Big 12 college football is going to London. But why?

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On Thursday morning, the Post and Courier, later confirmed by multiple other outlets, reported that Arizona State and Kansas are moving toward playing a college football game … in London. From the story:

I’ve written multiple times that I think it’s a good idea for college football programs to emulate the NFL and play more games outside the United States. American football is increasingly popular all over the world, and showcasing the college game helps grow the potential global audience, adds new broadcast inventory in less-traditional time slots and creates a unique booster junket for university development teams. Win-win-win.

So I think it’s a good idea for Michigan to play a game in Germany. And I don’t think it’s a bad idea for the Big 12 to play a conference football game in London.

But I do have some questions that I hope the league office, or perhaps other observers, can answer.

Like, why London? And why now?

Back in 2023, the Big 12 announced it intended to play multiple sporting events, including football games, in Mexico.

This idea made a lot of sense! Multiple Big 12 schools, like Texas Tech, Houston and Arizona, are in markets that have a lot of Latino people. Another, BYU, is decidedly not very Latino, but does have a global fanbase thanks to its connection with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And American football is very popular in Mexico. 

But those plans have been substantially scaled back, and there are no immediate plans to play a college football game in the country. One reason, according to a few conversations I’ve had with Big 12 campus personnel over the past year, is that it was very challenging to make the math work for conference games. Nobody wanted to give up the revenue associated with a conference home game, and it was difficult to figure out a way to make the participating institutions financially “whole” over the short term.

So this makes me wonder: What was is it about London, specifically, that made it more attractive than Mexico?

Is it because of a new ESPN agreement that will make its college football broadcasts much more accessible in Europe? Is it because the weakening of the U.S. dollar makes a European trip more financially palatable to all parties? Is a game in a unique time zone more attractive to broadcast partners than one in a more conventional broadcast window? Is Mexico perceived as a bigger risk, given the current political climate? Did somebody with the Union Jack Classic just drop a bigger bag?

Maybe all the above?

Playing in England should be a very exciting opportunity for the athletes and traveling parties in both programs. And if schools aren’t playing overseas more than once every four-ish years or so, it shouldn’t be an undue burden on local fans.

But given the Big 12’s global ambitions, I’m curious why this move makes sense and Mexico doesn’t, especially since establishing closer ties with the Mexican market would make more strategic sense at the institutional level for most Big 12 schools.

Further research required.

Now, let me shift gears away from international play for a second, and point closer to campus…

Study: You guessed it, everybody in college sports is worried about revenue

Based on my informal conversations with athletic directors and college sports industry professionals, and my own reporting, I can share that the biggest concern I hear from industry professionals is usually centered on revenue. As expenses are expected to dramatically increase (and not just because schools are directly paying athletes), just about every program is wondering how it’s going to pay for everything.

But you don’t need to take my word for it. Digital Sport by Hot Paper Lantern, a specialty group within PR firm Hot Paper Lantern, recently completed a survey of athletic directors, industry professionals, consultants and industry reporters (like me). This survey centered on trying to understand exactly what specific concerns industry practitioners had, given the myriad changes happening in the industry.

According to the paper … surprise! It’s about revenue.

For anybody who reads the full PDF: I also want to point out that I am not the reporter that said “I have interviewed Learfield and Playfly dozens of times. I still don’t know what the hell they do.” That wasn’t me! That sounds like something I might say, but I promise, that was a different reporter.

I don’t want to insinuate that this is the only story going on in college athletics. Heaven knows, there are massive stories to follow in the political and legal world, as both threaten to further reshape how college sports (and higher education) are organized and governed. There’s a roster management revolution happening across multiple sports at the Division I level, and conventional wisdom about organizational charts and traditional job duties is being overturned every day. There’s a lot going on.

But I find myself returning again and again to one story: What happens to the money? I don’t believe the industry has really settled on the best ways to drive new revenues or grow existing revenue streams. It could be from innovations that come from the existing legacy players (MMR companies, ticketing data companies, etc.). It could be from startups that threaten the entrenched technological providers. Perhaps the biggest changes eventually come from institutional capital, private debt and/or private equity.

I have come to believe that there probably isn’t a single solution out there that will solve anyone’s real problems, including institutional investors. But there are lots of solutions out there to help athletic departments “hit singles” and find an extra $8,000 here, an extra $25,000 there. Maybe that’s in new licensing projects, or better ticketing data, or new sponsorship categories, or something completely different.

I talked to a bunch of students at Carthage College yesterday, at their Spotlight on Sports event. I was asked a few times about advice for young people looking to enter the industry, or whether I think it’s even worth it.

I won’t sugarcoat this, college students who have read this far into an Extra Points newsletter on a Friday:

Whether you’re working in sponsorship sales, broadcasting, sports media or coaching … sports is a brutal industry. The hours are long, the layoff risk is high, and the headwinds are ugly. All the associated industries (media, higher education, competitive sports, etc.) are changing very quickly, and that can lead to mistakes, layoffs, and confusion.

But when there’s a time of great change, there is also opportunity. Everybody in this industry has problems. That means there’s a chance for you, yes, dear reader, even you, to potentially solve some of those problems.

That’s what I’m trying to do with this newsletter, with Athletic Director Simulator and with the Extra Points Library. And I’m confident that there is somebody else out there who has some ideas on how to address even more of these industry pain points.

And take it from me … or Hot Paper Lantern. If you’ve got a plan, there are a LOT of people who are going to want to talk to you.

Hey! We wrote and did a bunch of other stuff this week!

• We launched a significant new update to the Extra Points Library. We’re building out a new tool to allow paid users to look up salary information for every athletic department employee, not just coaches and ADs under contract. Several schools and researchers have requested this information, and we hope it will be a useful benchmarking tool for everybody in the industry. You can learn more by subscribing to The Library Card, our FREE newsletter that showcases what we’re doing with Library:

• Speaking of the Library, I dug into the MFRS reports to find the top 25 sports that generated the most ticket revenue from FY24 … that were not football or basketball programs. Your No. 1 sport? North Dakota hockey! But there are softball, baseball, volleyball and wrestling programs on the list as well.

• There’s been a lot written about the SCORE Act over the past few days, especially now that a House vote on the bill has been postponed. I think the core issue here is various political constituencies want legislative action to tackle problems beyond antitrust and NIL regulations. Can they cobble together a new bill?

• Voting on college football awards is hard, because most college football writers can’t watch games for 11 hours a week. The Joe Moore Award is trying something different … in who it honors, who gets to vote and how it hopes to remain relevant all year long, not just during awards season.

Behind the scenes, we’re also working on deploying some new updates to Athletic Director Simulator 4000 (beyond just new questions! I think you’ll like the quality of life updates), adding new information to Library, an update for this year’s EXTRA POINTS BOWL and much, much more. We’re all very busy right now!

You can get everything we’re doing and support independent sports journalism by subscribing to Extra Points. We’re more than happy to create massive discounts for bulk packages (for conferences, athletic departments, college classes, corporations, etc.), but you can buy a single subscription for just nine bucks a month, or $84/year.

Thanks for reading, everybody. I’ll see you next week.