SEC, Big Ten college football schedule strategy is smart business
This problem started about 15 years ago, 11th The hour shift in the conference is collapsing because sentiment has gripped the business of college football.
Attitudes, everyone, are the death of business.
As was the case in 2010, when the Pac-10 failed to get six schools from the injured Big 12 — Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Colorado — and it was the first conference of the country of 16 teams.
Those individual failures led to the demise of the Big 12 as we knew it at the time, and eventually the Pac-12. And it produced today’s SEC and Big Ten conferences.
The SEC and Big Ten did not begin what is now their clear takeover of college football (and by proxy, college sports). But you believe they will do everything in their power to end it on their terms.
The moves begin with deals that would have been undreamed of just a few years ago, including but not limited to: A 14- or 16-team College Football Playoff in 2026 with four independent spots for the SEC and Big Ten, and the two major leagues that combine media rights revenue and earn more money than they currently do (about $2 billion annually combined).
This is on top of an independent scheduling agreement that USA TODAY Sports reported on Monday could add as many as 20 games between conferences to increase media rights revenue. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the expected loss of revenue going to athletes down the road, which, more than anything else, is the reason for this partnership.
This working comfort agreement between the SEC and the Big Ten could eventually lead to a product that is exactly the same as the NFL, and leaves the other Bowl Subdivision conferences because of their budgets. Media rights combined with a structured schedule can reflect the NFL in two different conferences, schedule and game. Or in this case, a playoff game that includes the remaining FBS conferences.
SMART MONEY: Why Georgia has the highest paid college football coach
BOWL FEATURES: Alabama came out of the game in favor of the SEC team
This isn’t a cash grab for the two richest Power Four conferences, it’s survival. In the middle of it all are the billions lost in the case of the House, and the estimated cost of $ 20-23 million annually in the revenue sharing agreements with the players from the beginning of the year 2025.
Consider this: with just shared revenue and using the high end of budgets, the 34 teams in the SEC and Big Ten will spend nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars combined each year ( $782,000,000) in player earnings.
That’s a staggering number for a group of schools that currently offer players a “cost of attendance” that pays as much as $6,000 a year. Simple math — 34 teams, 85 scholarship players per team, $6,000 per player — reveals an estimated payout of $17.34 million per year.
In other words, the SEC and Big Ten are currently chasing a 2025 budget deficit of $764,660,000.
Suddenly the new friendship between former rivals in the meeting is clear and concise. The goal is to survive, not supplement every FBS conference – while we give 15-20 percent of the value to private investors who, out of the goodness of their hearts, volunteer to support the league new in finance. You know, for their (improper) share.
I will drill.
There will be conferences forced to use personal equity to stay in the top tier of college football, or at least try to compete on the same level as the SEC and Big Ten. There may also be a point at which leagues collapse under the weight of the costs of paying players, and then splits are likely.
It’s a philosophical question hanging over time: by joining forces and looking for ways to generate revenue to reduce future expenses, have the SEC and Big Ten left college football behind?
More than three decades ago, long before the rematch of the College Football Playoff and before the postseason Bowl Championship Series controversy, then-WAC commissioner Karl Benson was talking to the commissioner former Big Ten coach Jim Delany at the Division I commissioners meeting.
Delany was the most powerful man in college sports at the time, and one of the architects of the ever-changing postseason from the Bowl Coalition, to the Bowl Alliance, to the Bowl Championship Series. These three formations tried, in their own way, to create a bowl association that allowed the top two teams to play in the national championship game.
The commissioners met as the BCS and its controversial system continued, and Benson was trying to get more experience for the smaller WAC (which eventually became the Mountain West Conference).
“We just want a place on the stage,” Benson told Delany.
Delany replied, “We built a platform.”
It’s business, everyone. There is no room for emotion.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for the USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him to X @MattHayesCFB
#SEC #Big #Ten #college #football #schedule #strategy #smart #business