As the country celebrated its 247th year of declared independence this week, Notre Dame continues its own longstanding tradition of football independence. Fourteen FBS schools joined new conferences this month as the calendar flipped to July. The most significant moves sent Houston, Cincinnati, Central Florida, and BYU to the Big 12.
A much bigger ripple will be felt next July when conference carpetbaggers Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC, and Southern Cal and UCLA bolt the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. The Southeastern Conference will be the fifth league affiliation for the Longhorns, while the Sooners’ will claim their third conference membership once their SEC address becomes official on July 1, 2024.
Meanwhile, despite constant cries from all corners of the country for Notre Dame to join a conference, the Fighting Irish continue to forge ahead with independence. Here’s the question I have for anyone who insists that Notre Dame must join a conference:
What problem does it solve?
Soon to be retiring Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick has repeatedly stated that the two biggest factors in maintaining independence are access to the College Football Playoff and a competitive TV contract for its home games.
College Football Playoff access is not an issue, because the CFP is set to expand to 12 teams next season. Under the new format, the six highest-ranked conference champions receive automatic bids and the remaining six spots go to the highest ranked remaining teams.
That means that while Notre Dame cannot claim the prerequisite conference championship to claim one of the four first-round byes, there will be six at-large spots to claim every year instead of the current four. Access becomes easier for Notre Dame with a 12-team format. The lack of a first round bye is negated by the fact Notre Dame doesn't have to play in a conference championship game.
TV revenue is the predominant factor in conference realignment, especially with next year’s pending moves to the Big Ten and the SEC. Notre Dame could certainly take the instant gratification in the form of annual payouts of $75-$100 million that would come with joining one of those conferences, but the Fighting Irish still have two remaining years on its NBC contract for home game broadcasts and how much it can receive from its next deal will ultimately determine if independence remains viable.
Let’s say Notre Dame is able to ink a new television deal that pays a conservative $50 million a year. That alone falls short of the Big Ten’s reported $75 million payout, but Notre Dame can also count on an additional $10 million a year from its grant of rights TV deal with the ACC, which gets the Irish up to the $60 million per year mark.
That still doesn’t get Notre Dame to Big Ten money, but Notre Dame’s independence and CFP access also gives the school a higher payout than every team in a conference will have.Teams with conference affiliations have to share their bowl money and College Football playoff payouts with their conferences, but an independent Notre Dame gets to keep all such revenue. There is no conference share of money if there is no conference to share money with.
Schools like Penn State, Florida State and Miami gave up their independence long ago and BYU is ditching its own run of independence from 2011-2022 for Big 12 membership. While Florida State and Miami have each won national championships more recently than Notre Dame’s last title in 1988, neither of them (nor Penn State or BYU or any other school that hoped for independent status) can pull off the one-of-a-kind TV contract Notre Dame has had with NBC for three decades and counting.
That's because while all of those schools have pockets of fans throughout the country, Notre Dame is the only truly national program. They can make that claim because of Knute Rockne’s coast to coast barnstorming that dates back more than a century with annual train rides to Los Angeles to face USC and Yankee Stadium showdowns with then national power Army.
The Irish-Army matchups predate Rockne’s arrival as head coach. Rockne use of the forward pass as an Irish player in the first Notre Dame-Army game in 1913 caught the attention of the New York media and planted the seeds for what would become Notre Dame’s “subway alumni” in New York (it also helped Notre Dame’s east coach appeal that the first 16 meetings with Army were played in New York).
Roughly six generations later, Notre Dame remains a national brand that is unmatched in college football and the only brand truly worthy of remaining independent.
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