If you’ve ever felt like college football has lost some of what made it special, you’re not alone.

College football is at a crossroads. If you zoom out a bit, you can see the sport moving toward something we’ve never had before — a real, structural breakaway led by the programs and conferences that generate almost all the money.

The sport that once grew out of tradition, rivalry and regional pride is getting pulled somewhere very different. It’s drifting toward a Super League future, and it’s happening in plain sight.

This isn’t hysteria. It isn’t message-board smoke. It’s math. With incentives and escalators.

And it mirrors exactly what every major pro league looked like right before it split into tiers.

Before we get there, there’s a moment people should remember, a breadcrumb that didn’t feel like much at the time.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey once tweeted a photo of the book “The Club.” It’s the definitive account of how the Premier League broke away from the old English pyramid in 1992.

The playbook went like this:

Sound familiar?

Sankey didn’t spell out any agenda. He didn’t have to. The man leading college football’s most powerful conference was reading the blueprint for the biggest breakaway in sports history.

Today, the sport looks like it’s following that script.

First: The money divide is real

Starting in 2026, the Big Ten and SEC will collect close to 60% of all CFP revenue with the ACC, Big 12 and Group of Five splitting up what remains.

So, the tiered financial structure is already drawn, and it’s the exact financial structure the Premier League created before its breakaway.

Second: The Big........

© Sports Business Journal