Bulked-up Big Ten and SEC set to dominate college football on and off the field

Faced with the prospect of dealing a potentially fatal blow to a conference it helped start more than 100 years ago, Oregon decided to leave the Pac-12 t o join the Big Ten even though that meant taking half the annual revenue payout established members receive for several years.

The Ducks really had no choice.

In the new era of college football, there are three categories: Those who are in the Big Ten or the Southeastern Conference; those pondering how to get into the Big Ten or SEC; and those wondering if they are in danger of being left behind by the Big Ten and SEC.

The days of the Power Five are over. Now, it's a Super Two.

Whether this is good for the overall health of major college athletics is uncertain. But for now, at a time when college sports has never been more volatile, the Big Ten and SEC are wealthy bastions of stability.

“An incredibly strong conference, amazing TV deals, incredible partner, certainly exciting times to be part of the Big Ten,” Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens recent said recently on the Navigating Sports Business podcast. “So lots of excitement from our student-athletes, our coaches. Our fans are thrilled.”

Superconferences

Three years of tumultuous and destructive conference realignment spawned the superconference era and there are none more powerful than the Big Ten and SEC — on the field and off.

The 18-team Big Ten now stretches from coast to coast, with the additions of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, and features four of the top 10 teams in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 college football poll, including defending national champion and No. 9 Michigan.

The SEC welcomes former Big 12 powers Texas and Oklahoma, adding two schools with a combined 11 football national championships to a conference that has won 13 titles since 2006. Four of the top six teams in the country right now are in the SEC, including No. 1 Georgia, one of nine SEC teams overall in the Top 25.

The consolidation of more of college football’s biggest brands and traditional powers took the Pac-12 out of the picture and trimmed the Power Five to four.

“I’m not sure that that’s what’s best for the health of college football nationally,” said former Fox Sports executive Bob Thompson. “Now, as a TV guy, if I’m going to pay increasing dollars, I’m going to want better match ups.”

TV dollars

As new mega media-rights deals kick in this season for the Big Ten and SEC, the revenue gap between the ACC and Big 12 will continue to grow. Those conferences have all but conceded that the competition — at least when it comes to comparing bank accounts — is for No. 3.

On the field, the SEC is unmatched. At the bank, the Big Ten actually has a slight edge. According to tax filings released in May, the Big Ten reported revenue of $879.9 million compared with $852.6 million for the SEC.

The ACC was a distant third even though it jumped from $617 million in 2021-22 to $707 million in 2022-23.

The Pac-12, which saw 10 of its 12 members disperse to other conferences this summer, generated $603.9 million. The Big 12 was fifth at $510.7 million.

The Super Two also threw their weight around in the latest negotiations for the newly expanded College Football Playoff. In the previous deal, the Power Five conferences took home about the same share of revenue from the CFP deal with ESPN.

The new CFP contract with ESPN is worth $7.8 billion through the 2031 season and the Big Ten and SEC will split close to 60% of the revenue yearly — about $21 million per school while Big 12 and ACC schools take home $12 million to $13 million per year.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti also created an advisory committee earlier this year where two conferences can work together — and without the ACC and Big 12 — on issues facing college sports. Only the Big Ten is truly in position to push back on the SEC — and vice versa — when it comes to shaping the future of college sports.

“There’s going to be checks and balances between those two because they need each other,” former Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe said.

Unrest

As the separation grows, it creates instability in the other conferences.

Florida State and Clemson have sued the ACC with an eye toward an affordable exit. FSU officials have cited the prospect of trying to keep up with Big Ten and SEC competitors with conference revenues that put the school at a $40 million per year disadvantage.

There appears to be peace and alignment in the Big 12, which adds Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah this year, but for how long?

"If Utah had a chance to go to the Big Ten tomorrow they would take it," Beebe said. “And probably every other school in conferences that are making half as much money because it’s become about money — and they’re going to have payments to make to players.”

As part of a $2.8 billion settlement of antitrusts lawsuits facing the NCAA and power conferences, the leagues have agreed to a revenue-sharing plan that would allow schools to direct about $21 million per year to athletes. The plan could be implemented as soon as next year if the settlement is approved quickly enough by a judge.

What's next?

Tensions that caused unrest in the Big 12 for years, that led to the Pac-12's break up and are currently creating angst in the ACC seem likely to find their way to the the Big Ten and SEC.

"Those that have all the gold make all the rules, right? So if I was a member of the Big Ten or SEC, I’d start looking over my shoulder and wondering: When is the day going to come when the top of the SEC is not going to want the bottom of the SEC?” Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard told reporters in May.

Thompson said he could see that day coming when the this round of TV contracts comes to an end in the early 2030s.

Instead of more expansion, think Super League, where the upper crust of the SEC and Big Ten — Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, etc. — are lured away from those conferences into a new entity that delivers nothing but the most desirable made-for-TV matchups.

“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.

For now, though, welcome to Year 1 of the Super Two.

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Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Ralph D. Russo, The Associated Press