Football

12/20/2024 |  New College Football Playoff Era Begins Under Friday Night Lights (Front Office Sports) The first 12-team College Football Playoff is finally here.
More than two years after CFP expansion was green-lit for 2024, Notre Dame will host Indiana on Friday night in the first of four first-round Playoff games to officially kick off college football’s new postseason tournament.

12/20/2024 |  TV Execs Believe NFL Is Favoring Amazon to ‘Create Leverage’ in 2029 (Front Office Sports) The NBA’s 11-year, $77 billion deal with Disney’s ABC/ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, and Comcast’s NBC Sports will go down as easily the biggest media-rights story of 2024. But another potential soap opera is building and could become very dramatic in 2025: TV network executives are increasingly resentful toward the NFL for giving Amazon Prime Video what they believe is favored status.

12/20/2024 |  TNF again trending at five-year high entering finale (Sports Media Watch) With one telecast to go, Thursday Night Football viewership is back trending at a five-year high.
Entering next week’s season finale, NFL Thursday Night Football is averaging 13.34 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video this season — up 11% from the same point last year (11.97M) and the highest 16-week average for TNF since 2019 (13.65M). This year’s average is virtually tied with 2021, the final year TNF aired on broadcast television (13.339 to 13.335 million).

12/19/2024 |  Vandy QB Diego Pavia wins injunction allowing him to play D-I football in 2025 (Associated Press (AP)) NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Diego Pavia reacted to a federal judge granting his preliminary injunction Wednesday allowing the quarterback to play the 2025 season the same way he celebrated upsetting then-No. 1 Alabama in October.
“VANDY WE (expletive) TURNT,” Pavia wrote on social media with a 100 emoji. 

12/19/2024 |  What is the future of the college football bowl system? It's complicated and uncertain. (USA TODAY) Over a casual dinner earlier this fall where all the topics roiling college sports were batted around, one of the game’s venerable power brokers turned the tables on the person who’s supposed to be asking the questions. 
“What would you do with the rest of the college football postseason?” this person asked, sparking a conversation that opened my eyes to an idea I hadn’t previously considered.