By any measure, the business of college football is booming. The sport is more popular and, thanks to market-savvy conference realignments and a round of expansive new television deals, more lucrative than ever. In January, the first edition of the College Football Playoff delivered record audiences for ESPN and a windfall for the sport’s major conferences that dwarfed the once gaudy-seeming returns from the defunct Bowl Championship Series. Ratings for the college semifinals and the subsequent national-championship game surpassed even those for some NFL playoff games—a powerfully valuable