College sports dignitaries made their way to Capitol Hill to speak to congress amid the unending slog of trying to make transformational changes that could save their way of life. And in doing so, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua may have accidentally undermined one of his main arguments.

Bevacqua, like many coaches and administrators, see the current NIL era of college sports to be unsustainable. The industry is trying to spin many plates at once and if you listen to the likes of Nick Saban and company, those plates happen to be fiery ninja death stars that threaten to destroy their very existence.

After years of NCAA inaction, politicians have tried to fill the void. Donald Trump has attempted to implement executive orders to no avail. And anytime Congress tries to step in with legislation, it gets immediately shot down by someone in the sport as everyone involved try to protect their own interests.

Of course, Notre Dame has their own interests as well. They have the luxury of their own football television deal, independence where they can keep it all to themselves, and special exemptions for the College Football Playoff.

In answering questions from the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on the proposed Protect College Sports Act, Bevacqua made a number of interesting comments. He addressed the push for pooling media rights in a lengthy response, part of which was shared by Andy Staples on social media. You can see the portion of the recording where Bevacqua presents a hypothetical super league scenario while saying he is not in favor of it.

Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua, who used to run NBC Sports, tells senators that the best way to make the most money from TV rights is a super league.

Then he says he doesn’t want a super league.

Then he offers a sample super league schedule. pic.twitter.com/DgLtWJtL1H

— Andy Staples (@AndyStaples) June 3, 2026

Full Bevacqua comments come from 24/7 Sports:

“I was encouraged in reading the bill that the provisions that related to the Sports Broadcasting Act were voluntary and Senator Cruz made a point of reiterating that in his opening that it’s voluntary. I think intellectually, I understand it. It makes sense. I go back to my former life at NBC Sports and combining my experience at NBC Sports with my experience at Notre Dame, I do think it could be difficult. That’s why I like the fact that it’s voluntary. 

“My concern with that area of the bill is there are agreements in place, many long-term agreements, agreements the longest of which extends into the mid 2030s. So, unless you interrupted the major media deals across the country, nothing could really be done roughly for a decade. Conferences, Notre Dame, we’re independent in football, we would all have to negotiate agreements prior to that date in the mid 2030s.

“Putting on my former media executive hat, if I knew I was negotiating an agreement with a university in our case or a conference for a limited amount of time, I would refer to that as a stub deal and I think the ultimate value of the deal would go down. So I fear that many conferences and universities might take a financial step backward before they could take a theoretical step forward in aggregating the media rights. So, that’s a concern.

“My second concern is if you want to truly maximize the media value around the largest sport in terms of eyeballs, which is college football, I do think the best way to do that is a super league. And I certainly don’t want a super league. And I’m not sure anybody necessarily wants a super league. Flooding the market, aggregating the market, bringing it to an aggregate form to major media companies, I’m not sure that’s going to drive the value some say it will.

“If you wanted to maximize media value around college football, I think you would take 24 to 30 teams, create unbelievably competitive scheduling where a team like Notre Dame would play Alabama, Georgia, Penn State, Ohio, State, Michigan and start to get a number that more closely resembles an NFL number. I could be right, I could be wrong, but that’s why I was encouraged that it’s a voluntary application and that a lot more work could be done over the course of the next series of years to see if the value could prove itself out.”

Ironically, his comments about the super league seemed to be more in favor of it than they were against. Bevacqua talked about the teams involved having more top matchups and making more money. He mentioned the possibility of Notre Dame playing the likes of Alabama and Ohio State and how it would maximize value for the parties involved. In the entire existence of American capitalism, usually people in power tend to go for the things that give them more money and power. Hyping up those possibilities aren’t a great way to tamp down enthusiasm of a super league!

The likes of Notre Dame, Alabama, Ohio State, and others are going to see the gobs of money being offered by networks and streamers alike to truly create an NFL-lite model. And it may even transcend current conference alignment. Would Rutgers or Kentucky or Mississippi State really be involved in a college football super league? Pete Bevacqua should know a lot about the potential value of this proposition given he was NBC Sports president before taking the Fighting Irish job.

Senator Ted Cruz has said that one of the goals of his proposed legislation is to prevent the possibility of the SEC and Big Ten breaking away to form their own super conference. The SEC has already had voices start to speak out about breaking away from the NCAA. Discontent is growing as solutions become more fleeting. And at some point, the top programs in the sport are going to feel more empowered to do their own thing to finally come up with an answer.

The post Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua makes unintentional super league pitch appeared first on Awful Announcing.