Sporticast 508: College Football Playoff Selections Stoke Ire

On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss some of the biggest sports business stories of the week, including the controversy surrounding the College Football Playoff selection process. The final rankings were unveiled on Sunday, and Notre Dame and Texas were among those left out.

First, however, they talk about Sportico‘s latest list of the highest-paid female athletes. Coco Gauff tops the list at $31 billion, followed by fellow tennis players Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Świątek. They mull over why tennis remains the dominant sport on this list, but also why athletes like basketball star Caitlin Clark and Olympic skier Eileen Gu are making inroads.

Next they discuss the college football playoff lineup. Every year a handful of fan bases are upset that they don’t make the field—Notre Dame, Texas, BYU and Vanderbilt were most aggrieved—but this year the frustration appeared to hit a new boiling point. Notre Dame has refused to play in any lesser bowl game, and school leaders have been vocal in their frustrations with the CFP selection committee and the ACC, with whom Notre Dame has a long-term membership/scheduling tie-up. The hosts consider the business implications, and what it all means for “Bowl Season,” a longtime college football tradition that appears to be cracking under the weight of modern sports economics.

They close by talking about Friday’s World Cup draw in Washington, D.C. The event was a surreal mashup of soccer and favor-currying. It opened with FIFA granting President Donald Trump its first Peace Prize. Trump spoke multiple times during the event, which took more than 90 minutes to actually begin the process of assigning teams. The U.S. draw was good or bad depending on how you look at it—the USMNT is by far the best team in the group, but the quartet of teams will likely lack a really outmatched squad.

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