Question

College Football is only a made for television event.

Answer 1

The article listed lists complaints about mid-season poll rankings from the 2023 season being made based on money over merit. However your claim seems to insinuate that college football is a made for television only event, which implies that it is not a true sport and just an entertainment platform/rigged. While the polls and playoff committee certainly have biases and have made questionable decisions, the teams that make the playoffs have resumes and statistics that stack up into their ranking outside of "money" like the linked article claims. In 2022 TCU made the CFP, in 2021 a Group of 5 school in Cincinatti made the playoffs and even this year schools such as Boise State, SMU and Indiana made the 12 team playoffs over bigger national brands like Miami and Alabama.

Answer 2

This is a strong statement. This claim "college football is only a made for television event" comes from a sports media outlet, and the article is expressing opinions about the commercialization of college football- not factual research or reports. College football does make a lot of revenue for television, however- CBS Sports reports that the Big Ten generated around $846 million in revenue in 2022. The history of college football has not been associated with TV forever, as the first college football game took place in 1869 in New Jersey, long before television, NCAA reports. The original article is claiming this as an expression of their opinion that money and television has heavily influenced college football. The claim is misleading, as it is opinionated commentary.

Sources:

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-ten-leads-power-five-conferences-with-845-6-million-in-revenue-in-2022-fiscal-year-per-report/

https://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2025-01-20/college-football-history-notable-firsts-and-milestones#:~:text=First%2C%20the%20TL%2FDR%20version,%2C%20Harvard%2C%20Princeton%20and%20Yale.