Don’t count Mike Francesa among those who think Notre Dame will eventually join a conference in college football.
Francesa on his BetRivers podcast, The Mike Francesa Podcast, on Wednesday said while the getting is probably good in the Big Ten, the situation for Fighting Irish football is completely different and much more lucrative for the institution.
“I’ve made this very clear, and if you’ve listened to me you know, that I have told you repeatedly through all of this that Notre Dame football would remain an entity unto itself,” Francesa said. “Remember, they have a national TV contract of one. Nobody has their TV contract. They are the only team in any walk of sports life that has every single game on national television. Nobody else does.”
“They never regionalize a game,” he continued. “The Dallas Cowboys regionalized their product. The New York Yankees, the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers, go down the line they all regionalized their product.”
Even though Notre Dame is in the ACC for much of its other sports, staying independent in football is perfect for them in Francesa’s eyes. Their TV money is too good to want to end up in a situation where they end up getting a slice of a 15-20-piece pie.
“The bottom line is nobody has that,” he said. “I think they’re the only team that can thrive and be independent. I do not see them going and sharing their football revenue with anybody. They never have, I don’t think they will.”
