College football is still in the early stages of a new era, entering a time where players can get paid while entering the NCAA transfer portal seemingly at will. This comes with a ton of complaints and folks out there saying the sport has completely changed. Big picture questions are asked about the future, wondering if upcoming generations will be as invested.
“Older people, in my generation, are being turned off,” ESPN’s Finebaum said on Tuesday. “I don’t want to insult many of my friends but that’s not where the action is… Are your children, at some point, going to be benefactors of Alabama and Auburn like you are and like Greg Byrne and Jon Cohen need? That’s the challenge. It’s always the next generation. The people that are grumpy and say ‘It wasn’t like this in the 70s’ — we care about what they say on a talk show but the athletic directors don’t really care anymore.”
People being upset with the direction of a sport or league is nothing new in America’s history. Finebaum listed two examples off the top of his head, although a little different. He named professional sports in lockouts, while college football is just becoming a completely different environment than previous decades.
Even so, the ESPN analyst does not believe everyone will completely run. In his opinion, college football will still have a massive following no matter what takes place off the field.
“There could be a turnoff,” Finebaum said. “I’ve heard this before. It was about 30 years ago in August, baseball went on strike. It shut down. People said ‘I will never go back to a baseball game.’ People are still going to baseball games. People went back to football games in the late ’80s when the NFL struck for a couple weeks. So, I’ve never bought into that.”
So what’s Finebaum’s logic behind his opinion? Not only is the level of competition of college football expanding but he knows the atmospheres are special. Kids are still going to grow up going to these games and get connected with 100,000 people, cheering on the same team.
“I still don’t think there is anything in sports that can replace of Saturday night in Bryant-Denny Stadium or Tiger Stadium or Jordan-Hare Stadium,” Finebaum said. “Because I’ve covered the game a long time and it keeps getting better because the atheltes are better, the game is faster, it’s more unique.”
Only time will tell how college football maintains fandom as the sport evolves. Finebaum knows commissioners and athletic directors would be better off catering to the younger people now, compared to the older generation.
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