In times of need, Americans have long petitioned members of Congress in search of solutions. In 2023, there’s clearly no matter more urgent than the disaster looming for collegiate sports. In that spirit, we’re calling on Alabama’s senior senator/former football coach/liaison between the two worlds to take action.

Dear Sen. Tommy Tuberville,

Greetings from Earth. Your constituents and former colleagues need your help down here because college sports is headed for the pine box.

There’s greed in the air and nobody’s worried about anybody but themselves. It’s madness!

Recent developments are threatening to steal what makes college athletics special and we need Congress to act.

It’s crazy because it turns out the athletes and their Names, Images and Likenesses are not the real problem. Really, the guys in the suits and bowties and dry-fit golf shirts that are stealing the America we knew for their own profit.

I know. I know.

Shocked me too but we can’t let this continue so we’re going to need the Senate and House and executive branch to fix this before it’s too late. As you know, conferences are the bedrock of the whole ecosystem but man-made forces are melting them away.

These schools are relocating leagues at alarming rates so maybe Congress can’t put a stop to this?

• The Pac-12 has nobody left at the dinner table after Oregon and Washington joined USC and UCLA in the Big Ten.
• The Arizonas, Colorado and Utah are going to the Big 12.
• Florida State really wants to go somewhere.

It’s all about the money, Senator, and that must bother you. These athletics departments built these escalating economies, stadiums and salary pools on the strength of these exponentially increasing TV deals. The numbers must go up to keep this bubble from popping so annual growth is the only way to keep this whole house of cards from crumbling.

Though there’s always been a certain amount of fluidity, the first shot in this cascade came in 2011 when the Longhorn Network was a catalyst for Texas A&M and then Missouri bolting the Big 12 for the SEC. Instability’s been the theme ever since and last summer’s blockbuster departure of the LA schools for the Big Ten pastures began this uncomfortable march toward the mess we find today.

Just Monday, ESPN reported Stanford and Cal were being vetted for a possible invitation to the ACC. That’s CALIFORNIA in the ATLANTIC COAST Conference. Like, look at a map.

So, what can we do?

Maybe a three-year ban on transfers between conferences?

Perhaps a regulator to oversee the process? We won’t call it a czar since communism but we can workshop that later.

And what about a public website where all communications between conferences and schools are disclosed to the public?

Those three provisions were the cornerstones of the NIL bill you introduced with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. If that’s fair for the athletes, how about applying the same standards to the suits who actually hold the college athletics nuclear codes?

The instability of the Pac-12 membership scared off the TV cartels to the point Apple TV reportedly offered members just $23 million a year. Compare that to the Big Ten schools getting in the $70-million-range and the Conference of Champions became the biggest losers.

So the Big Ten and Big 12 went tomb raiding and now more blood feuds like Washington-Washington State (Apple Cup) and Oregon-Oregon State (figurative Civil War) join the scrap heap of once-great rivalries lost to TV money. Stay tuned for Iowa-Oregon on Fox, though.

The problem is, Senator, nobody has the greater good in mind as the rats scurry for scraps when the golden platter is yanked.

We need you and your trustworthy coworkers to save college sports from its leadership.

Thank you for reading the whole thing.

Michael Casagrande

Writer, Reader, Hate Mail Receiver