College football is still America’s most lucrative multi-level marketing scam.
College football is a sport whose structure works hard to deny outsiders like Cincinnati the chance to win, even if they go unbeaten.
About 30 minutes into the second episode of the Amazon Original series LuLaRichAmazon Original series LuLaRich – the latest addition to a growing catalogue of popular documentaries and exposes exploring the compellingly kooky, if ethically dubious, world of multi-level marketing – viewers are finally clued into the unsettling logic at the heart of this most American of business models. In the realm of multi-level marketing, success has nothing to do with selling items (in this instance, colourful leggings manufactured by a California-based firm named LuLaRoe) and everything to do with selling a promise. One that, by definition, must be primarily neglected.
“There was always a huge push to recruit, recruit, recruit,” says Courtney Harwood, one of a handful of affable former LuLaRoe retailers who serve as the series’ narrative heart, referring to multi-level marketing’s characteristic emphasis on enlisting new members rather than simply selling product to a third party. “Buy, buy, buy,” they say. “Recruit, recruit, recruit,” she says, adding, “and you’ll get there.”
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What draws viewers to LuLaRich and other MLM-based content is that the ‘there’ Harwood refers to is all too often an illusion, typically peddled by a hypnotically charismatic founder whose rhetorical and aesthetic approach is a grim mix of evangelist Billy Graham and 1970s consumer electronics maven Crazy Eddie. As it turns out, seeing the scam at the heart of the whole operation disintegrate is entertaining viewing.
In any case, what we learn along the way is usually some variation on a theme: the wealth and prestige promised to everyone who joins a multi-level marketing company will only ever be enjoyed by a tiny cadre of elites, whose continued success is still dependent on an army of enthusiastic underlings chasing the dream. They are the ones who keep the system running and generate the wealth enjoyed by those at the top.
If any of this sounds familiar – a system designed to benefit a small privileged class, unnaturally happy lunatic leaders spewing self-help platitudes, exploitative labour practises… recruitment – you could be a college football fan.
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For everyone’s benefit, it’s important noting that half of the teams playing in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision have no chance of winning the competition. This is not a piece of punditry. When I say they have no chance, I mean that regardless of their on-field performance, they will most likely be denied entry into the playoff that determines a winner.
It’s basically just an issue of basic math. Only four teams from the 130 FBS schools will be chosen to play in the College Football Playoff, and the decision on who merits those coveted seats is left to a 13-member panel that serves as the only arbitrator. In contrast to basketball, where winning your conference tournament earns you an automatic bid and the selection committee debates which of two or three mediocre teams deserves the final of 36 at-large spots, you’re analysing the relative strengths and weaknesses of programmes that have won all, or all but one of their games. It’s a game of razor-thin margins, and as a consequence, institutions from the ‘Power Five’ conferences — the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 – have an overwhelming edge, particularly those with vast stocks of cultural and economic capital like Alabama, Ohio State, or Notre Dame.
This somewhat mundane unsaid reality of college football’s underlying competitive structure never ceased to astonish me over my many years covering it. It is both amazing and unique in American and international sports that teams would deliberately participate in a tournament whose basic structure works hard to deny them the ability to win it no matter what they accomplish, even finishing unbeaten.
Since the turn of the century, a lengthy list of schools have ended with perfect records but been locked out of whatever half-baked playoff or championship finale was in ascendance at the time, and the list might become even longer by the conclusion of this season. Utah in 2004 and 2008, Boise State in 2006 and 2009, TCU in 2010 and Central Florida in 2017 all ended their seasons undefeated but were no closer to a national championship chance than a trip to a more costly, but ultimately meaningless, bowl game. The competitive equivalent of a snide slap on the back.
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Since the turn of the century, a lengthy list of schools have ended with perfect records but been locked out of whatever half-baked playoff or championship finale was in ascendance at the time, and the list might become even longer by the conclusion of this season. Utah in 2004 and 2008, Boise State in 2006 and 2009, TCU in 2010 and Central Florida in 2017 all ended their seasons undefeated but were no closer to a national championship chance than a trip to a more costly, but ultimately meaningless, bowl game. The competitive equivalent of a snide slap on the back.
To be sure, they were lauded by fans and the media alike, but since they were from outside the aforementioned Power Five, securing a place at the top table of college football was the longest of longshots. As with LuLaRoe and other MLM frauds, it’s the enticing closeness to success that eventually exposes the deception.
The University of Cincinnati is the most visible of this season’s ambitious outsiders from the American Athletic Conference.
Soon, the Bearcats will join the Big 12, a Power Five conference from which an undefeated season will bring them closer to a playoff place. For the time being, though, they remain members of college football’s proletariat, destined to be little more than fodder for the mill.
If fans had forgotten, the initial College Football Playoff Rankings were revealed on November 2nd, and Cincinnati found themselves in sixth place, on the outside looking in at the four-team playoff. Despite an 8-0 record, a number two rating in both the AP and Coaches Poll, and a road victory against then-unbeaten Notre Dame.
However, three weeks later, things are looking up.
The Bearcats have broken the top four with a little assistance from (ironically) the University of Utah, and they are on the verge of being the first non-Power Five school to make the playoffs, but their status is far from safe. Of course, they might lose one of their next two games, but the odds are always stacked against anyone outside of college football’s nobility. Given the chance, there is no doubt that the committee would crush Bearcat hearts.
Whatever happens, it should be clear that the issue here isn’t one of effort. Cincinnati has avidly participated in the collegiate sports arms race, spending eye-watering sums on stadium improvements and coaches’ salaries in addition to their success on the field. According to one study, the sports department needs $250 million in university coffer subsidies during the previous decade or so.
This is in order for them to compete in a tournament that guarantees them nothing, even if they win all of their games.
As Fitzpatrick may put it, they are among the “doomed to fail” huge majority. FBS schools outside of the Power Five are being duped in the same way that a LuLaRoe shop is duped into buying box after box of leggings on the premise that they, too, would finish up on stage with the founder, showered in glitter and celebrating their financial freedom.
You might be forgiven for believing that the Bearcats’ upcoming elevation to the Big 12, or even a shaky showing in this season’s postseason, would demonstrate college football’s egalitarian credentials, but you’d be mistaken (just ask 11-0 Texas-San Antonio who are a distant 22nd in the latest CFP rankings). In the 23 years since the Bowl Championship Series was founded – and with it any semblance of an unified competitive framework – one outsider crashing the party is hardly indicative of anything. Except that there must be the appearance of parity on occasion, if not always.
The have-nots of the collegiate football world, like so many other aspects of American society, are a feature, not a defect, of the system, serving as fodder and creating the image of a healthy competition, one that will surely result in another Gatorade bath for Nick Saban. They give up their “student-athletes'” bodies, their university’s resources, and the aspirations and ambitions of their alumni and supporters for a whiff of the wealth and status lavished on their football rivals.
If momentum is any indication, we may see an expanded playoff structure, preferably one that is open to all FBS institutions, one day. In fact, if Cincinnati finishes unbeaten and misses out, it may be even more of a given conclusion. In any case, it cannot arrive soon enough for me. There are several issues with college football, and although we can’t address them all at once, we might begin with the most basic. Instead of a pyramid system, we might make the competition itself, well, a competition.
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source: ttheguardian
