As the CFP eyes yet another expansion, Boardroom breaks down how two football powerhouses are framing the future of football — and beyond.
Even before the College Football Playoff expanded from four to 12 teams last season, the sport’s two most influential conferences were plotting on how to use their influence to dictate college football’s future. In the 40 days since Ohio State won the CFP title game on Jan. 20, the Big 10 and the SEC have only accelerated their plans to orchestrate a power grab to bend college football to their will.
Led by SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and Big 10 Commissioner Tony Petitti, the conferences met last week with the conferences’ 34 athletic directors, the latest in a series of get-togethers as they collaborate on taking control of the sport’s direction.
“The Big 10 and SEC have overwhelmingly the most economic impact. They have the biggest brands. They already have the largest chunk of the proverbial available at large bids, and they would like to consolidate that power,” Matt Brown, who writes the excellent Extra Points newsletter on the business of college sports, told Boardroom. “Those are going to be drag-it-out existential, fights that are going to be, strongly opposed by the ACC and Big 12.”
The SEC and Big 10 combined to earn seven of the 12 CFP spots last season, including five of the eight total at-large berths. Now Sankey and Petitti would like to change the way the tournament’s four byes are determined and seed based on ranking, and will attempt to leverage more byes and automatic bids if the CFP expands in the future. While any changes to the system for next season needs unanimous approval from the seven major conference commissioners and Notre Dame, which didn’t occur at Tuesday’s CFP Management Committee meeting in Dallas where no formal vote was held, Brown believes the conferences are using it to exert soft power in the long run.
“There’s always a concern that if you don’t go along with something that they’re pushing, they might try to take that out on the ACC, Big 12 or these other conferences through other NCAA committees and other economic levers,” Brown said. “And the kind of implicit threat is ‘we’ll just have our own playoffs.’”
The potential influence of these talks extends beyond the gridiron. If these other conferences help the Big 10 and the SEC in football, Brown continued, perhaps they’d use their influence to expand the men’s basketball tournament and unlock new opportunities for dozens of other schools. Maybe it would nudge the power two to try and transfer administration of the tournament from the NCAA to the power conferences themselves.
“When you have this much economic influence,” he said, “there’s always other things you can do in and outside the NCAA power structure.”
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This series of discussions between college sports’ two elite power players, including a potential SEC-Big 10 scheduling agreement down the road, is only putting pressure on conferences like the ACC and Big 12 to form their own alliances so they don’t get left out in this evolving world of revenue sharing, NIL, and conference realignment. And as the Big 10 and SEC look to wrest further control of the CFP to other conferences, there have been reports of talks to potentially change the way conference championships games operate.
Last year in the ACC, the conference risked losing the final CFP at-large bid after SMU was upset by Clemson, leaving the door open to Alabama to steal the final spot. Though SMU ultimately received the bid, the conference title game put that at risk, an alarming prospect for conferences that earn extra millions for every CFP team in the field. And while these title games are huge drivers of sponsorship and media rights revenue and can’t go away, Brown said conference commissioners are reconsidering the format to boost the chances of their member schools while still generating maximum monetary value.
Putting their teams in the best possible scenarios while generating maximum value is now the name of the game overall in elite collegiate athletics. What that end game looks like for the Big 10 and the SEC varies wildly, Brown said, giving him pause as he considers the conference’s short and long-term goals in their alliance to amass and consolidate power. Would they really leave the NCAA and create their own super league? Are their goals smaller, to just gain as many CFP advantages moving forward as possible?
“Part of the reason you’re seeing these two conferences work more and more together isn’t just about diabolical super league plans,” Brown said, “but these leagues have the most leverage. They want to have more decisions on how they engage in political lobbying. If you listen to Tony Petitte and Greg Sankey, they’re not trying to break away from anybody. They just have a responsibility to lead. And it’s easier to lead when you have smaller rooms rather than bigger rooms.”
In an era of constant change and uncertainty, the Big 10 and SEC are out to control as much as they can as possible. The two conferences have the power to bend college football, and college sports, to their will. And if this week is any indication and the conferences try to use their leverage as possible in football, they won’t be throwing away their shot.
