The Big Ten and SEC already dominate college football. At a meeting this week, leaders are poised to take more control over the future of the sport.
When an advisory group made up of members from each conference meets in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the topics on the agenda will be the prospect of expanding the College Football Playoff and, indirectly, complicating the rest of college football operations. Regarding the possibility of agreeing on a schedule for two conferences. They will be competing for the 12 and possibly 14 spots available in the postseason.
No final decision is expected this week, but the discussions are expected to be a springboard for more definitive moves down the line. Let’s look at some topics here.
A new 12-team playoff will debut this season. The top five ranked conference championship teams in the College Football Playoff Committee’s Dec. 8 selection vote will qualify for the postseason, followed by the next seven highest-rated teams.
Two more teams will likely be added to the format starting in 2026, which is also when ESPN’s six-year, $7.8 billion contract to televise the playoffs begins. Big Ten and SEC leaders have proposed a new playoff with three or four automatic berths. Neither idea was popular with the remaining conferences, but the SEC and Big Ten negotiated to have more control over what happens next.
Perhaps the simplest sign of the power these two conferences have is that they have 15 teams in this week’s AP Top 25.
Related to the playoff format, there is a potential schedule change that would add an interconference Big Ten-SEC game to each team’s schedule.
One of the things conferences hope to accomplish with the new postseason format and increased automatic bidding will be to eliminate the influence of selection committees that determine the overall field through voting.
Even though subjective polls remain part of the formula, regular season matchups between the Big Ten and SEC ostensibly help both conferences by improving strength of schedule, a factor in the poll. It will be. It would also reduce the number of opportunities for schools from other conferences to play teams from the top two leagues.
On Monday, a judge finally approved a plan for schools to begin a system of paying players directly. It would change the fundamental nature of college sports, and the two largest conferences would have the biggest impact on anyone.
Specifically, the athletic department will have to come up with a way to replace the up to $21.5 million it could potentially pay players as part of the first-ever revenue-sharing agreement. Payouts from the football playoffs and even revenue from additional high-profile games in the regular season could come into play here, but it doesn’t completely solve the problem.
“There are two ways to get there,” Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman said at the Big Ten’s recent basketball media day. “You can make more money, or you can spend the money in other ways. We are working very hard on both fronts to be in a position to fully participate in revenue sharing when we open next year. We are actively working on this.”
Leaders must also make educated guesses about what impact other legal and legislative actions may have in the future. For example, if an athlete is considered an employee of the school, it will cost the school more money, but the athlete may have access to school-sponsored health insurance and other benefits. There is sex.
One little piece of news that is likely to become a trend. Tennessee announced last month that it would add a 10% “talent fee” to next year’s season ticket prices to offset costs associated with the revenue-sharing plan.
Although not on the agenda, the possibility of a Super League has been floated in the college sports world recently.
Earlier this month, an organization called College Sports Tomorrow announced its vision for a 136-team megaleague in a two-tier structure with divisions and a 24-team playoff.
“This is not an attempt to create minor league professional football,” one of the group’s leaders, former MLS deputy commissioner Mark Abbott, told The Wall Street Journal. “This is about student-athletes and really trying to improve the college experience for everyone.”
And this week, Yahoo Sports reported on the possibility of a Super League involving the top four conferences, which would see $9 billion in private equity money poured into the sport.
There is not enough room to enumerate all the obstacles to this kind of change. The top of the list may indicate that SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is not interested. But with the rate at which college sports are changing these days, it’s hard to list never say never.
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