Major CFP Crackdown Incoming

The College Football Playoff selection committee announced that it will place more emphasis on strength of schedule this year when determining which teams make the 12-team field

August 20, 2025

CFP Committee Adding Weight to Games Against Strong Opponents, Limit Reward for Beating Weak Foes
AP News’ Eric Olson reports: “The College Football Playoff selection committee announced Wednesday it will place more emphasis on strength of schedule this year when determining which teams make the 12-team field. The committee said in a statement that the schedule strength metric has been adjusted to apply greater weight to games against strong opponents. An additional metric, record strength, has been added to go beyond a team’s schedule strength to assess how a team performed against that schedule.”
^{AP News}

FanDuel Enters Prediction Markets, but With No Sports
FOS’ Ben Horney writes, “‘The groundbreaking alliance,’ announced Wednesday, is intended to provide FanDuel’s more than 12 million registered users with access to ‘financial markets…’

“Notably absent from the press release was any mention of sports offerings. Dustin Gouker’s Substack, The Closing Line, which covers the betting industry, reported that the product ‘will focus on financial products at launch and will not include sports event contracts.’”
^{Front Office Sports}

Peacock Adds WWE ‘Saturday Night’s Main Event’ Streams, Cena’s Retirement Match Included
Peacock will be staying in business with WWE on the event side as part of a new multiyear deal that will see four “Saturday Night’s Main Event” streams on the platform annually. This comes as ESPN and WWE are starting their new deal for premium live events (PLEs) earlier than expected (later this fall) on the new ESPN DTC platform (those had been on Peacock).
^{Front Office Sports}

ESPN to Launch TikTok-Like Feed in Its Own App
An in-app feed (with a name to be announced) will offer a mix of highlights, reactions and user-generated content, sitting alongside a daily, personalized (and yes, vertical) version of SportsCenter that will launch as a beta product on Thursday.
^Sportico

NFL Preseason Games Are Popping Up on YouTube’s Sunday Ticket
FOS’ David Rumsey writes, “Multiple NFL preseason games have been available to watch through NFL Sunday Ticket this month, even though YouTube’s $2 billion annual out-of-market media-rights package is supposed to include only regular-season broadcasts. This past Saturday, the Dolphins-Lions Week 2 preseason matchup, which was not a national TV broadcast, was available to watch via NFL Sunday Ticket for subscribers on YouTube and YouTube TV that had already signed up for the service for the upcoming season, Front Office Sports has learned.”
^{Front Office Sports}

NASCAR Announces 2026 Schedule: Chicagoland, San Diego Added; All-Star To Dover
The NASCAR Cup Series will race at two new venues in 2026, will have a new site for its all-star event, will have a new finale and it will move a traditional summer race to the spring.
^{Fox Sports}

Steph Curry Becomes Google ‘Performance Advisor’ in Long-Term Deal
SBJ’s Rob Schaefer writes, “Warriors G Steph Curry has signed a long-term partnership with Google. Terms were not disclosed. Through the deal, Curry will become a ‘Performance Advisor’ on Google Health products, including Google’s new ‘personal health coach’; adopt Google’s Pixel suite (phone, watch, earbuds) for communication purposes; and use Google Cloud AI services to aid in his basketball training and business dealings.”
^{Sports Business Journal}

Lore, Rodriguez Lay Off Under 10% of T’Wolves Business Staff in ‘Operational Restructuring’
SBJ’s Tom Friend reports: “Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez laid off roughly 40 employees today in what sources called an ‘operational restructuring’ following about a seven-week assessment period. The layoffs were from non-basketball departments, with sources saying staff was let go from business operations spanning human resources, marketing, sales and creative. The moves did not impact dedicated staff members from the WNBA’s Lynx — also owned by Lore and Rodriguez — but did affect under 10% of the full and part-time personnel who cross over between the T-Wolves, Lynx and G-League Iowa Wolves.”
^{Sports Business Journal}

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College Sports Upheaval Ushers CEOs Into Athletic Departments
Sportico’s Michael McCann writes, “Athletic directors have long been termed the CEOs of collegiate sports departments, but increasingly schools are taking the term literally, looking outside the typical sports pathways for business leaders to take the reins.”

“We’re talking about a disruptive ecosystem in college sports now,” Jed Hughes, Korn Ferry vice chair and global head of practice, said on a phone call. “The landscape is changing quickly, therefore you really need an enterprise leader. Enterprise leaders are strategic, they’re operational, they deal with people, they transform businesses because they anticipate. They create, they achieve results.”
^Sportico

Rebuilding Pac-12 Set to Add College Baseball Powerhouse Dallas Baptist: Sources
The Athletic’s Chris Vannini writes, “The Pac-12 is set to add college baseball powerhouse Dallas Baptist as a single-sport affiliate member next year, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed to The Athletic. The school will begin play as a conference member in spring 2027.

“The move comes as the Pac-12 continues to rebuild across multiple sports. Next July, the conference will add Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State in all sports, as well as Gonzaga in all sports except football, joining Oregon State and Washington State.”
^{The Athletic}

10 House Democrats Ask NCAA About Plans to Protect Women as Ways to Pay College Athletes Increase
AP News’ Eric Olson reports: “Ten Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives have asked the NCAA if and how college sports’ major governing body plans to protect the interests of female athletes as the largest portion of NIL and revenue-sharing payments continue to be directed to male athletes.

“The lawmakers, in a letter to NCAA President Charlie Baker dated Thursday, noted that President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded Title IX guidance on name, image and likeness payments that required equitable distribution between male and female athletes.”
^{AP News}

USC, UCLA Football Players Lose Eligibility Case Against NCAA
Sportico’s Michael McCann writes, “It’s the latest decision in what has become a series of conflicting court rulings about whether relatively older college athletes suffer the kind of legal injury that antitrust law ought to remedy. These players have been denied the chance to play another season to earn NIL income and better position themselves for a pro league draft, but they are excluded based on rules that attempt to link the ordinary academic progress of a college student with the student’s athletics eligibility and that try to insulate college sports from morphing into something akin to minor league sports.”
^Sportico

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