Texas Hold 'Em: Why The SEC Will Stay At 16 Teams

“Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand” – Luke Jackson (played by Paul Newman) after bluffing his way to winning a very large pot in a Texas hold ‘em game at a Florida road prison in the movie “Cool Hand Luke”

Now that Southern California and UCLA have defected from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten, the stakes have never been higher in this version of no limit Texas hold ‘em that is being played out for the whole collegiate athletic world to see. Four of the five commissioners of the power conferences and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick are waiting for someone to blink. The only one who isn’t sweating it out is SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. Nobody knows what his two-hole cards are and that’s what makes the other five at the table very, very nervous.

Whether he has a pair of aces that he’s not showing or something like a three and seven, Sankey and the Southeastern Conference have the very cool hand. The additions of Texas and Oklahoma – most likely sooner than later – give an SEC that is already the strongest league in the country two of the biggest and most recognizable brands in all of college sports, but especially football. He will have a 16-team league that has geographic continuity, an already large media rights contract that will be torn up and rewritten when Texas and Oklahoma join the league which will mean annual payouts of $80 million or more to each league member, and built-in rivalries that will make the SEC must-see TV every Saturday during the college football season.

At 16 teams, Sankey has the perfect scheduling model that ensures every school in the SEC will be home and home with every other school in the league at least once every four years whether it’s football, basketball or baseball. That makes for a very happy fan base and happy television executives who know there will rarely be a Saturday without multiple rivalry games that attract the viewers. The Big Ten, Pac-12, ACC and Big 12 can’t offer that.

With assets like that, Sankey doesn’t have to show his hand nor is there any reason to be nervous. He can sit tight at 16 teams and let the other conferences fight it out over who stays and who goes or even if leagues survive or die. There is only one reason for the SEC to expand. If Notre Dame decides it wants to be a member of the SEC, then Sankey will welcome the Irish into the league with open arms, at which point there will be the need to add more teams. Then and only then will the SEC think about poaching schools from the nearby ACC that make geographic sense for the league footprint. In reality, there is no other reason to add more teams to the SEC. Despite all these predictions of a super conference of 20 or 24 teams that only happens if Notre Dame makes a move to join the SEC.

Greg Sankey

Sankey can sit at the table with a straight, unrevealing face knowing he is in a win-win situation no matter what happens. That can’t be said of the other four conferences or Notre Dame, all of whom have reasons to sweat.

After losing Southern Cal and UCLA to the Big Ten, the Pac-12 is on the endangered species list, something commissioner George Kliavkoff never envisioned a month ago when he thought his alliance with the Big Ten and ACC was a united front against the big, bad SEC and that mean old Greg Sankey. Kliakoff’s league has been gutted by the two defections and now he’s forced to do whatever he can to save the Pac-12 from extinction. He essentially has only two options at his disposal, neither of which is particularly appealing or a guarantee of success: (1) Convince the remaining 10 teams in the Pac-12 to hold on while he attempts to gut the Big 12 of its six most important members; or (2) raid the Mountain West and bring in schools that have neither the preferred academic profile nor the market clout to drive a decent television contract to replace the current shoddy deal that expires after the 2023 academic year.

Option one is a Hail Mary that would require some network giving Kliavkoff a guarantee that he could sell to Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Baylor and Texas Tech. There is no reason for those schools to budge from a stable situation unless Kliavkoff can prove ahead of time that he has unmatched value. None of those teams match the TV drawing power of Southern Cal or UCLA on the football field, but it would give the league a footprint in Texas, the nation’s second largest state, while adding basketball powerhouses Kansas and Baylor, which have won the last two NCAA championships. The odds that Kliavkoff could pull this off aren’t very good but right now it seems to be the most lucrative possibility.

Option two would kick in only if the Big 12 rejected invitations to join a left coast league. It would involve the Pac-12 cherry picking the Mountain West. San Diego State would be a must as would UNLV. If he wanted a 16-team league, Kliavkoff would have to add Air Force, Boise State, Fresno State and Colorado State. Of those six schools, only Air Force moves the academic needle. None of them bring anything to the table as far as television ratings nor do any of them strengthen the league substantially when it comes to football or basketball. A TV deal could be had, but it would be one that would ensure the Pac-12 is the pauper among the power conferences.

When you think Pac-12, think of a league that is hooked up to respirators. There is every good chance the plugs are going to be pulled and the respirators turned off.

The ACC is sweating because it is hogtied to a rotten TV deal that won’t expire until 2036 and one that ESPN won’t re-negotiate unless Notre Dame elects to join the ACC. What should frighten ACC commissioner Jim Phillips and his member institutions the most is that SEC bottom feeder Vanderbilt is likely to be earning $50 million more from its SEC deal than two-time national champ Clemson will from its yearly ACC payout. How long before Clemson, which has won two national championships in football and has a truly SEC atmosphere at Death Valley, hires some hotshot lawyer to poke holes in the league’s buyout and grant of rights agreements so it can defect? How long before Florida State and Miami do the same thing because they’re falling $50 million a year behind their cousins in Gainesville?

Those problems would likely be solved if Notre Dame would join the ACC and it would be such a natural move for the Irish, who are ACC members in all sports except football (independent) and ice hockey (Big Ten). Notre Dame to the ACC wouldn’t create an SEC-level contract the re-negotiated deal with ESPN would almost certainly bump the yearly payout to something like $50-60 million. That would likely satisfy the likes of Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech and North Carolina and convince them to remain in the ACC.

Of course, this hinges on Notre Dame joining the ACC and right now Swarbrick and the Irish are committed to remain independent. To avoid joining any league, Notre Dame will have to command a contract from NBC, CBS or a streaming service such as Amazon or Apple that would pay something like $50-60 million a year. With a contract like that, Notre Dame would be able to reject the overtures that are sure to come from the Big Ten and the ACC.

Currently, Notre Dame pulls in around $25-30 million a year from NBC and the ACC. The Irish pick up about $14-15 million from NBC for broadcast rights to every home Notre Dame football game and anywhere from $10-15 million from the ACC, which is guaranteed five games with the Irish every year. That deal expires in 2025 and it’s a well-known fact that Notre Dame is already shopping for a deal that will make the current rights deal with NBC obsolete. The Notre Dame brand is strong so there is confidence that a deal will be struck, enabling the Irish to remain independent. But, if there is no deal to be had, the Irish will be forced to join a league.

The Big Ten will offer a much larger paycheck plus the Notre Dame campus is four hours or less from the campuses of Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Northwestern and Illinois. Joining the Big Ten will keep the long-standing rivalry with Southern Cal intact as well as Stanford, if Stanford is invited to join the Big Ten, which seems likely. Joining the Big Ten would also mean Notre Dame is subjected to accept Kevin Warren as it’s boss and that might be an unacceptable proposal.

If Notre Dame were to join the ACC, even with a re-negotiated media deal, the payout wouldn’t be nearly what the Big Ten or the Southeastern Conference could offer but the path to an expanded College Football Playoff would be far easier. Lest we forget, when Florida State was offered membership in the SEC in 1992, the choice was the ACC because the pathway to national championships was easier. Here we are 30 years later, and if the Irish believe they are pushed into a conference membership corner the ACC will definitely offer the path of least resistance to the playoff.

It should be noted that SEC membership is an option for Notre Dame although Sankey and the SEC won’t push for it. If it’s membership in the SEC Notre Dame wants, it will have to be on its own volition. Sankey is fully supportive of Notre Dame’s desire to stay independent so there will be no pressure from Birmingham to join a league.

While it is true that Notre Dame basically has four options available, independence is the preference and conference membership is only if the Irish can’t land a vastly improved media deal. So, even though there are options, Notre Dame has reason to sweat until the ink dries on a new media contract that keeps the Irish competitive.

The Big Ten has options, too, but its paths up ahead aren’t without major speed bumps. Right now, the league is on hold at 16 teams after the acceptance of UCLA and Southern Cal but there is no doubt there are plans to expand further and that starts with Notre Dame.

The Big Ten has made no secret that it wants to add Notre Dame, but Notre Dame has had chances to join more than once (1990 and 1999 most recently) and each time it has chosen to remain independent. Additionally, the folks in South Bend have never forgotten how Notre Dame was denied membership in the Big Ten once around 1911 and the other time in 1930. Both times Michigan was the road block.

While the Big Ten sweats Notre Dame’s decision it has to balance that with the possibility of Oregon, Washington, Stanford and California growing impatient for an invitation to join the Big Ten. By adding those four schools, the Big Ten would offer some geographic balance and logistical relief to the two LA-based schools. What happens if Notre Dame elects to join? The Big Ten would have to add teams because it couldn’t exist as a 17-team league. Would it stop at three more – say Oregon, Washington and Stanford – or would it be necessary to expand the league to 24 teams? Further expansion is a problem whether it’s to 20 teams or 24.

If Notre Dame rejects the Big Ten bid, the Big Ten may feel the necessity to expand further but further expansion means more problems as well as the public perception that the Big Ten is so greedy that it is willing to completely destroy another power conference that just a month ago was thought to be in lockstep. It’s one thing for the SEC to expand by adding Texas and Oklahoma since they fit both the geographic footprint and all-sports strength of the SEC. Expanding to the left coast is a nightmare scenario any way you look at it and despite adding markets in California, viewers are going to watch the best games. Those will be in the SEC. Southern Cal and UCLA don’t move the television needle sharply in the Big Ten’s direction.

The Big 12 basically has only one worry and that is if six of its schools get poached by the Pac-12. Now, odds are that this won’t happen, but until a few more dominoes fall, new Big 12 commisioner Brett Yormac will be sweating the next move. Yormac made it perfectly clear at Big 12 media days earlier in the week that the league will take a deal that will allow Texas and Oklahoma to leave for the SEC after the 2023 season. Of course, such a move isn’t without some sort of payback for the generosity, most likely a $100 million (or more) ransom exacted from the two schools, the SEC and ESPN and assurance by ESPN of a new television contract. Now, the new deal won’t entail SEC or Big Ten money, but it will be more than Big 12 schools are currently paid (a little less than $40 million) and it might be enough that four or more Pac-12 schools offer their services.

Yormac can elect to stay put at 12 teams in a newly constituted Big 12 that won’t be all that bad in football with the additions of BYU, Houston, UCF and Cincinnati, and will be the best basketball league in the country. Kansas and Baylor have won the last two national titles while Houston and Texas Tech have both made the Final Four in the last three years. A 12-team Big 12 with TV markets in all the major cities in Texas, plus Kansas City, Orlando and Cincinnati will have some clout.

There is no urgency for the Big 12 to expand so Yormac can afford to wait for the shoe to drop on the Pac-12. Kliavkoff is trying to negotiate a media deal but there is reason to believe he won’t come up with anything decent, therefore defections will be in the cards and the Pac-12’s four southern schools may have one foot out the door already. If Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado offered their services to the Big 12 it is a virtual certainty they would be accepted with open arms because it would mean the league gains the Phoenix, Tucson and Denver television markets. With 16 teams Yormac would have an ideal scheduling arrangement.

Whereas the Big 12 can afford to remain patient and wait for the Pac-12 to implode, it still has to sweat out the possibility of losing six teams in the unlikely event the Pac-12 does come up with a decent media deal. Of course, the Big 12 may have a decent deal in hand by then so anything Kliavkoff could come up with might be dead on arrival

So, everyone seated at this high stakes Texas hold ‘em table has reason to sweat. That is, everybody but Greg Sankey. He has an ideal situation of a 16-team league that has won 13 of the last 17 national championships in football, a league whose Saturday games will easily be the most viewed in the country. All the SEC schools will be making plenty of money, too, so there is no financial incentive to add more teams. Notre Dame is the only team that moves the TV needle but Sankey is committed to help the Irish remain independent, therefore no need to expand. Even if the Big Ten expands to 20 or 24 teams, the SEC will remain the most powerful brand in all of college sports and that is without expanding beyond 16 teams.

Sankey can sit at the table with everybody else and wait patiently for everyone to show their cards. It doesn’t matter if he’s got aces or just a nothing hand. He’s going to win either way. Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand and Greg Sankey and the SEC are the coolest of the cool.