Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the structure and governance of the Football Bowl Subdivision postseason should prioritize broad-based athletic opportunity, financial sustainability for college athletics, and competitive balance, and that innovative proposals to expand broad based postseason participation-such as proposals advanced by Coach Mike Leach-warrant serious consideration to mitigate anticompetitive effects in top-division college football.

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1011 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 1011

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the structure 
   and governance of the Football Bowl Subdivision postseason should 
 prioritize broad-based athletic opportunity, financial sustainability 
  for college athletics, and competitive balance, and that innovative 
   proposals to expand broad based postseason participation--such as 
 proposals advanced by Coach Mike Leach--warrant serious consideration 
 to mitigate anticompetitive effects in top-division college football.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 20, 2026

Mr. Baumgartner submitted the following resolution; which was referred 
              to the Committee on Education and Workforce

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the structure 
   and governance of the Football Bowl Subdivision postseason should 
 prioritize broad-based athletic opportunity, financial sustainability 
  for college athletics, and competitive balance, and that innovative 
   proposals to expand broad based postseason participation--such as 
 proposals advanced by Coach Mike Leach--warrant serious consideration 
 to mitigate anticompetitive effects in top-division college football.

Whereas Coach Mike Leach repeatedly advanced an innovative proposal to expand 
        top-division college football's postseason to a broad, bracketed 
        format--arguing that the sport could accommodate a 16-, 32-, or 64-team 
        bracket and determine a champion on the field, rather than relying on a 
        narrow, highly selective postseason gate;
Whereas Coach Leach specifically argued that an inclusive bracket could be 
        calendar-feasible if paired with responsible season design--including a 
        shorter regular season--and that the resulting structure would give more 
        teams a meaningful late-season path while preserving competitive 
        balance;
Whereas Coach Leach's proposal drew explicit parallels to other levels of 
        football that routinely use bracketed postseason formats to produce 
        champions and sustain broad-based competitive engagement;
Whereas multiple levels of NCAA football already operate broad-access postseason 
        tournaments as the standard method of determining championships, 
        including: (1) the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision 
        (FCS), which uses a bracket with automatic qualifiers and at-large bids; 
        (2) NCAA Division II, which has expanded to a 32-team championship 
        bracket; and (3) NCAA Division III, which has expanded to a 40-team 
        bracket, further demonstrating that larger playoff fields can be 
        administered in a student-athlete and academic environment when 
        structured around principles of equal opportunity, competitive balance, 
        and financial sustainability;
Whereas by contrast, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)--a national collective 
        of 136 programs--operates a comparatively narrow postseason championship 
        pathway through the College Football Playoff (CFP), which currently 
        selects a 12-team championship field (meaning fewer than one in ten FBS 
        programs can reach the championship bracket in a given year);
Whereas the CFP's own historical record reflects that championship access has 
        been concentrated among a limited set of institutions (only 27 teams 
        have appeared in the CFP era to date, and one program has appeared nine 
        times), reinforcing concerns that a narrow gate can entrench incumbent 
        competitive advantage;
Whereas public reporting indicates that postseason football revenues are 
        distributed in a manner that can reinforce conference-level 
        concentration, including reports that the SEC and Big Ten each receive 
        about 29 percent of CFP base distributions while the Group of Five 
        conferences collectively receive about 9 percent;
Whereas the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and affiliated 
        researchers have warned at a high level that the financial trajectory of 
        major college sports is increasingly concentrated and self-reinforcing, 
        projecting that by fiscal year 2032 total annual athletics revenue at 
        public FBS institutions will be approximately $20.9 billion, with $16.7 
        billion generated by 54 Autonomy-conference public institutions (roughly 
        four-fifths of that total);
Whereas NCAA financial reporting underscores the sustainability pressure facing 
        much of the FBS system, showing that (for 2022) the median FBS program 
        generated approximately $71 million in revenue against approximately 
        $85.7 million in total expenses, producing a median operating deficit of 
        approximately $19.3 million;
Whereas public-records-based research indicates that bowl participation 
        frequently produces net financial losses for participating programs--
        reporting that around 70 percent of public FBS colleges incurred bowl-
        game financial losses from 2015-2018--underscoring how the legacy 
        postseason model can impose costs on many institutions even as 
        championship access remains narrowly gated, all while reform advocates 
        argue that lawful pooling or national packaging approaches could unlock 
        $4-$7 billion in additional value--value that could be distributed more 
        broadly to strengthen opportunity and competitive balance;
Whereas Coach Leach's vision for a broad-access, bracketed postseason--paired 
        with a more unified approach to packaging and monetizing college 
        football media rights--could create a materially more valuable national 
        product and distribute benefits more widely,
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives 
that--
            (1) the governance and structure of the FBS postseason 
        should expand meaningful competitive opportunity for student-
        athletes and institutions consistent with academic integrity 
        and student-athlete welfare;
            (2) postseason design and revenue structures should be 
        evaluated and reformed where they produce anticompetitive 
        effects that entrench advantages for a select few schools and 
        erode competitive balance; and
            (3) proposals like those advanced by Coach Mike Leach--
        emphasizing broader, objective-access playoff participation 
        paired with responsible season-structure reforms--represent the 
        kind of innovative thinking necessary to protect opportunity, 
        sustainability, and fair competition in major college football.
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