Sports Business – Page 2 – Wheelhouse Blog

The Dark Side of the Transfer Portal:

The NCAA transfer portal was introduced with the promise of providing student-athletes with greater freedom and opportunities. At its best, it facilitates mobility, allowing players to find better fits for their talents and ambitions while enabling programs to strengthen their rosters. However, beneath this seemingly progressive system lies a darker reality that is affecting the lives of thousands of college athletes.

According to a recent ESPN article, there are still 1,200 unsigned FBS scholarship football players—athletes who entered the transfer portal with hopes of finding better opportunities but now find themselves without a team. That’s one-third of all FBS scholarship players who entered the portal.

The ESPN article detailed that since tampering is rampant, players with agents or representatives have a significant advantage, receiving offers and visits lined up the moment they enter the portal. Conversely, athletes who follow the rules find themselves starting their recruitment from scratch when the portal opens.

This situation is particularly sad for players who didn’t voluntarily enter the portal. Some are nudged out by coaching staffs with veiled suggestions like, “You’ll never play here.” Others receive poor advice from family members or unscrupulous agents.

The Scholarship Dilemma

Another harsh consequence of the transfer portal is the loss of scholarship security. Once a player enters the portal, their current school’s scholarship obligation can end by the start of the next semester. If they can’t secure a new opportunity, they can be left without a team and the financial means to continue their education. 30 to 40% of all Division I athletes who enter the portal do not find new homes at Division I schools. Some drop to lower divisions, while others leave college sports altogether because they can’t afford tuition without a scholarship.

Considering that the vast majority of college athletes will never play professionally, the primary benefit of a collegiate athletic scholarship is education. Losing that opportunity not only affects an athlete’s immediate future but can have long-term consequences for their career and life trajectory.

What Can Be Done?

Regulating Agents and Representatives: In professional sports like the NFL, agents must be certified by organizations like the NFLPA to represent players. Could the NCAA implement a similar system to protect student-athletes from bad actors?
Holding Programs Accountable: Schools and coaches should not be able to pressure players into the portal without repercussions. Transparent policies and reporting mechanisms could help identify and address such behavior.
Improved Leadership: The NCAA’s leadership is ineffective. The creation of dedicated commissioners for sports like football and basketball could provide the competent leadership needed to address these issues.

Ideal CFB Season Version 4.0

College football has always been the Wild West compared to other big time American sports and that is a true as ever. Does the NCAA have any real power over CFB? What will the conferences look like in ten years? What is going on with the transfer portal, NIL, and paying players? The answers change every day.

This chaos is part of what makes CFB so great. Below I have mapped out what I think an ideal CFB season would look like. It maintains what is great about CFB, but also cuts out some of the ridiculous and unnecessary things. This isn’t a prediction and I’m not naive enough to think everything below will happen. It is simply a vision that I believe would benefit the sport.

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1. Say Goodbye to Week Zero

Let’s simplify things: eliminate Week Zero. Instead, have Week 1 be the actual start to football season in America. And what better way to start it than by having the ONLY game be Army vs Navy. Put all eyes on this game to start the year instead of throwing it in the middle of December right before the CFP is about to start. This would be such an awesome way to still celebrate this game and the players, while also having it kick off football season.

Week 1 will be 15 weeks before Thanksgiving (more on that later) and every other team will start playing on Week 2. For reference, if the CFB season I am laying out occurred this year, that would mean Week 1 would have been August 23rd while Week 2 would have been August 30th.

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2. Rest of the Regular Season: 11 Games in 12 Weeks

Currently, teams play 12 regular-season games with variable conference schedules (8-9 conference games depending on the league). Here’s the ideal adjustment:

Schedule: 11 games over 12 weeks, allowing one bye week per team (This would be 11 games in 13 weeks for Army and Navy)
Conference Play: Every team plays 9 conference games. Uniformity across Power Four and Group of Five conferences is better for determining the best teams in each conference.
Non-Conference Games: Power 4 teams must play 2 non-conference Power Four/Notre Dame matchups. This helps maintain traditional rivalries (like Florida vs. Florida State or West Virginia vs Pitt) and ensures high-caliber matchups early and late in the season.

Why this change?

Eliminate Irrelevant Games: No more Alabama vs. Mercer blowouts. These games don’t help determine playoff-worthy teams. Now Power Four teams will only be playing other Power Four teams in the regular season.
Tougher Schedules: A more rigorous slate helps identify the truly elite programs.
Easier to Compare Teams and Conferences: Let’s imagine a scenario where SMU were to be 9-2 and Tennessee was 8-3. Instead of arguing who has more wins, we could look at non-conference evidence. If SMU played Ole Miss and had their doors blown off, losing by 21 points, while Tennessee beat Ole Miss by 10, that helps us determine who is better. And in general, if the SEC played the ACC 20 times and went 16-4, then we clearly know the SEC is better than the ACC and that should go into determining the CFP teams. Or, if the ACC went 11-9 vs the SEC, we can say “Oh, wow, the ACC and SEC were pretty even and the ACC even has the edge. So a nine win ACC team may be more impressive than a 8 win SEC team.” More non-conference games gives us more evidence of which teams and which conferences are better.

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3. Rivalry Week, Conference Championships, and Playoff Timing

Rivalry Week: Two weekends before Thanksgiving
Conference Championships: Held the weekend before Thanksgiving.
Bye Week: Thanksgiving weekend serves as a universal bye, giving players and coaches a well-deserved break.
Playoffs: Begin the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend (more on that below).

This schedule maintains the rhythm of weekly games while still providing players time to recover for the CFP.

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4. The Ideal College Football Playoff Structure

16 Teams Total
All At-Large Bids: Open to the 16 best teams, regardless of conference.

Key Principles:

No Amount of Guaranteed Bids: No guaranteed spots for conferences. If the Big Ten deserves six teams, they get six. If they deserve two, they get two. If the Big 12 and/or ACC has just one deserving team, so be it.
Seeding Based on Performance: Teams are seeded 1-16 based on merit.
Reseeding: After each round, teams will be reseeded just like in the NFL playoffs. For those who aren’t familiar with how the NFL does it. After Round 1, there will be 8 teams left heading into Round 2. The highest remaining seed will play the lowest remaining seed, the 2nd highest remaining seed will play the second lowest remaining seed and so on. This will continue throughout the playoffs.

Playoff Schedule:

Round of 16: The weekend after Thanksgiving weekend. Games will be played on campus.
Quarterfinals & Semifinals: Consecutive weekends thereafter. Games will be played on campus.
National Championship: Always held on December 31st at the Rose Bowl.

Why the Rose Bowl? It’s the most iconic venue in college football. The “Granddaddy of Them All” deserves to host the sport’s biggest game annually, preserving tradition while adding prestige to the championship. And the final day of the season will be the final day of the year, which lines up well. Then we can give everyone January 1st off and January 2nd will be when the next season starts to kick off.

All CFP games will be held on campus with the exception of the Rose Bowl. Why? Because home CFP games are so much better than a bunch of bowl games. I understand that bowl games and especially the New Year’s Six bowl games hold a special place inside the hearts of CFB fans. In this modern era of CFB, they don’t need to be front and center (other than the Rose Bowl). Those and every other bowl can still exist, but it will be outside of the playoff.

On campus CFB games have such a better atmosphere than bowl games. It also gives higher seeded home teams a much better advantage, similar to the NFL. It benefits the fans and local communities too. Fans of the home team do not need to spend thousands of dollars traveling around the country to different bowl games. And local economies will be bolstered by the all the people coming into town for the games.

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5. Addressing Coaching and Transfer Portal Chaos

One of the current challenges in college football is the distraction caused by coaching hires and transfer portal decisions during the postseason. To maintain focus on the games, there will be no official coaching changes or transfers allowed until January 2nd and the transfer portal will be open from January 2nd-31st so players and teams will have a whole month to decide what to do.

This will be the one transfer portal window all year. Players will also be allowed one free transfer during their careers. If they transfer again, they will have to sit out a year. Exceptions to this are if a players graduates or their head coach leaves, they get a free transfer. This still reasonably gives players the ability to play for up to three schools in their CFB career, while not encouraging them to transfer a million times on a whim.

The early signing period for high school students will cease to exist and we will just keep the regular signing period starting early February each year. This keeps head coaches, assistant coaches, and players focused on their current teams during the playoffs.

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6. The Long-Term Vision: Super Conferences?

Looking ahead, it’s hard to ignore the possibility of college football evolving into two super conferences:

The Big Ten: Dominating the North and West.
The SEC: Reigning supreme in the South.

While expansion may not be over, the flexibility built into this ideal system allows for adjustments as the sport continues to shift.

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Final Thoughts

College football is beautiful in its chaos, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. This vision seeks to balance tradition with progress.

Ideal CFB Season Version 3.0

I have talked about this on my podcast and want to have this in blog form too.

⸻

1. Say Goodbye to Week Zero

Let’s simplify things: eliminate Week Zero. Instead, have Week 1 be the actual start to football season in America. And what better way to start it than by having the ONLY game be Army vs Navy. Put all eyes on this game to start the year instead of throwing it in the middle of December right before the CFP is about to start. This would be such an awesome way to still celebrate how amazing this game and the players in it are, while also having it kick off football season.

⸻

2. Rest of the Regular Season: 11 Games in 12 Weeks

Currently, teams play 12 regular-season games with variable conference schedules (8-9 conference games depending on the league). Here’s the ideal adjustment:

Schedule: 11 games over 12 weeks, allowing one bye week per team (This would be 11 games in 13 weeks for Army and Navy)
Conference Play: Every team plays 9 conference games. Uniformity across Power Four and Group of Five conferences is better for determining the best teams in each conference.
Non-Conference Games: Power 4 teams must play 2 non-conference Power Four/Notre Dame matchups. This helps maintain traditional rivalries (like Florida vs. Florida State or West Virginia vs Penn State) and ensures high-caliber matchups early in the season.

Why this change?

Eliminate Irrelevant Games: No more Alabama vs. Mercer blowouts. These games don’t help determine playoff-worthy teams. Now Power Four teams will Noel be playing other Power Four teams in the regular season.
Tougher Schedules: A more rigorous slate helps identify the truly elite programs.
Easier to Compare Teams and Conferences: Let’s imagine a scenario where SMU were to be 9-2 and Tennessee was 8-3. Instead of arguing who has more wins, we could look at non-conference evidence. If SMU played Ole Miss and had their doors blown off, losing by 21 points, while Tennessee beat Ole Miss by 10, that helps us determine who is better. And in general, if the SEC played the ACC 20 times and went 16-4, then we clearly know the SEC is better than the ACC and that should go into determining the CFP teams. Or, if the ACC went 11-9 vs the SEC, we can say “Oh, wow, the ACC and SEC were pretty even and the ACC even has the edge. So a nine win ACC team may be more impressive than a 8 win SEC team.” More non-conference games gives us more evidence of which teams and which conferences are better.

⸻

3. Rivalry Week, Conference Championships, and Playoff Timing

Rivalry Week: Two weekends before Thanksgiving
Conference Championships: Held the weekend before Thanksgiving.
Bye Week: Thanksgiving weekend serves as a universal bye, giving players and coaches a well-deserved break.
Playoffs: Begin the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend (more on that below).

This schedule maintains the rhythm of weekly games while still providing players time to recover for the CFP.

⸻

4. The Ideal College Football Playoff Structure

16 Teams Total
5 Automatic Bids: Power Four conference champions + highest-ranked Group of Five champion.
11 At-Large Bids: Open to the best remaining teams, regardless of conference.

Key Principles:

No Amount of Guaranteed Bids: No guaranteed spots beyond conference champions. If the Big Ten deserves six teams, they get six. If they deserve two, they get two. If the Big 12 and/or ACC has just one deserving team, so be it.
Seeding Based on Performance: Teams are seeded 1-16 based on merit, not conference affiliation.
Reseeding: After each round, teams will be reseeded just like in the NFL playoffs. For those who aren’t familiar with how the NFL does it. After Round 1, there will be 8 teams left heading into Round 2. The highest remaining seed will play the lowest remaining seed, the 2nd highest remaining seed will play the second lowest remaining seed and so on. This will continue throughout the playoffs.
Flexibility: Things can always change. If the Group of Five auto-bid keeps getting demolished, I have no problem with revoking their auto-bid and having it be the Power Four conference champions and 12 at-large bids. The same applies to Power Four conferences—if future realignments diminish certain leagues’ competitiveness, their auto-bids can be reconsidered. We could even switch to a completely at-large tourney with no conference auto-bids.

Playoff Schedule:

Round of 16: The weekend after Thanksgiving weekend. Games will be played on campus.
Quarterfinals & Semifinals: Consecutive weekends thereafter. Games will be played on campus.
National Championship: Always held on December 31st at the Rose Bowl.

⸻

5. Addressing Coaching and Transfer Portal Chaos

This will be the one transfer portal window all year. Players will also be allowed one free transfer during their careers. If they transfer again, they will have to sit out a year. Exceptions to this are if a players graduates or their coach leaves, they get a free transfer. This still reasonably gives players the ability to play for up to three schools in their CFB career, while not encouraging them to transfer a million times on a whim.

This keeps head coaches, assistant coaches, and players focused on their current teams during the playoffs. The way the transfer portal works now is terrible. Imagine you’re the backup QB at Ohio State and they are making a run to the national championship. You have been at Ohio State for three years and have not really played. You only have two years of eligibility remaining and you also know the guy in front of you will likely be here for two more years. You decide that you will transfer to another school in order to actually play. With the way it works now, you would have to decide between two options:

Option 1. You abandon your team during the CFP run when they may need you in case the starter gets hurt, in order to ensure you go to the best team in search of a QB. While this would set you up well for the next two years and help your dream of making the NFL, you also will carry the guilt of feeling like you abandoned teammates while not getting to partake in a National Championship run with guys you have spent the last three years battling with. Since you feel pressure to transfer ASAP, you may run the risk of rushing your decision.
Option 2. You opt to stay and help your team with their playoff run. You feel good about doing this, however, by the time the season ends with you losing in the National Championship game, all the good programs looking for QBs have been filled and now you have to transfer to a much worse team than you other wise could start for.

Why are we making these players go through these agonizing decisions? This new Transfer Window gives players plenty of time to make their decision and still allows them to start spring semester on their new team, so they’re there at spring practice. It also encourages them to stay at a school for at least a year, rather than transfer a couple months later in April.

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6. The Long-Term Vision: Super Conferences?

Looking ahead, it’s hard to ignore the possibility of college football evolving into two super conferences:

The Big Ten: Dominating the North and West.
The SEC: Reigning supreme in the South.

While expansion may not be over, the flexibility built into this ideal system allows for adjustments as the sport continues to shift. This structure can adapt without compromising competitive integrity.

⸻

Final Thoughts

College football is beautiful in its chaos, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. This vision seeks to balance tradition with progress. Whether you agree or disagree with these ideas, one thing’s certain: the future of college football will be anything but boring.

MLB Relocation and Expansion

Updated 2/9/2026

One of my favorite sports topics is relocation and expansion in the Big Four Sports Leagues. In this post (https://wheelhouseblog.com/2025/03/19/big-four-relocation-and-expansion/), I gave my original thoughts on which Big Four teams should relocate and which cities should get new teams. In this article I have made some updates to my MLB relocation/expansion plans.

MLB

I predict the MLB will expand to 32 teams. 5 new cities should get teams, with 2 expansions and 3 relocations.

The 3 relocations will need to happen before expansion occurs. The first team that should relocate is the Tampa Bay Rays. Despite having decent success, the Rays constituently have poor attendance, even for playoff games. With the new stadium project in the Tampa area collapsing and Tropicana Stadium having its roof ripped off, Tampa needs to leave soon.

I think it makes sense for them to move to Nashville. There is already a lot of momentum for a new team to go to Nashville and be called the Nashville Stars. There also is rumors that the new Tennessee Titans stadium complex will have room for a new MLB stadium which puts it in a great location. Nashville is a good sports town and the Rays moving there solves a current issue while also allowing them to stay in the AL East (for now).

I also think the Chicago White Sox should relocate. They are having tons of issues with finding a new stadium and with current attendance issues. There is already another team in Chicago and they would be a prime candidate to move to Austin. The city has a large, growing metro population that would be a great market to move into. Plus the team would have the San Antonio market close to them.

I also think the the LA Angels should move to Portland. Portland is a big sports city/area without an MLB team. The city recently approved a potential $800 million dollar tax to help build an MLB stadium if a team were to move there. The Angels are second citizens in their town and are due for a move.

The two expansion cities I see for the MLB are Charlotte and Salt Lake City. Charlotte would give the MLB access to the Carolinas market, which is a pretty big baseball area. Salt Lake City already has 2 other sports teams and is a sports crazy town. They also have a big group trying to bring the team there.

Based on the moves above and the Athletics moving to Las Vegas, here are the new divisions I imagine once 32 teams are in the league:

American League

AL East	AL North	AL South^	AL West
Baltimore Orioles	Cleveland Guardians	Austin Bats (formerly Chicago White Sox)*	Las Vegas Athletics
Boston Red Sox	Detroit Tigers	Colorado Rockies**	Portland Pioneers (formerly LA Angels)
New York Yankees	Kansas City Royals	Houston Astros*	Salt Lake City Seagulls
Toronto Blue Jays	Minnesota Twins	Texas Rangers*	Seattle Mariners

National League

NL East	NL North	NL South^	NL West
New York Mets	Chicago Cubs	Atlanta Braves	Arizona Diamondbacks
Philadelphia Phillies	Cincinnati Reds	Charlotte Aviators	Los Angeles Dodgers
Pittsburgh Pirates*	Milwaukee Brewers	Miami Marlins	San Diego Padres
Washington Nationals	St. Louis Cardinals	Nashville Stars (formerly Tampa Bay Rays)**	San Francisco Giants

Notes:

The Central Divisions in both leagues will be renamed to North
^ Indicates New Division
Italicized Team Indicates Expansion or Relocation Team
* Indicates Team Switched Divisions
** Indicates Team Switched Leagues

Insane Value of TEs in the NFL

Trey McBride signed a 4 year deal for $76 million dollars to become the highest paid TE ever and I was shocked. Not shocked that McBride got the contract he got, but shocked at how little tight ends are paid. To put in perspective, the $19 million average per year would rank 21st among WRs. As we talk about a lot on this blog though, average value and total value of a contract mean very little in the grand scheme of things. It’s all about total guaranteed money. In that sense, McBride got a record $43 million guaranteed, which would be 17th among WRs.

For both of those values, McBride is behind guys like Calvin Ridley. To put this in perspective, last season Ridley had 64 catches for 1,017 yards and 4 TDs in 17 games and McBride had 111 catches for 1,146 yards and 2 TDs in 16 games.

Why do I keep comparing TEs and WRs? Because guys who pretty good WRs make as much as star TEs and star WR blow TE salaries out of the water. And they shouldn’t…

While top level WRs tend to put up decently better numbers receiving than top level TEs, TEs provide much more than just receiving, while WRs do not. Truly great TEs provide help in the run blocking game as well as create more matchup nightmares than WRs. A guy like Rob Gronkowski is too fast for a LB to cover, but too big for a DB. How do you stop him? You need to direct multiple guys each play to try to slow him down. This may mean having a DE chip him and have a LB and DB double cover him. This frees up other guys to get open and leads to less guys available to pressure the QB. And if they are foolish enough to leave him 1 on 1, you feed your star TE and let him dominate the game. Star WRs can warrant double coverage or matchup mismatches, but it doesn’t tend to be as extensive or involve as many players as is the case with a star TE.

So if you are telling me I can pay a guy who will do what a star TE does $43 million guaranteed and $19 million per year over 4 years or a star WR $112 million guaranteed and $40.25 million per year over 4 years, I am taking the star TE every time. That frees up so much other money for me to build my team up to better contend for a Super Bowl.

Don’t just take my word for it. The Pats/Bucs with Gronk as their star TE went to 6 Super Bowls and won 4. The Chiefs with Kelce as their star TE have gone to 5 and won 3.

The value of return you get for TEs make having a star TE one of the best investments in all of sports.

Pats Trade Joe Milton

The Pats have traded backup QB Joe Milton and a 7th rounder to the Cowboys for a 5th rounder.

This is not totally unexpected as there have been a lot of rumors about Milton being traded. The Pats get a little return on investment as they drafted Milton with a 7th round pick and now have used him and a future 7th to get a future 5th.

I saw someone make the point that if Milton didn’t play so well in the Bills game we wouldn’t have been able to trade him for a 5th. But also, if he didn’t play so well vs the Bills, we also would still have the 1st overall pick. So everything comes down to perspective.

Kick-off Rule Change

The NFL will now spot touchbacks at the 35-yard line rather than the 30. The 30 was a good starting point, but only produced a return rate of 32.8%. With the rule change, the league projects the return rate will now be 60% to 70%. In addition to more kickoff returns, teams that do get a touchback get better field position to help score more points. Both outcomes are good for the league and fans watching the games. We have predicted this will happen for some time so it’s good to see it put in place.

PATS GET DIGGS

LFG!!!

After weeks spent doing nothing substantial to address their need for more WRs, the Pats finally do something by signing Stefon Diggs. Despite being 31 and coming off an ACL injury, Diggs was producing much better than any Patriots wide reciever. In 8 games he had 47 catches, 496 yards recieving and 3 TDs. Over the full season only one Pats WR had more catches, only two had more yards, and none had more TDs.

Here’s the most intriguing stat for Diggs. CJ Stroud (in his 2nd year last year, just like Maye will be this year) had a passer rating of 104 and completion percentage of 73% when targeting Diggs. That’s what we’ll hope to see with Maye.

It’s also great to see that Maye pushed hard for Diggs and the team listened to what he had to say. That keeps him and the team hapy.

The deal may look too big financially at 3 years, $69 million. However, it’s only $26 million guaranteed, which is something I’m happy to pay for a guy who will instantly come in and be our WR1.

There are rumors about Diggs being a little bit of a diva. However, on the Pats he will be the go-to target and should get plenty of targets to keep him happy. And if he doesn’t end up liking it here, the Pats can likely get out of the deal after a year.

I think Diggs is hungry and has something to prove. I see this working out well.

Where Great Offensive Players Come From

It is always interesting to see where great players went to college. We always here how the Big 10 and SEC are the best conferences, but do they produce the best players? I looked at the top offensive QBs and skill players to see here they come from.

The tiers of colleges I am using:

Tier 1: SEC/Big 10/Notre Dame

Tier 2: ACC/Big 12

Tier 3: FBS Non-Power 4

Tier 4: FCS or below

QBS: My Top 12 QBs (refer to my QB tiers blog)

SEC/Big 10/Notre Dame: 7

ACC/Big 12: 3

FBS Non-Power 4: 1

FCS or below: 1

As you can see, the top QBs are spread out in terms of where they are coming from school wise. Yes the top tier produces more than others, but Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson (the last 3 MVPs) all aren’t from that tier. Overall, about half of the top 12 QBs in the league come from the top tier of schools

RBs: Players who ran for 1,000 yards or 10 TDs (also Christian McCaffrey): 18 players

SEC/Big 10/Notre Dame: 12

ACC/Big 12: 4

FBS Non-Power 4: 2

FCS or below: 0

12 of 18 players came from the top tier here.

WRs and TEs: Players who had for 1,000 yards receiving, 100 receptions, or 10 TDs (also DK Metcalf, Puka Nacua, George Pickens, Devonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle, Chris Godwin, Chris Olave, and Brandon Aiyuk)

SEC/Big 10/Notre Dame: 26

ACC/Big 12: 7

FBS Non-Power 4: 2

FCS or below: 1

Here we have 35 of the best WRs and TEs and 26 are from the top tier.

All told, about 75% of the top receivers and 67% of the RBs come from the top tier of schools. Meaning teams should want to look there when drafting skill players.

Celtics Sold

The Celtics sold for a valuation of $6.1 billion, the most ever for a North American sports team, to a group led by PE titan Bill Chisholm. Co-owners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca bought the team for $360 million in 2002, so they made an insane return on their investment. It is unfortunate to see such great owners sell the team, but Grousbeck will be the franchise CEO through the 2027-28 season, which will help with the transition.

One of the great things about the current owners is that they were willing to spend a ton, similar to the LA Dodgers owners. They have the best roster in the league and have guys under contract for the foreseeable future. The first test of the ownership group is how willing they are to keep the team together. You have to imagine if a group is willing to spend over $6 billion for a team, that they will fork over money to keep the team together.

Reports are also that the NBA was waiting to get serious about expansion until this sale, since it sets a new floor for NBA franchises. Similar to most team sales, the Celtics sold over the estimated price of $5.5 billion.