College football is chaotic, messy — and more popular than ever

For a few years now, Fox executive Mike Mulvihill has watched the discourse unspool among college football fans. In the throes of seismic changes – think NIL deals, the transfer portal and coaches ditching their teams in the middle of the College Football Playoff – the sport, fans complain, is in shambles. Nothing, Mulvihill said, could be further than the truth. “The most overused word in college sports is ‘chaos,’” said Mulvihill, President of Insights and Analytics at Fox. “You hear ‘chaos’ all the time. College sports is changing, but not all change is chaos. College football has never been more popular.” The proof, Mulvihill said, is best seen in a single number: TV viewers consumed 179...