A super league-like structure is coming to college football eventually. How exactly it will look is to be determined, but its emergence seems inevitable at this point.
When exactly it will happen is also unclear, but a bunch of the sport’s television contracts, including the one for the College Football Playoff, end around 2031, so maybe put that on your calendar.
Clearly, there are many in and around college football trying to determine what comes next.
“Even in the month or so of conversations that I’ve had across the spectrum with presidents and ADs and commissioners, I can tell you that there is a very broad consensus that the system is broken,” said Chris Bevilacqua, a former television executive and consultant to college conferences who is now part of a group called College Sports Tomorrow. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when and what the eventual output or structure is.”
Maybe the biggest question — other than whether that eventual structure will be legal — is this: Who will be in charge?
For SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, the top long-term priority is to ensure the answer to that question is the SEC and the Big Ten.
Earlier this year, the two conferences formed an advisory committee, with the stated goal of working on big-picture issues facing major college sports as it moves toward a more professional model. The enterprise moved a step closer to that Monday when a federal judge in California gave preliminary approval to a $2.78 billion antitrust lawsuit settlement that also includes a plan for schools to share billions in revenue annually with their athletes.
Since news broke that SEC and Big Ten leaders would be gathering en masse in Nashville on Thursday to discuss partnering in world domination — er, football scheduling and CFP access — not one but two college football super league concepts have surfaced.
The College Student Football League, a plan that has been kicking around the offices of high-ranking college administrators and university presidents for about a year, was formally unveiled by College Sports Tomorrow last week.
“We have to sort of all together, step back and look at this and say, how do we come up with a solution that doesn’t serve only a few but serves the entirety of membership and the student-athletes and the media partners and, most importantly, the fans and alumni, the ones that are enjoying this great sport,” Bevilacqua said.
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On Tuesday, Yahoo! Sports reported on another proposal that has reached slide-deck stage, circulating through the athletic directors and assorted power brokers. This one, reportedly dubbed Project Rudy, after the mythologized Notre Dame walk-on, is the brainchild of a group of former Disney executives turned venture capitalists. How appropriate, since TV interests and money have already gained firm control of college football.
The biggest difference at first glance between the two plans is that Project Rudy preserves more of the existing structure of the four power conferences and focuses mainly on those 70 schools, while the CSFL’s 136-program plan puts everybody in the Football Bowl Subdivision under one umbrella organization.
The Big Ten and SEC have shown no interest in the CSFL because why would they give up the power? Sankey came as close as he can to channeling rap superstar Kendrick Lamar last week when he was asked about the CSFL proposal during an appearance on the “Triple Option” podcast, with former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer. Sankey’s message: The ACC, Big 12 and the rest of the conferences that play major college football, they’re not like us.
“I don’t want to dumb down the Southeastern Conference to be a part of some super league notion with 70 teams that some people speculate would happen,” Sankey said. “They want to be us, and that’s on them to figure it out, not on me to bring myself back to earth.”
Sankey has also made clear his skepticism about private equity encroaching on college sports.
“I’ve been interested in some of these (college football) league ideas that are generated out of Manhattan, as I see it,” Sankey said at SEC spring meetings. “Never mention academics in their pitch deck. It’s fascinating. Never once say anything about a young person’s education. Not a lot of evaluation about who benefits from this participation, about the level of control that’s ceded by public universities to private equity.”
Sankey has this go-to line he uses when talking about the SEC’s role in ensuring the health of big-time college sports and embracing a big-tent approach to Division I athletics in general, not just football. He will pause slightly and stress the final t in tent, so as to not be misheard saying he’s in favor of embracing a “Big Ten” approach.
It’s his playful way of getting across that the SEC sets its own agenda.
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But over the last year, the two conferences have been drawn together, in part because Petitti, unlike his predecessor, Kevin Warren, has a good relationship with Sankey.
That alignment — please don’t call it an alliance — led to the Big Ten and SEC grabbing nearly 60 percent of the annual revenue from the six-year, $1.3 billion deal that kicks in in 2026.
At the meeting Thursday with the commissioners and athletic directors, the conferences will circle back on pushing for multiple automatic bids to the CFP while also considering expanding the number of regular-season and postseason games they play against each other.
Simply put, the Big Ten and SEC are the rising tide of college football, and they are tired of lifting other conferences’ boats.
Top college football audiences for Week 6:
Tennessee-Arkansas: ABC: 5.3 million viewers
Auburn-UGA: ABC: 4.9M
Iowa-Ohio State: CBS: 4.5M
Michigan-Washington: NBC: 4.4M
Mizzou-Texas A&M: ABC: 3.3M
Michigan State-Oregon: Fox: 2.8M
UCLA-Penn State: Fox: 2.75M
Miami-Cal: ESPN: 1.9M— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) October 8, 2024
Bevilacqua thinks that’s short-sighted and underestimates the value of a big-tent version of college football. How many more fan bases can be marginalized the way Washington State and Oregon State were through the demise of the Pac-12 before the entire enterprise is dragged down?
“You, the SEC and the Big Ten, can be the big fish in a small pond or you can be the biggest fish in a much bigger pond,” Bevilacqua said.
He used the professional sports leagues as an example in which the biggest brands, such as the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees, are not dragged down by operating within a system that promotes competitive balance and sharing some of the wealth.
Of course, the most popular professional sports leagues in the United States all have only about 30 teams. The SEC and Big Ten are currently composed of 34 schools.
So why would the SEC or Big Ten ever join a super league when they can just be the super league?
Former Fox Sports executive Bob Thompson’s vision for a super league is not an expansion of conferences, but rather the biggest brands being lured from their leagues. It would be Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and others at the top of the Big Ten, leaving Purdue, Northwestern, Rutgers and others deemed takers not makers behind. Same goes in the SEC. And it’s not just Vanderbilt that would have to watch its back.
“Unless you could somehow find a way to invent more days of the week, you don’t need any more Big Ten or SEC games. You need better Big Ten and SEC games,” Thompson said in August.
The Big Ten and SEC are only as strong as the loyalty of their most powerful members.
Right now, that puts them in control of college football’s future. Until that is threatened, don’t expect them to relinquish it.
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
