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Bama News
Iron Bowl represents cash cow for players, state
New rules allowing players to make money through endorsements means big business for the greatest rivalry in sports.
The Iron Bowl is already the greatest rivalry in all of sports. It can now be better.
So much better.
Companies in the state can now pay players for playing in the game.
Oh, I know, I know. We can’t call it “pay for play” for some reason, but that’s what it is. When athletes sign endorsement deals, it’s not because of their taking Business Ethics 101. Milo’s Sweet Tea isn’t paying Bo Nix because he made good grades on his report card. Milo’s Sweet Tea is paying Nix and Alabama defensive back Malachi Moore to play football this fall.
When they play against each other in the Iron Bowl, then no matter who wins the game, Milo’s Sweet Tea wins the day. And the state of Alabama wins as well.
Does everyone understand now? We all clear on what’s happening, and what needs to happen, and what’s going to happen?
College football is changing this summer, and one of the country’s biggest winners, when everything settles down, should be the state of Alabama. Know why? Because college football is bigger here than anywhere else.
Know how?
Alabama has the Iron Bowl, and Alabama has people who care deeply about the Iron Bowl. And when we say people, we mean every last sweet-tea-drinking person in the state.
The Iron Bowl is everything, and Auburn and Alabama are of course why, but it can all now be even more than that.
Let’s have a thought exercise. Don’t think of it as “amateur college football” anymore. That sport, which is no more, was controlled by coaches who recruited players. After the NCAA allowed players to make money off their names, it’s better now to think of the sport we all love as “professional college football.” In this new sport, the universities can’t pay players, but the businesses loyal to those universities can.
And the Iron Bowl is a marketing dream for businesses in the state of Alabama. It’s 365. Nothing else matters more. I know because I see the data on AL.com.
In this state, we love talking about the Iron Bowls of the past, but it’s time to start thinking about the Iron Bowls of the future. There is huge value in the rivalry between Alabama and Auburn, and if companies around the state are smart then they’re already thinking about ways to tie their names to the annual celebration with new endorsement deals for players.
Pay them, and they will come, and then the best rivalry of all will continue to be that way and everyone will make money.
See how that works? It’s called innovation. These are transformative times for one of the most important things in the state of Alabama.
Many fans in Alabama are worried about the changes coming to college football. They think it’s going to diminish the power of Alabama and Auburn nationally, but really the opposite can be true. Embrace these changes. Make them an advantage. Instead of fantasizing about the fear of change — a tradition like no other in Alabama — start thinking about ways change can improve the state.
Here’s a question before we start asking all the questions at SEC Media Days: Will expanding the College Football Playoff make it even better? Could be. Should be.
Another: Will allowing players to make some money off the Iron Bowl enhance the power of that game and make it even stronger? Absolutely.
SEC Media Days is a week away. It begins next Monday in Hoover, and there’s going to be a lot to talk about. One of the big topics of the week will be playoff expansion after it was revealed in June that a CFP working group — that included SEC commissioner Greg Sankey — proposed expanding the playoff to 12 teams.
It’s coming, and hopefully sooner than later.
The Iron Bowl should be a play-in game for a 12-team playoff every year. Players are going to want to play in that game, and they should get paid to do it.
As we all love to do, let’s look at a past Iron Bowl while we think about the future. A most curious thing happened in college football when no one was looking in December of 2019.
It didn’t make any news, and it didn’t raise any pulses. The moment just came and went without a noise or a care, like the silent descent of autumn’s last leaves floating downward in the night.
This is what happened, though: In the final release of the College Football Playoff rankings, the committee of playoff pickers in all of their shifty-eyed genius dropped both Auburn and Alabama down the list without either team playing a game. Georgia fell one spot, too — from four to five — but that’s a different story altogether. Happens every year.
With always-also-ran Kirby Smart crying into his Christmas tree, and LSU deservedly taking all of the attention that winter, no one thought anything of the slight slips by Auburn and Alabama in that last CFP ranking. At the time, that final CFP poll of 2019 mattered little and less to the state of Alabama.
And why would it? Only four teams could make the playoff in 2019. What does it really matter that Auburn fell from No.11 to No.12, and Alabama dropped from No.12 to No.13? Looking back, those numbers don’t mean anything.
Looking forward to a 12-team playoff, however, they would mean riots in the streets of Tuscaloosa, the spontaneous papering of every tree anywhere near Toomer’s Corner and the sharing of paper with the people who deserve it most.
