SEC Coach Sends Warning on College Football Becoming The Next MLB

One SEC head coach believes College Football could become as lopsided a product as the MLB has become | Robert Edwards-Imagn Images

Missouri Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz is worried that College Football will become a dangerously lopsided sport where the highest spenders are routinely dominating the bottom-of-the-barrel squads with no money to spend.

Kind of like Major League Baseball.

Drinkwitz compared the direction CFB is heading in to what the MLB has become, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays, the two teams that just made the World Series, spending over $500 million collectively this summer to remain at the top.

By contrast, the Milwaukee Brewers, which just made the NLCS but couldn't get past the Dodgers, spent $1.3 million and were forced to trade difference-makers like pitchers Freddy Peralta and Tobias Myers to slash their overhead.

The Brewers made $337 in revenue, but have to cover operational costs. The Dodgers made over $1 billion and don't have to worry about that; hence, they continuously spend big money in free agency to improve.

The MLB is the most obnoxious "have's vs. have-not's" sport that exists. Drinkwitz fears College Football going that way.

"If you're going to have teams that have $45M rosters competing against teams that have $15M and $20M rosters, you're going to run the risk of turning into Major League Baseball, where you have the LA Dodgers and the Florida Marlins. And that's a professional league that's not growing, that's struggling in their TV deals," Drinkwitz told On3's Chris Low.

College Football is already like the MLB, but it benefits because of it

Drinkwitz doesn't realize that College Football is already a battle of "haves vs. have-nots" in the NIL/rev-share era. All the biggest brands are rising to the top because of money.

Coaching still matters, but the richest schools, like say, the LSU Tigers, are still stealing top coaches from poorer schools like the Ole Miss Rebels. Right, Lane Kiffin?

The thing is, College Football's revenue is largely driven by six schools: Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Texas.

The biggest brands drive this ship, and always have. Even when a newcomer like the Indiana Hoosiers breaks the mold, it's because it's behaving like the other six and emulating that model.

Drinkwitz doesn't want to recognize that Mizzou is the Brewers and Georgia and Texas are the Dodgers. That's what his reality is, though, and why he may have already reached his ceiling in Columbia, Missouri.