Cuse AD: College football needs ‘holistic’ reform

Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack is the latest voice calling for serious reforms in college football, including a holistic rethinking of the calendar, collective bargaining with athletes and consolidation of TV media rights in order to build a sustainable future.

Wildhack told ESPN he believes it’s imperative for college sports — and football, in particular — to embrace the current moment as a chance to make wholesale changes to address ongoing issues such as the transfer portal, in-season coaching departures, player eligibility and revenue gaps.

“We have a tendency to look at things as a one-off, and we need to look at the sport holistically,” Wildhack said. “When you’re in a moment when you have that popularity and the support from the fans, you have to build on it and make it better.”

Wildhack, a former ESPN executive who has served as AD at Syracuse since 2016, said the sport’s popularity should not be an excuse to continue avoiding addressing key issues but rather an endorsement for finding solutions now. His concerns have been echoed in recent days by other power brokers in the sport, from Georgia president Jere Morehead and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney.

At this week’s American Football Coaches Association convention in Charlotte, coaches attempted to tackle a portion of the eligibility issues by unanimously supporting a plan to extend redshirt eligibility to any player who participates in less than nine games in a season.

Meanwhile, a subcommittee of coaches and athletic directors met in Charlotte outside the AFCA’s formal agenda to discuss changes to the calendar that one athletic director described as “very productive” with a focus on “progress not perfection.”

Still, Wildhack’s public endorsement of collective bargaining and television media consolidation marks one of the most emphatic pushes toward significant reform from a current athletic director.

“There needs to be collective bargaining,” Wildhack said. “The players should be getting paid, no question about that. But with collective bargaining there’s rules that have been bargained for. It’s a legal document that everybody has obligations they’re required to uphold. That’s where we need to go.”

Wildhack said an agreement with “real teeth” is necessary, too, to combat schools who are “flagrantly disregarding” the guidelines set forth by the College Sports Commission.

Wildhack also called for a holistic reimagining of college football’s calendar, which has been a hot topic among coaches and fans after former Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin departed for the LSU job before the Rebels’ began a playoff run that ended at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl. In the run-up to that loss to Miami, Kiffin and Ole Miss battled over how many departing assistant coaches would be available to the Rebels rather than joining the rest of the new LSU staff in Baton Rouge.

In the midst of the calendar debate, college football’s commissioners are set to meet this weekend to discuss expanding the College Football Playoff beyond its current 12 teams.

The final — and perhaps trickiest — piece to the puzzle, Wildhack said, is revenue generation.

With the $20.5 million in revenue sharing that began this year, schools have been forced to scramble to cover costs, and the revenue gap between the biggest brands in larger conferences and the “have nots” in smaller leagues has grown significantly in the process.

But Wildhack pointed to the strong ratings for bowl games and this year’s College Football Playoff as evidence that the sport is leaving huge sums of money on the table by failing to negotiate TV deals as a unified bloc.

Wildhack pointed to the ACC’s new success initiatives and brand distribution model as ways to still ensure the biggest brands in college football won’t take a financial step back by agreeing to consolidated TV rights, but said it’s in everyone’s best interest to consider options to increase TV revenue nationally rather than by conference.

“There’s no 100% approval rating, but let’s take what we have now and make it better,” Wildhack said. “The time is right and there’s so much opportunity here that’s being left on the table. If we address the key issues and can begin to make progress, we make it better for everybody, and the sport will thrive. There’s no question.”