User:Bobak/draft

College football and WP:Athlete: A proposal
College football's been a bit of a bear to deal with in AfDs because it sits astride the current rule and would almost benefit from a specific rule aimed at it. Basically: college football is much, much larger than any other amateur league (indeed, the term "amateur" is often put in quotes when the sport is discussed), and college football is bigger than many, major professional leagues. On the flip side, simply allowing any college football player to get an article is a bad idea since thousands are playing at any given time and most will not make anything of their careers, in college or on the professional level. This sort of situation does not easily fit into the current rules of WP:Athlete, and results in many unnecessary arguments over who is notable. I have found myself on both sides of the argument. I want to propose a solution that I think should appease everyone: allowing in notable players while keeping out a possible deluge. But first let me address a few reasons why college football is notable enough to warrant its own set of rules:

American football is unique among sports leagues because, unlike baseball, basketball, soccer or hockey, it has no minor leagues. The National Football League is the biggest professional league, and the Canadian Football League and Arena Football League are not minor league feeder teams into that league (few players make the transition from one to the other). Why isn't college football a minor league? High school player are no allowed to go directly into the top-level; instead they must wait three years before they can enter the NFL. Since there is no viable alternative league (unlike hockey or basketball), the best players must go into college ball. This situation has caused college football to become as major as it is, but I will address that a bit later.

American football has no Olympic level competition (and its World Championship is completely insignificant). Obviously, there's no American football in the Olympics. However, there is a little known American Football World Cup, put on by IFAF, but no major players compete in it. Only this past Cup had the United States, because it took years to figure out how to integrate American college football players (who are hardly amateur). The answer they came up with is very interesting: they allow college players who've graduated, however have not ever played or signed with a professional league. Thus the American team consisted of players from lower college divisions (D-IAA/FCS, II, III, NAIA) and a few unheralded D-IA/FBS players. There is something to be gained from that model, which I'll get to below in the proposal.

Top-level college football is bigger than many major professional leagues. (when I say "top-level", I mean D-I FBS, formerly known as D-IA) This is a result of the best and most notable players being forced into the college game, as well as the lack of viable alternative leagues for minor/development players. There are 120 top level teams, but let's look at only a fraction of them: The 44 schools from major conferences that played in a bowl game in 2007 had combined revenue of $1.3 billion.. Compare that to: the top-level German soccer league, the Bundesliga, had 2006–07 revenues of €1.3 billion ($1.7 billion); the UK's first-tier Premier League is obviously a major league with exceptionally high revenue, at €2.2 billion ($2.8 billion), and the Championship league 2005–06 revenues were £318 million ($470 million) (an average of £13 million ($20 million) per club); the Euroleague basketball organization has a combined annual revenue of less than $100 million; the NHL makes $2.2 billion a year. Television for the 2008 college football championship game outdrew the average game of the World Series and first game of the NBA Finals. The television rights for four of five BCS bowl games totaled $125 million per year. These numbers illustrate the odd position college football sits in sports. Visiting any major American sports website (or magazine) shows how serious top-level college football is taken.

Not all college football players deserve articles. And this is where college football gets a little tricky: you can't have all or nothing. If Wikipedia were to permit all Division I-FBS (top level) scholarship athletes, we'd have approximately [120 (teams) x 85 (NCAA-allowed scholarship players)] 10,200 new articles (at least). That's ridiculous, and can be avoided by focusing on players who've made significant contributions. ...more when I have time.