John Kosner Spoke With Payton Titus of USA Today About College Football and State of Kentucky Schools
Original Article: USA Today, by Payton Titus, June 15th, 2026
Kentucky or Louisville? Who'd Make the Cut for Football Super League?
No one, including industry decision makers, really knows what the future of college sports has in store. But what would it mean for the commonwealth if a football super league formed tomorrow?
Will Stein has a 24-team vision for the College Football Playoff
At the SEC spring meetings, Kentucky football coach Will Stein said a 24-team model in the College Football Playoff would benefit the entire league.
Key Points
Most super league scenarios include 30-40 schools. Media company Playfly ranks Kentucky's brand No. 19 nationally and Louisville's No. 36.
UK has approximately 2.3 million fans nationwide, according to Playfly, while UofL has about 800,000. Of those UK fans, 47% live in Kentucky. Of UofL’s, 23% live in state.
For decades, television contracts have been the main driver behind conference realignment. And many in the industry believe it will be the impetus for a football-only super league.
Without congressional intervention, Notre Dame athletics director Pete Bevacqua said a college football super league would be inevitable.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who co-wrote the Protect College Sports Act with Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, agrees.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti called it a “fabrication.”
No one, including industry decision-makers, really knows what the future of college sports has in store. But if football were to break away and form a super league tomorrow, Kentucky would be in, and Louisville would be out. Or on the bubble.
At least according to media consultants who spoke with The Courier Journal for this story. John Kosner of Kosner Media, Ed Desser of Desser Sports Media Inc. and Playfly CEO Craig Sloan provided a sense of how conferences, television networks and media rights companies assign worth to athletic departments. There are a number of factors to consider — some quantifiable, some subjective and many subject to change, in an instant or over time.
The operable question: Which entities have the better, more high-profile brands? For now, between UofL and UK, Kentucky’s flagship university is taking it. (And it’s not like the commonwealth is a large enough state for this proverbial super league to justify multiple representatives like Florida, Texas or California.)
But that doesn’t mean the Cardinals can’t leapfrog their way into college football’s most exclusive (albeit still hypothetical) club. Nor does it mean the Wildcats can’t be pushed out. Between NIL and the transfer portal, nothing is static in college athletics.
“Kentucky is in today, in our ranker, but we have as many of our schools concerned about who could come up behind them and jump over them should that school invest more than they are in coaching, in student-athlete experience, in NIL, in the overall program to be competitive on the field,” Sloan said. “There's many who are looking back behind them, saying, ‘I gotta keep investing, so I can stay ahead of them, as well as hopefully catch up to the people in front of me.’”
What goes into grading college sports brands?
Playfly Sports, a media rights company like Learfield (Louisville’s Multimedia Rights partner) or JMI (Kentucky’s MMR partner), generated FanScores for UK and UofL using brand valuation, school IP (intellectual property) rankings and enterprise value. Playfly gave UK a No. 19 national FanScore rank and UofL No. 36. Most super league scenarios include 30-40 member schools.
Without giving up the “secret sauce,” Sloan rattled off a few considerations that went into those rankings and a company like Playfly’s decision to commit to a 15-year partnership with a school.
Do we believe in the athletics director?
(Something to think about with UK hiring J Batt as its new athletics director Monday to replace Mitch Barnhart, who is retiring after 24 years at the end of June.)
Do we believe in the stability of the coaching ranks? Do we believe in their recruiting capabilities?
And then there are the more tangible questions.
How supportive are donors (in contributions to the department and outside NIL efforts)?
UK reported $32.66 million in contributions on its NCAA fiscal year 2025 report compared to Louisville’s $21.2 million. Both schools seem to have on-par NIL budgets, at least in men’s basketball, with UK reportedly spending $22 million on last season’s roster and UofL “expected to surpass $20 million” this year, according to On3’s Pete Nakos.
How aligned are the athletics department and the university president?
It’s hard to imagine UK president Eli Capilouto would have hired Batt away from Michigan State to be the Wildcats' new AD if the two wildly disagreed on major issues. UofL president Gerry Bradley, Board of Trustees chair Larry Benz and AD Josh Heird have presented a very public united front since the publication of their white paper about the future of college sports in March.
And then comes a process Sloan likened to buying a home, where you compare whichever university you’re evaluating to “lookalike” schools.
What are the lookalike schools? What are the sizes of those fan bases and social media followings? What are the attendance percentages of sellouts? What audiences are showing up when the school’s on national TV?
Kentucky vs. Louisville Brand Value
One of the main delineators between UK’s and UofL’s scores is their fan bases.
UK has approximately 2.3 million fans nationwide, according to Playfly, while UofL has about 800,000. Twenty-eight percent of Kentucky’s general population identify as UK fans. Only 5% identify as UofL fans.
Of those 2.3 million UK fans nationwide, 47% live in Kentucky. Which means the Wildcats’ brand doesn’t have the same national reach a school like Michigan (with only 16% of its alumni living in UM’s designated market area) does. Of UofL’s 800,000 fans, 23% live in the commonwealth.
Another factor that gives UK the edge over UofL is athletic department revenue. UK generated about 26% more revenue than UofL during the 2025 fiscal year, according to both schools’ NCAA financial reports (though both operated at a budgetary deficit).
Playfly’s “championship equity” metric also considers UK’s 14 national titles across all sports (eight in men’s basketball) compared to Louisville’s two (both in men’s basketball, not including the 2013 title UofL is in conversation with the NCAA to reinstate).
“The way that these two schools are positioned, Kentucky would pretty squarely be in the (super league) grouping, and Louisville would likely be on the outside looking in,” Sloan said. “But not so far off that they shouldn't think about doing things to get them to a more attractive space.”
How?
Create more (loyal) fans.
UofL football hasn’t had a reported sellout since 2024 against Miami. Only 48,089 people actually attended that game, according to scanned ticket data obtained via records request. That’s about 12,700 short of L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium capacity. The Cardinals haven’t had 50,000 at a home game under coach Jeff Brohm. (To be fair, though, UK's last sold-out football game was 2024 against Vanderbilt.)
“They have under a million fans nationally who identify as Cardinal fans,” Sloan said. “That's pretty low for a Power Four school. There's a lot of upside in that, and there's ways to actually manufacture that on how you engage, where you engage them in the fan journey, how you create attractive ways to lure people in.”
Content creation is a big part of that. Introduce fans to the “characters” and storylines, let them fall in love, and watch their wallets fall in line.
Winning also would bolster UofL’s brand, of course. No one would’ve considered Indiana a super league contender five years ago. But after Curt Cignetti vaulted the football program to historic success, IU’s a must-have property. It’d be major if the Cards brought home multiple ACC football championships in the next few years as conference TV contracts are scheduled to expire.
What Factors Drive Conference Realignment?
When it comes to conference realignment, Kosner and Desser broke the various stakeholders down as follows:
Media partners: These entities’ greatest concerns are acquiring the best games with the most famous, attractive teams. Important factors include TV viewership, market size, occupation of multiple time zones, winning tradition and nationally relevant rivalries.
Conferences: The main motivation for any given league is to assemble a set of teams it can collectively market and make as attractive as possible to media companies. The better the grouping, the more lucrative TV deal they can get.
Schools: Naturally, they’re more concerned with academic prestige. UofL is tied for No. 84 among public institutions on the list of U.S. News and World Report’s 2026 Best Colleges. UK is tied for No. 74.
Schools are also concerned with bringing new assets to the table, not more mouths to feed. Take ACC expansion for example. Clemson and FSU sued the league, changing its revenue distribution model to benefit top brands after Stanford, Cal and SMU joined their ranks.
A new, fourth stakeholder has started to emerge as well: private equity investors. These folks have less media rights tunnel vision and more of an eye for big business. Maybe that’s developing the real estate around the football stadium, à la Truist Park and The Battery, a “lifestyle destination” connected to the Atlanta Braves stadium full of shops, entertainment experiences, restaurants, hotels and more. FSU has something similar called College Town. Wake Forest and Tennessee are building their own. And Ole Miss is considering one.
But for decades, television contracts have been the main driver behind conference realignment. And many in the industry believe it will be the impetus for a football-only super league, with all other sports returning to regional play.
What Does That Mean for Basketball Schools Like UK and UofL?
Weighing Football vs. Basketball Success
Kosner and Desser pointed toward the House settlement as a solid proxy for the perceived value of specific college sports from the TV perspective.
Ninety-five percent of the House settlement was earmarked for power-conference athletes. Football got 75%, men’s basketball 15% and women’s basketball 5%. The remaining 5% went to everyone else.
But 75% for football, to them, feels low.
“I don't know the status of any super league conversation,” Kosner said. “However, the media discussion is disproportionately about college football.”
UK’s blue-blood status in college basketball is more definite than UofL’s, as some consider the Cards blue-blood adjacent, with fewer NCAA titles and a rough résumé over the last decade or so. But neither school is considered a historic football powerhouse.
Recent on-field performance would indicate advantage Louisville, though. The Cards have won 28 games in three seasons under Brohm, who just signed a contract extension. UK, meanwhile, hasn’t qualified for a bowl game since 2023 and just hired a new head coach in Will Stein. Kentucky is 3-2 against Louisville since 2021, but UofL has won the last two matchups by a combined margin of 68 points.
However, Playfly graded Kentucky’s football brand higher than Louisville’s, in part, because of the Wildcats’ position in the SEC. Yes, UK’s had the lesser program as of late, but it gets better TV matchups than Louisville does in the ACC. That matters when it comes to brand exposure and television revenue.
As do historic, nationally relevant rivalries. UofL has UK, but UK has UofL and arguably Tennessee as well. Louisville’s longtime position as a conference nomad made it nearly impossible to establish storied beef with other schools. Most UofL fans would probably still point to Cincinnati and Memphis as big rivals, but those series are mostly dormant courtesy of conference realignment.
“We don't know and can't determine the future, but we think about the super league potential as well,” Sloan said. “And one of the things that we do on a regular basis is discuss with our schools what it would take to ensure (membership), if you're currently in the grouping that would be thought of as part of that (league). And then if you’re not in it, what would you need to do to accelerate your program to be more attractive and potentially eligible to be in the grouping?”
