bobcats routinely sell out their 22,000-seat stadium (averaging almost as much as a normal Colorado State game). Montana State played for the national championship last season, and are ranked No. 3 in the country this season.

Now, you could sit in Bobcat stadium, and shout out that the level of football being played in the FCS is inferior, and that the games don’t mean anything … but I wouldn’t recommend it (if you want to come out unbloodied).

Montana State plays in the FCS, but the fans are just as passionate about their football as any fans of Ohio State or Alabama. Winning the Big Sky Conference, and beating the hated Montana Grizzlies in the annual “Brawl of the Wild”, is … a … big … deal (ESPN’s GameDay was in Bozeman for the Bobcat/Grizzly game in 2022. The two teams came into the weekend ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the country).

Would Buff fans stop coming to games if CU was in some form of a reconstituted Pac-12, with games again against Washington State and Oregon State, plus perhaps Cal and Stanford? Would a smaller Big 12, with additions of schools like Memphis and North Texas (to offset any Big 12 schools invited to the Super League) be less appealing?

Would the new “second-tier” leagues be invited to play for a national championship in a playoff with the big boys of college football, given a token slot in a playoff, there only as window dressing?

Would they even want to?

Would a playoff run to a national championship game against another team in a “leftover” conference, like Virginia Tech or Pitt, be less passionate for the fan base?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Most CU fans come to games to be a part of the Boulder community. They want to get together and tailgate with friends and family, and cheer on their Buffs.

We’re there in the stands, whether the opponent is Arizona State … or Delaware.

It would be an adjustment, perhaps even a shock to the system, not to be considered as one of the top collegiate programs in the nation.

But, if we’re being honest, CU hasn’t played like a top collegiate program for two decades now.

We don’t have to wave the white flag, and accept relegation, right now.

But the day of making a hard decision – or having the hard decision made for us – may be heading our way.

2030 will be here before we know it …

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This post, about the Arizona State game, from the 2025 Season, is filed under Article.
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