What is ‘Project Rudy’? New proposal to reimagine college football includes 70 teams, private equity backing

The latest re-imagination of college football now includes a multi-billion-dollar proposal spearheaded by former Disney executives for a system funded by private equity, sources confirmed to CBS Sports on Tuesday. 

The 70-team structure that would seemingly exclude the bottom tier of the FBS would be funded by private equity firm Smash Capital, sources told CBS Sports. The project would include $9 million infused into a system that would expand the college football postseason, change scheduling and feature tiered revenue distribution.

All those influences, thanks to conference realignment, are already featured as the College Football Playoff field expands from four teams to 12 this season. What were formerly marquee nonconference games in the SEC and Big Ten are now conference games in those two leagues. Going forward, those two leagues will also evenly split 59% of the CFP revenue distribution. 

The new proposal, however, would eliminate all games against current Group of Five and FCS teams. The 70 schools would be shopped as a single-entity media rights package. It is not immediately clear which 70 schools would be included. 

The proposal, dubbed “Project Rudy,” would mostly likely begin after all the current major media rights deals expire around the 2031 season. 

Former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick is among those working on the project. He was also among the original four persons to develop the 12-team playoff along with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby and former Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson. Swarbrick retired from his post earlier this year. 

The proposal noted there would be “multiple” automatic qualifying spots in the playoff field for the SEC and Big Ten. The two conferences each attempted to implement automatic qualifier spots for their teams in the 12-team field earlier this year, but the concept was shot down. 

“I’ll double down on my thoughts,” said Northern Illinois AD Sean Frazier, who had seen the presentation deck. “I think it’s a great concept and it takes care of the ‘haves.’ But the ‘have nots’ are going to be scrambling.”

“Project Rudy” might even face some copyright issues right off the bat. Rudy Project is a 40-year-old company that manufactures and markets sunglasses for cycling. 

While SEC and Big Ten officials meet in Nashville this week to discuss the sport’s future, those outside those two leagues ponder how much power those two might wield.

“The current system is becoming more and more of an exclusionary system,” said a person who had seen the “Project Rudy” deck. “If you really want to highlight the value of college football as the second-most popular sport in the US, you can’t do that and disenfranchise three quarters of the membership.”

Two main reorganization plans now exist. The College Student Football League was re-introduced last week with a press release that announced the members behind the plan. That group, calling itself College Sports Tomorrow, had already been nicknamed “Super League.” In last week’s press release it detailed a proposal for a 72-team “Power 12” conference with the remaining 64 teams in a “Group of Eight.”

“Well, we are a super league — period,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told CBS Sports. “I’ve said that for years. That fact that other people have opinions that are really not subject to the extent of the evaluation that we are, that’s great because maybe there’s some things you can learn. I’m the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. I’m not answering hypotheticals about what if and what might happen. I deal with my reality.”

Any major restructuring of college football would have to be approved by Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti. They control the 34 best, most attractive brands in the sport. One member of College Sports Tomorrow was asked by CBS Sports earlier this year about accounting for the likes of Sankey and Petitti in a single entity like CSFL.

“We’ll buy them out,” that person said bemusedly. 

Private equity has become an increasing influence in major sports. The NFL recently allowed private equity firms to invest up to 10% in their teams. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark proposed a private equity partner earlier this year with PE giant CVC. Eventually, though, Big 12 ADs and presidents weren’t interested. 

Private equity provides cash to an entity in exchange for an ownership stake. In the case of the Big 12, CVC would have had a 15%-20% stake in the league. One concern voiced by administrators at Big 12 schools was what form that ownership stake would take. 

As proposed, there would have been infusion of cash up to a $1 billion for the league that would be paid back based on projections of the Big 12’s increased media rights value. 

Since at least 1999, there have been a series of reorganization and playoff proposals that would put the sport under one roof. In 1999, International Sports and Leisure in Switzerland proposed a 16-team playoff that would rake in $3 billion over eight years. 

The “Super League” and “Project Rudy” were born in successive weeks. 

“There’s like five or six of these types of groups out there,” said a member of College Sports Tomorrow who had seen the deck. “I’ve seen them all. They’re all smart guys, but what I think is somewhat unique and vasty differentiated from College Sports Tomorrow and Smash is those issues are very commercially oriented. In many ways, this is overstating the obvious. College football is, by a long margin, the second-most valuable sport in the United States of America. It’s sort of under-marketed, under-distributed and under-monetized.”

The “Project Rudy” proposal was first reported by Yahoo Sports on Tuesday.