Eli Drinkwitz Says College Football Could Become Like MLB, Gets His Facts Completely Wrong

Missouri Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz has some concerns over the state of college football, and for good reason. 

Allowing players to earn income based on the usage of their name, image, and likeness has spiraled from allowing youth athletes to earn money, into schools directly paying players. And predictably, between the NIL deals and direct payments, there's a rapidly growing disparity in budgets between schools. 

For example, former LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly recently revealed that the roster for Lane Kiffin's first season in Baton Rouge is going to cost well over $40 million. 

RELATED: Brian Kelly Confirms LSU Is Spending An Insane Amount Of Money On Roster Under Lane Kiffin

USC has made huge investments in NIL spending, leading to the signing of the country's number one recruiting class a few months ago. The Texas Longhorns brought out Lamborghinis to try and woo high school players. Ohio State, Michigan, Texas Tech…those are just a few of the programs who've brought in high-profile signings by beating out other schools with better financial offers. 

Drinkwitz brought that up in a recent interview with On3, saying he believes that if college football doesn't get things under control, it'll become like Major League Baseball. There's just one problem, he got his facts about MLB completely wrong.

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Head Coach Eli Drinkwitz of the Missouri Tigers. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)

Eli Drinkwitz Apparently Hasn't Followed Baseball In A While

Drinkwitz told On3 and Chris Low that he's worried about the disparity in payrolls between different programs, comparing it to the Los Angeles Dodgers and Miami Marlins. 

"If you're going to have teams that have $45 million rosters competing against teams that have $15 million and $20 million rosters, you're going to run the risk of turning into Major League Baseball, where you have the LA Dodgers and the Florida Marlins," Drinkwitz said. "And that's a professional league that's not growing, that's struggling in their TV deals." 

Well, first things first, it's the Miami Marlins. They haven't been the Florida Marlins since 2011. Not off to a great start. Second, Major League Baseball is growing, quite significantly, actually. In 2025, total attendance across the sport grew for the third consecutive season and was the highest it's been since 2017. That's despite two teams playing their home games in minor league-sized stadiums. The San Diego Padres averaged essentially 100% capacity…for 81 home games. Not six or seven like college football teams, or eight or nine like NFL teams. 81 home games a year, and they averaged a sellout.

Several other teams averaged 90+% of their capacity, like the Cubs, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Phillies. Others were very close. The Dodgers themselves sold 4,012,000 tickets. The entire NFL's attendance last season was 18.78 million. For all the teams and every game. National ratings were up double digits too, and the World Series was the most watched since 2017. MLB is also set to have all of its national television rights come up for bidding in 2028, which will give the league a chance to reset, potentially get more national broadcast windows, and improve local packages. The World Baseball Classic semifinal just reached viewership comparable to last year's NBA Finals.

Yes, baseball is growing, despite the disparity in payrolls. Drinkwitz does not know what he's talking about. 

As far as the comparison to college football goes, yes, obviously spending more money on the roster will allow teams to sign more high-priced high school and transfer portal recruits. But the Indiana Hoosiers were definitely not the most expensive team in the sport last year, and they won a championship and went 16-0 just a few months after Steve Sarkisian said, "I don't know if we'll ever see an undefeated champion again." 

Sarkisian's Texas team, which by most accounts, did have the most expensive roster, lost three times and missed the College Football Playoff because they played close games against awful Kentucky and Mississippi State teams. Money can't buy everything. Also, when has there not been an advantage to having more money and prestige in a program? Here's a list of teams, excluding Indiana, who've won a national title in the last 25 years. 

Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Clemson, Florida State, Auburn, Texas, USC, Miami. That's it. I don't know, seems like there were already some pretty big advantages to being a big program with resources and rich donors. Drinkwitz is obviously concerned about his program falling behind, and that's a reasonable fear. But Indiana is the smallest program with the least amount of history to win this century, and they just did it. And MLB is growing, rapidly. That's a big swing and a miss.