College sports are rapidly changing. From NIL and the Transfer Portal to private equity, the landscape continues to shift underneath everyone's feet.
Big changes continue to come for college basketball too, most notably the likely expansion of the NCAA Tournament from 68 to 76 teams.
All these changes in such short order probably aren't good for the sport. It certainly doesn't improve the fan experience, which should be the top question shot-callers ask themselves before these decisions get made. It's not even in the top five, unfortunately.
Duke's recent deal with Amazon could signal further changes to come. The Blue Devils struck a landmark agreement with the streaming service to broadcast three marquee Duke games next season against UConn, Michigan, and Gonzaga.
Duke's deal will ultimately prove to be just the tip of the iceberg, however. USA Today's Matt Hayes pondered in his new column what it could mean for college football powers like Ohio State and Alabama.
"Don’t kid yourselves, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Apple — or any streaming service worth its weight in dragging, commercial-filled garbage — will throw millions upon millions upon millions for seven Ohio State home games," Hayes wrote.
Could Duke's Amazon deal ultimately blow up college sports as we know them?
In college football, conference championship games are about to be a thing of the past. With the current playoff expansion model potentially doubling to 24 teams, conference championship games would get the axe.
Could conferences themselves be next?
Are we headed to super leagues in the revenue sports that exist outside of the NCAA's purview?
Could more teams in the near future, at least in college football, choose to take Notre Dame's path of independence and strike a major deal with a streamer like Amazon or Netflix or some unnamed future conglomerate so they don't have to share any TV revenue with anyone else?
In this era of college sports, cash is king. It's a free market enterprise, and rosters are getting more expensive by the day. Programs all across the country are going to be looking for creative ways to infuse more money into their teams.
Big TV deals are the natural selling point.
Duke's Amazon deal may seem like a small thing right now, but it may have lit the match that ignites the dynamite that explodes college sports as we know it.
It's not a question of if it'll happen, but when and which program will be the first to test the waters of their own exclusive broadcasting rights outside of their conference.
And then someone else will do it, and another, and another, until college sports shifts to something completely unrecognizable and we're all left staring at the rubble and pondering whether any of it was truly worth it.
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