The Rich Get Richer, College Edition

As college athletics trundle blindfolded and barefoot through the furniture-filled, Lego-littered room of athlete empowerment and conference upheaval, questions often arise. Among them: Will major college sports look different? And, Is it really all about money? 

The answers, respectively, are ‘yes’ and ‘hell yes.’ The next installment of oversized collectives and “Our team has to go where?” commences in the fall when the two alphas – the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences – and the mid-alphabet, reactionary Big 12 and Atlantic Coast conferences re-open for business. The majority of Division I programs will see little difference in how they conduct their affairs, except as witnesses to the yawning financial disparities in the system. 

The latest example comes in the form of the College Football Playoff, which expands to 12 teams next season and whose rewards and payouts are heavily tilted toward the SEC and Big Ten. College snoop Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports dropped a well sourced, deep dive into the origins of the new playoff structure. Read it for yourself, but a couple of key takeaways are that the arrangement might not have been so one-sided had all parties been able to agree on a playoff format as recently as a couple of years ago, and the SEC and Big Ten went full brinksmanship and aren’t shy about displaying who’s in charge. 

Did I include this image of Greg
Sankey and Ted Cruz to damn by
association? Hard to say.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said that his conference would have walked away from the playoff and figured out something on its own. “When we ended that set of meetings in January 2022 without a decision, I was clear: If you are going to walk away from this opportunity, we are going to reevaluate our position on format, revenue sharing and governance,” he said in Dellenger’s piece. Tony Petitti, commissioner of the Big Ten, said that “if we couldn’t craft a deal, we’d look at other options. We would have started over. Without seeing better alignment, we weren’t going to sign. We were 100 percent confident and made it clear that we were only going to do a deal that worked for us.” 

The Big Ten and SEC already distance themselves financially from the rest of Division I due to their massive football TV contracts. Both are expected to distribute in the neighborhood of $70 million annually to each member school going forward. The ACC and Big 12 will pay out approximately $40-45 million annually to their schools, under terms of their own TV contracts. Now add the new playoff deal, which will pay out an average of about $1.3 billion per year for six years. The SEC and Big Ten each will receive 29 percent of the revenue, the ACC 17.1 percent, and the Big 12 14.7 percent. Notre Dame will receive one percent, and the 64 schools in the so-called Group of Five will split the remaining nine percent, with a few extra nuggets and sweeteners thrown in. 

In terms of actual dollars, SEC and Big Ten schools will receive more than $20 million apiece, while ACC and Big 12 schools get $10-12 million each. Totaling it up, the discrepancy between the Big Two and the second two grows from $30-35 million per year to between $40 and $50 million annually. My public school arithmetic skills suggest that means a $200 million gap between first- and second-tier athletic departments inside five years. 

The Big Ten and SEC Bigfooted the discussions a) because they reasoned that they were the most successful participants in the playoff historically and brought more value to the table, and b) because they could. Sankey even disclosed that the 29 percent figure in the new deal was a compromise, that the initial proposal was an even greater cut but came down as part of negotiations. That, boys and girls, is leverage. 

In any case, upper tier college football will begin to look more like European pro soccer and the English Premier League, excepting things such as relegation and stoppage time and foreign financing – for now, anyway. Everybody’s playing the same game, but there are a handful of deep-pocketed franchises that can afford the best players, the best facilities and simply outspend the competition. It’s already that way to an extent, but the funding gap will make it even more pronounced. 

The SEC and Big Ten also reason that they and their schools need more money because their expenses will be greater. Travel ain’t cheap when your league stretches from New Jersey to southern California and the Pacific Northwest, or from central Florida to Oklahoma. Though the newly constituted Big 12 and ACC say: Tell me about it. 

The greatest expense, however, will be athlete compensation and whatever form that takes. Toward that end, the SEC and Big Ten have begun preliminary research into areas such as collective bargaining and athletes-as-employee status. Many figure that’s how it will play out in the effort to avoid out-and-out bidding wars, to get a handle on costs, and to produce something resembling consistent spread sheets in the event that private equity firms want to partner up with leagues or schools. What, you thought hedge funds and the mega-wealthy wouldn’t be interested in eight- and nine-figure revenue streams because the company letterhead is attached to college sports? You thought that college presidents and governing boards would decline access to that kind of cash, given those groups' possible mercenary practices? You’re new around here, aren’t you? 

Bemoan the fact that money has forever changed the college athletics that we grew up with and get all misty about. Though it’s worth noting that the old system was a charade in many ways – an underground economy hidden behind the mantel of amateurism and the glow of youth. Nine- and ten-figure deals disrupted and distended the system but also brought the entire enterprise into the light and revealed actions and motives. Most important, it gave the primary participants, athletes, additional freedom and a long overdue cut, as the old structure was both unfair and, as courts have repeatedly ruled of late, illegal. Change is afoot, and if we don’t know about the how, at least we have a pretty good idea about the why.

Michigan, Man

This is a post in the form of a question. Or maybe vice versa. Either way, it’s something I’ve mulled for a few days. In the drama concerning sign-stealing by University of Michigan football, the outing of an over-enthusiastic minion with an expense account, and head coach Jim Harbaugh’s suspension by the Big Ten Conference, why is this anything other than a high-profile case of workplace discipline? 

We’ve been subjected to varying degrees of outrage, calls for stricter or lesser punishment depending on rooting interest, and peeks behind the curtain related to sportsmanship and coaching practices. We’ve heard endless yammering about due process and legal challenges and NCAA overreach and temporary injunctions – a sampling of the elements that make sports a magical draw for so many. The fact that it’s major-college, high-dollar athletics adds layers of passion and gasbaggery beyond reasonable measure. 

Harbaugh sat out the first game of his three-game suspension last Saturday at Penn State when Michigan Big Hats were unable to arrange an immediate hearing in hopes of getting the punishment overturned or at least delayed. The Wolverines dedicated their performance to their absent leader and afterward some reacted as if Harbaugh had perished while rescuing nuns from a burning convent. 

Harbaugh remains with the program each week. He is barred from the stadium for four hours during the final three regular season games, the last of which is the annual blood feud versus Ohio State. He returns to the sideline if the Wolverines make the Big Ten championship game and the College Football Playoff. 

This has been characterized as “unfair” and “extreme” and as much as “irreparable harm” by the Maize and Blue crowd, while others think the punishment insufficient for the transgression revealed. A hearing is scheduled Friday, which figures to be at least a one-ring circus, particularly if Harbaugh testifies. But again, if I may, isn’t it within the Big Ten’s purview to impose discipline or punish people and institutions as it sees fit? 

It’s not as cut-and-dried as some perceived offense at Microsoft or McDonald’s and granted, Harbaugh isn’t an “employee” of the Big Ten. He’s employed by Michigan. Which agrees to certain guidelines and conditions as a member of the conference, one being ‘don’t play us and make us look like feebs.’  

Attorneys both credentialed and armchair have gone all pro bono and talked up the points of lack of due process and fair practices in the Big Ten’s suspension. But this isn’t a criminal case. Heck, it’s barely an NCAA case at this point, only the notice of an investigation and some preliminary findings. This situation strikes less as due process and more about the expectation that the Big Ten should cut the membership some slack. 

Part of Michigan’s defense is: everybody does it, an extension of the old NASCAR credo, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.” It seems that many programs do indeed attempt to steal signs, but using electronics to relay signals to coaches and players is forbidden, and in-person scouting and attempted sign-stealing has been an NCAA violation since 1994. 

Another component is that Harbaugh himself supposedly was unaware of the assistant’s sign-stealing M.O., his visits to various stadia and upcoming opponents to videotape their sidelines. The Big Ten looked at the preponderance of examples of the assistant, Connor Stalions, purchasing tickets at different venues and cozying up to Wolverines’ coordinators and determined that the practice was ongoing and systemic. That other Big Ten schools called out Michigan for its sign stealing methods didn’t bolster its defense. 

The Big Ten stopped short of saying Harbaugh knew, though someone who famously micro-manages his program being completely unaware over an extended period stretches credibility. The conference was careful to say that it was punishing Michigan and not Harbaugh. Jumping ugly on an expendable second-tier assistant coach wasn’t sufficient, however, hence the call to suspend the CEO. 

Certainly, it may be ham-handed or poor timing or hastily considered, or all the above. It hardly needs pointing out that corporations and governing bodies are as entitled to questionable decisions as those they oversee, and they happen to wield the hammer (Here I should point out that I welcome the G:TB Legal Dept., or those in the audience who aren’t self-employed, weighing in to tell me if I’m missing something). 

Michigan’s athletic director was predictably huffy after the suspension, saying in effect: “You’re happy that they banged us? That just means they can come for you, too.” A mite short on the contrition scale, and unfortunately permits them to focus on the process and punishment, and not the violation. No telling what will come from Friday’s hearing. Regardless, the Big Ten offices will want to scrutinize incoming holiday packages. Food tasters may not be a bad idea, either.

College Breakups and Shakeups

The gladiatorial pit with suits that passes for major college athletics has been quite active this summer. In the past month we’ve seen the implosion of a hundred-year-old conference, membership raids, geographic insanity, posturing and threats from within leagues, forecasts of doom, and pleas for national oversight. And that doesn’t even touch on the pie fight between the NCAA and Jim Harbaugh. 

At last count, the Pac-12 Conference was getting affairs in order in advance of last rites. The Big Ten is at 14 schools on the way to 18 and will stretch from New Jersey to Los Angeles and Seattle. The Big 12 is up to 11 schools, headed for 14, and will run from Florida to Ohio to Utah and Arizona. Two of the primo academic and athletic institutions in the nation, Stanford and Cal-Berkeley, are soon to be homeless, though there’s a case to be made that the ACC should partake of the geographic mad-libs and welcome both. 

Of course, all of this is tied to feeding troughs, specifically TV money and revenue distribution from each league’s respective broadcast contracts. The Big Ten and Southeastern Conference are by far the wealthiest leagues. In 2021-22, the most recent year records are available, the Big Ten disbursed $58.8 million to each member school athletic department – several million less to new-ish members Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland. The SEC distributed $49.9 million per school. Both numbers are expected to mushroom as the Big Ten adds Southern Cal and UCLA, while the SEC adds Texas and Oklahoma, and both conferences have new TV contracts in the next couple of years. Meanwhile, the ACC distributed approximately $39.4 million per school. That number will increase, but only incrementally, and the league’s present TV deal runs through 2035-36. The Big 12 distributed between $42-44.9 million to its members in 2022, though that number is likely to be diluted as the league adds BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston for the coming year and several Pac-12 refugees ahead. 

Unlike the other three conferences, the B12 does not have its own dedicated TV network. That revenue gap is untenable, say a handful of schools not in the Big Ten or SEC, and will make it increasingly difficult to compete for championships. Though I’d argue that supposedly “underfunded” Clemson and Florida State remain a heck of a lot closer to competing for football championships than Indiana and Mississippi State, no matter how much more money the latter bring in. 

Revenue uncertainty and the widening gap prompted the current round of realignment. The Pac-12, by most accounts, botched its broadcast negotiations and network distribution and whatever plans existed in swift and stunning fashion. A buddy and former newspaper colleague opined that the Pac-12’s demise will be studied in business classes and have books written about it. Colorado began the exodus, opting for the Big 12. The Big Ten, eschewing collegiality and tradition, then poached Washington and Oregon. Smelling blood, the Big 12 threw lifelines to Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. Suddenly, the Pac-12 was down to four, and whatever collective comes next is anyone’s guess. 

The SEC remained on the sidelines this go ‘round, with Texas and Oklahoma in the bullpen that brings membership to 16, but rest assured its accounting beavers are busily vetting and parsing myriad expansion combinations as the Big Hats contemplate their portion of world domination. 

Which brings us to the ACC. There’s been no movement, but plenty of noise and smoke. Florida State, notably, is and has been the whiniest kid in the playpen. The Seminoles have believed for years that they and their football program haven’t been sufficiently rewarded for carrying water for the conference, that their accomplishments and profile merit a larger piece of the revenue pie. 

To be fair, several schools have proposed some kind of performance-based revenue sharing plan (the ACC presently distributes equal shares to all members, save Notre Dame because of its football independence). ACC brass hasn’t signed off on a tiered distribution plan, but will implement a so-called “success initiative” for football and men’s hoops – extra millions here and there for good work. That doesn’t mollify the Seminoles, whose prez said earlier this month that the school would have to seriously consider leaving the ACC without revenue overhaul, to a chorus of ‘amens’ and tough talk from the Board of Trustees. 

The proper response is: and go where? The Seminoles fancy themselves a national brand attractive to all, but they bring nothing to the SEC that the conference doesn’t already possess. Also, folks in Gainesville might like a word about the prospect of elevating a state rival with no commensurate value. The Big Ten may want a presence in Florida, but it’s about to be an 18-team, coast-to-coast conference and likely wants to acclimate to its new footprint. In addition, Big Ten schools take their academic chops seriously (most are certified members of the American Association of Universities, which signifies lofty research and innovation tracks), and FSU is not credentialed within that group. The Big 12 would be a lateral move, at best, and likely a step down in terms of revenue distribution, given its own expansion. 

And then there’s the cost of departure from the ACC. The exit fee is three times the average annual distribution, so three years at $40 million per is $120 million. Schools also signed off on something called Grant of Rights, which transfers a school’s media rights to the league. That agreement runs the length of the TV deal, through 2036. All told, bolting the ACC would cost north of $500 million. Unless the Saudis decide that American college football would be a swell complement to professional golf and soccer, and a school located within shouting distance of the Redneck Riviera would be a dandy cornerstone, Florida State is going nowhere. 

Florida State’s lawyers have studied the Grant of Rights for loopholes, as have other ACC schools, as everyone attempts to read the tea leaves and gird for what’s next. Short of a mass walkout, highly unlikely bordering on reckless, the league will remain intact for the foreseeable future. It’s the “foreseeable” part that’s the mystery. 

Enter Stanford and Cal Berkeley and SMU, objects of recent expansion discussion by ACC officials. The two California schools will soon need a home and would like to remain power conference competitors, while SMU has had its nose pressed against the major conference football window for years. 

Geographically, none of the three make an ounce of sense in the ACC. But the good sense ship sailed long ago. It’s about conference viability and money. Each new member means an additional year’s revenue payout, according to the TV contract. The ACC Network suddenly has footholds in California and Texas, which will bring in additional revenue, depending on ESPN’s negotiations with providers in those states. The new members won’t receive full shares of annual payouts for several years, and SMU, with its deep-pocketed donor base, reportedly offered to take zero conference money for at least five years. All of that could add up to as much as $200 million extra for the league over a number of years, money that might translate to several million per school each year or be funneled into the success initiative. 

According to multiple reports, the ACC fell one vote shy of the 75 percent (12 of 15) required for expansion, though discussions remain ongoing. Reasons for the rejection are unclear, sitting somewhere between geography and travel concerns, and more selfish motives that may allow more flexibility for the next round of realignment. Among the arguments by expansion proponents is “safety in numbers” – that the larger and more stable the conference is, the better positioned it will be if or when the next shakeup occurs. A stronger safety net for the Wake Forests, Boston Colleges and Georgia Techs and less attractive expansion targets. ACC Commish Jim Phillips, among others, has taken the position that, while they don’t distribute Big Ten or SEC money, there’s nothing wrong with being No. 3, and it can’t be all about accounting. 

If nothing else, this summer has further confirmed the hypocrisy that major college athletics is an “amateur” endeavor and that athlete welfare is a priority. It’s a cash grab that will see more kids traveling across multiple time zones to compete. The solution is as simple as it will be difficult to execute. As others have suggested, top shelf football needs to separate from the overall college athletic model. It needs its own governance, its own TV negotiations and contracts, its own scheduling. Smart money points to a future model comprised of a super league or two, and the top 50 or so programs, with everyone else finding their own level. 

We’re already part way there with the SEC and Big Ten. If they want to play coast-to-coast, big-boy football and the money’s there (which it apparently is), go for it. But don’t drag the rest of the athletic department along. Permit the other sports to play more regional and reasonable schedules. That’s liable to be a hard ask for athletic directors and school prezes and conference commissioners, to cede some level of control over their biggest moneymaker. It won’t fix college athletics, but it might restore a sliver of sanity. These days, that may be the most we can hope for.