Shehan Jeyarajah

the answer is no not not because because here's the reality of the situation right uh who wants to go first who wants to go first and say that we're no longer playing major college football right like nobody wants to be that team alabama's not going to sit here and be like we're going to take a moral stand like of course they're not you know that's that's just and part of the reason that this all works right so you know to get into the weeds a little bit right so

up through Black Friday, essentially.

The NFL is governed by the Sports Broadcasting Act, and they're not allowed to play games on Friday nights within a certain amount of distance from a high school stadium and Saturdays through a certain date because specifically when that law was written, I believe it was in 1961, they wanted to protect the integrity of high school and college football.

But again, it allowed them to play games on Saturdays in December because

Typically, the college football season was over at that point.

And so the issue is, I mean, it's not necessarily the NFL's fault that college football is now encroaching further and further and further, right?

This is how the NFL has done things for a very long time.

So, you know, again, when you talk about even those first round playoff games that are on December 18th and 19th,

But, you know, those are dates that historically college football would not be playing major games.

And even the NFL, I mean, again, when it's a Saturday and Sunday, they still do it.

But, like, they mostly leave New Year's Day alone because they know that that's a college football day.

But, you know, if you keep pushing further and further and if you keep trying to push in more and more games,

Like the NFL is not necessarily going to say, well, we're just going to get out of your way on Saturdays just for the sake of doing you a solid.

Because, yes, like you said, it's a it's a solid system for them where they have this built in minor league system.

But it's also very solid for college athletics and the financial future of that to have that connection to the NFL system.

as well so it's it's a mutually beneficial relationship right now and some of those lines are blurring right now because college athletics is the one pushing further and further out it's not the nfl necessarily encroaching into college football space yeah the i hear what you're saying there um i you know it i i get it they they could that's a good way to put it that you know college football is wonderful but they but they were always playing bowl games at those times

Yeah, I think that that's something that will be inevitable, right?

Because even if it only goes to 16, we're going from four first-round games to eight.

And, again, you know, I think that, like, you talk about New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, that's pretty easy to stack a bunch of games on.

With those first-round games especially, you can't necessarily do regular weekdays.