In An Eat Or Be Eaten World, the SEC Sits At the Head Of the College Sports Table

The SEC currently sits as the purveyor and head of college football. Photo Provided by SEC

“Species keep on evolving or changing with time. As the environment changes, the requirements of an organism also change and they adapt to the new environment. This phenomenon of changing over a period of time as per the natural requirements is called adaptation.” – Charles Darwin

This theory of natural selection has become better known by the phrase only the strong survive. In the evolution of the English language, that phrase has been redefined by the Urban Dictionary to mean eat or be eaten. Essentially, that’s what is going on with the Southeastern Conference, which rubber stamped an invitation for Texas and Oklahoma to join the league by a 14-0 vote on Thursday. Rather than wait for one of the other power conferences to make the first survival move in these times when many Division I schools struggle to make ends meet, the strongest conference has taken the initiative to become the ultimate carnivore.

Nobody, but nobody will eat the SEC, at least not as long as Greg Sankey has anything to do with it.

Naysayers and critics alike have spent the past week vilifying Texas and Oklahoma for looking out for their own interests while torching the SEC for its willingness to expand at the expense of its not so wealthy Big 12 Conference brethren. But should Texas and Oklahoma stay tethered to a league that does little to enhance their national brands or secure the long term financial health of their athletic departments? Should the SEC say no when two of the biggest names in all of college sports – owners of 11 national championships in football – state their intent to defect from the Big 12 to join the nation’s most stable, best-run conference?

The answer to both questions is a loud and resounding no.

A number of sports economists who have crunched the Big 12 numbers contend that the value of Texas and Oklahoma to the Big 12 is $29 million of the $38 million the Big 12 distributed to its 10 member schools earlier in the year. The Big 12 media rights contracts with ESPN and Fox are set to expire in 2025 and there has been no willingness on the part of either network to negotiate a new deal. Given the choice of playing wait and see at a time when both had to make serious cuts in their athletic budgets due to the effects of COVID-19, Texas and Oklahoma reached out to the SEC, whose new 10-year deal with ESPN that begins in 2024 is valued at $300 million a year.

Greg Sankey, pictured, is leading the SEC to lead college football. Photo provided by SEC

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey could have dismissed Texas and Oklahoma but it’s his job to do what’s best for the Southeastern Conference even if the Big 12 will be irreparably damaged by the defections. It was not Sankey’s job to ask permission of Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby if he could talk to Texas and Oklahoma after they approached him in confidence, nor is it Sankey’s job to keep the Good Ship Big 12 from taking on water in troubling times. Sankey’s job is to put the SEC in the best possible position to succeed, which is exactly what he has done.

Once Texas and Oklahoma made their intentions clear, Sankey went to the presidents and athletic directors at the 14 SEC schools. While it’s unclear if ESPN was engaged directly in any of the expansion discussion, things could not have proceeded unless the SEC knew the network was amenable to expanding behind a contract that accommodates 14 schools. Sankey couldn’t have moved forward with Texas and Oklahoma without knowing he had a network capable of adjusting its contract and the necessary votes since three negatives would have torpedoed a deal. Even before the expansion story was conveniently leaked at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, Sankey knew he had everything to make this happen.

The only thing left was the formal vote which took place Thursday. From a purely economic standpoint, the already rich Southeastern Conference will get richer. From an athletic standpoint, the league will be the most powerful in all of college sports. In an eat or be eaten world, the SEC sits at the head of the table.

That Texas and Oklahoma are leaving the Big 12 is more than an exit. It’s a divorce and a bitter one at that. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby is an angry man as well he should be. His league is in danger of falling completely apart and there is no combination of teams the Big 12 could add that could lessen the economic impact. There is no way Bowlsby can prevent Texas and Oklahoma from walking out but he can try to slow down the exit and make it as financially difficult as possible, which seems to be his mindset at the moment.

Thursday, Bowlsby filed a cease and desist letter to ESPN, claiming the network is attempting “to not only harm the Big 12 Conference but to result in financial benefits for ESPN.” Bowlsby told the Associated Press, “I have absolute certainty that they (ESPN) have been involved in manipulating other conferences to go after our members.”

Will Bowlsby bring legal action against ESPN? If he does and wins he might bring in a few hundred million dollars, but win or lose will it help him gain a favorable media rights contract for whatever form the Big 12 takes in the future?

Following the announcement by the Southeastern Conference that it has formally invited Texas and Oklahoma to join, Bowlsby vowed to make Texas and Oklahoma fulfill their obligations to the Big 12 until the media rights contract runs out in 2025. In a statement released to the press, Bowlsby said:

“Today’s SEC announcement reaffirms that these plans have been in the works with ongoing discussions between the parties and television partner for some time. We are disappointed these discussions went as far as they did without notice to, or inclusion of, other Big 12 members. Despite our concerns for the process and for the overall health of college athletics, we will do everything possible to make sure that the student-athletes at both universities enjoy an excellent experience throughout the remaining participation and competition in the Big 12 Conference.”

It sounds good on paper and probably to the ears of the eight jilted schools whose options are limited, but is it what is best for the long-term future of the league? Divorce has made Bowlsby the angriest man in college sports, but it is still his job to do what is best for the Big 12 and hanging on to Texas and Oklahoma might not be the smart thing to do. For every year beyond 2021 that Texas and Oklahoma are part of the Big 12, Bowlsby loses whatever leverage he has to save the league from extinction. The Big 12 is granted autonomy as a power league by the NCAA for as long as it is a viable conference so it’s in Bowlsby’s best interests to find a number of cooperative schools to partner with whatever is left of the Big 12. Schools in the American Athletic Conference or the Mountain West that toil in relative obscurity will certainly have to consider the advantages that membership in a power league gives them. Boise State or Cincinnati might not bring anything close to the sex appeal or television market share of Texas and Oklahoma, but they have a far better chance of making the College Football Playoff as a member of a power conference than they do in the Group of Five.

Additionally, the longer Bowlsby waits to finalize the divorce the more likely it is that the Big 12 will shrink even further. Kansas and Iowa State have appeal to the Big Ten, Kansas as a basketball blue blood and Iowa State as an up-and-coming football power. Both are members of the prestigious Association of American Universities which means they fit the Big Ten academic model. In the event the Atlantic Coast Conference elects to expand, West Virginia fits that geographic footprint. If he’s down to five schools, Bowlsby’s best option may be to facilitate a merger with the 11 schools of the American Athletic Conference. That’s not sexy, but a league that has markets in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Memphis, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Washington D.C. and Florida’s I-4 corridor should be able to sell a decent television package albeit one that won’t generate nearly the same amount of income as the current deal with ESPN and Fox.

The Pac-12 could throw a wrench into Big 12 plans to remain autonomous by expanding to add Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU and Oklahoma State. Those four might find the option of going west as members of an existing power league superior to a conference that will have to poach schools from the Group of Five to stay afloat. Not only would adding Big 12 schools put the Pac-12 in the Central Time Zone but it would give the league a foothold in Texas, the nation’s second most populous (30 million+) state. At this moment, it seems the Pac-12 would prefer to remain at 12 teams rather than expand by adding independent BYU along with Boise State, San Diego State and UNLV from the Mountain West.

New ACC commissioner Jim Phillips is openly courting Notre Dame, already a member of the league in everything but football. Adding the Irish would make the most economic sense for the ACC although it would still trail the SEC in yearly distributed revenue by at least $20-25 million per school. Unless Notre Dame feels its chances of making an expanded College Football Playoff are diminished as an independent by SEC expansion, no changes in status should be expected. A smart move on Phillips’ part might be to invite West Virginia and UConn, which would pretty much bring back the old Big East football conference since Miami, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Louisville and Boston College are already in the ACC. West Virginia would crawl backwards to join the ACC. If UConn intends to save its football program from extinction, it should also crawl backwards to join if the ACC comes calling.

None of these potential moves by the Big 12, Big Ten, ACC or Pac-12 will have any impact on the SEC. For all the talk of Bowlsby that the Big 12 will try to force Texas and Oklahoma to remain in the league until the media contract ends in 2025, the money he could exact from a divorce settlement (estimated at $76 million each) could help the schools that remain in the league or be used to help new schools divorce their current leagues for the purpose of joining the Big 12.

Thursday night, new Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff suggested tapping the brakes on expanding the College Football Playoff because the SEC is expanding. Each of the power conferences pulls in $66 million a year from the current CFB with an additional $6 million paid for each of its teams making the Final Four and $4 million for each school that gets into a New Year’s Six bowl. Estimates are that a 12-team College Football Playoff will generate as much as $2 billion a year in television revenues, which could triple the Pac-12 share of the CFP revenue. So, Kliavkoff’s suggestion probably should be taken with the same grain as Bowlsby’s threat to make Texas and Oklahoma stick it out in the Big 12 for four more years. Kliavkoff can’t afford to halt CFP expansion since his league is a relative pauper among the power conferences. Likewise, Bowlsby needs the Big 12 to survive as a power league so it can pick up its share of the expanded CFP revenue.

In the SEC, it just means more...money. Photo provided by SEC

Money talks and at a time when every school in the country took a serious financial hit because of the global pandemic, talk of halting the playoff or exacting revenge on Texas and Oklahoma is all posturing. Nothing more. Meanwhile, Greg Sankey has the Southeastern Conference in a rather enviable position of strength. Despite rumors to the contrary, there is no need to further expand the SEC beyond 16 teams. For one thing, there is only so much money to go around and expanding beyond 16 teams will not guarantee the revenues increase substantially.

There is also the matter of scheduling and a 16-team league divided into four 4-team pods provides the perfect scheduling solution since it ensures that all 16 teams will play each other home and home at least once every four years. Just the scheduling alone should help increase the league’s yearly revenue distribution to $70 million or more because better football games mean more money coming in.

Darwin theorized that only those within a species that are strong enough to adapt will survive. In the species that is college athletics, Greg Sankey and the SEC are the strongest and the most adaptable. Therefore, they will not only survive, but they will thrive financially.

Once again, Sankey has proven that whatever the SEC is paying him, he’s cheap at three times the price. He is the most powerful voice in all of college athletics because he thinks years ahead of his peers and is able to implement his plans successfully even on short notice such as last year’s salvaging a football season that nearly every expert was writing off. Sankey is a genius, a Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome while the rest of college sports administrators are painting stick figures on the walls of caves. Adding Texas and Oklahoma not only gives the SEC two national brands with enormous followings but ensures that everyone else in college athletics will be marching to the drumbeat of the Southeastern Conference.