Winners and losers in proposed conference realignment

The top sports story in college sports this summer has been the revelation that Texas and Oklahoma reached out to officials from the Southeastern Conference to express their interest in joining the conference widely accepted as the best in the nation. Media reports vary on the details, but it is widely believed that the departure by the Longhorns and Sooners from the Big 12 is all but done, and that an announcement could be coming within a month, or perhaps even within a week.

The move to the SEC adds two of the top athletic programs to the top conference in the country. Texas and Oklahoma are enormously popular programs, enjoying success every year in the programs that matter most: football, basketball and baseball. The SEC is the strongest conference in the country, but when approached by the Big 12’s two marquee programs — several reports say the conversations began months ago, without the knowledge of some or all SEC schools — the league was understandably receptive to adding the Sooners and Longhorns. Bringing OU and UT into the fold means more fans, more media attention, more dollars … and keeps that portion away from any other conference, thereby increasing the SEC’s market share within the landscape of college athletics.

Again, the move appears imminent, but it is not yet finalized, so for the purposes of discussion, assume that it’s going to happen. If it does, who wins? And who loses?

Winners
College athletics is, if nothing else, a lucrative business. Add up the SEC, a couple of high-profile programs like Texas and OU, and [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level3)]there can be a lot of winners.

The first obvious winners are the Longhorns and Sooners, and the SEC. The programs will join a conference that ended a three-decade partnership with CBS in order to sign a 10-year deal with ESPN. By ditching CBS, the SEC exits an arrangement in which the network pays the conference about $55 million per year; ESPN “… will pay the SEC around $300 million annually.” Adding Texas and Oklahoma means more schools will want a piece of the pie … and there’s widespread speculation that the arrival of the Longhorns and Sooners will induce Disney, which owns ESPN and ABC, to increase the dollars in the new deal. 

Under the current deal, Missouri undertook a $98 million expansion on its Memorial Stadium. Just imagine what kind of money will be spent when the big(ger) bucks start rolling in when the new TV deal begins after the 2023 season.

Also in line to be a winner … Notre Dame? Don’t laugh. There’s nothing that indicates the Fighting Irish are awaiting an invitation from the SEC. But they likely will be an in-demand part of the seismic shift in college athletics that could (read: “assuredly will”) take place when the Longhorns and Sooners make the move to the SEC official.

There is a strong sentiment in the Midwest that the Big Ten Conference is every bit the equal of the SEC. Ohio State is among the top handful of teams every year, and Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn State are regulars in the national rankings and at top bowl games. Michigan State, Purdue and in recent years Northwestern validate that it is among the strongest conferences in the country. 

But the Big Ten can not be happy to see the “other” strongest conference in the country adding to marquee programs while it stands pat. Many believe the Big Ten will make every effort to bolster its roster by adding the Fighting Irish. 

Notre Dame’s availability is in question, after playing last season as a “temporary member” of the Atlantic Coast Conference during the COVID pandemic. If the Irish bolt from the ACC, it becomes a football conference in which Clemson is the prohibitive favorite to run the table, and every other team is vying for second place. ACC commissioner Jim Phillips made it plainly clear at the conference’s Media Days that he liked the increased exposure and prestige that the Irish added to his conference, and indicated that a desire to add them as a permanent member institution.

So, as if it needs more good fortune, Notre Dame very well could become the target in a bidding war. The details are not public, of course, but rest assured that if the already-dominant SEC adds Texas and Oklahoma, the Big Ten and ACC have plans in place to raise their profiles, as well. Adding Notre Dame would be a massive step in that direction for either conference.

Losers

So if the SEC wins and Texas wins and Oklahoma wins and maybe even Notre Dame wins, who loses?

The proposed exodus by the Longhorns and Sooners would be devastating to the Big 12. To much of the country, the conference already was “Texas, Oklahoma and the others.” Strip away the top two, and what is it — the American Athletic Conference? The Mountain West?

How that would unfold is unclear. Would the top remaining teams find new homes? Oklahoma State to the SEC? Iowa State to the Big Ten? Or would the Big 12 expand by adding some combination of SMU, Houston, Cincinnati, Memphis, Boise State or perhaps even BYU?

Make no mistake, conference realignment is about football, and football only. The last time this happened, in 2011, Kansas men’s basketball head coach Bill Self said (paraphrasing) that Kansas — annually one of the top men’s basketball programs in the country — was effectively a school without a conference. He essentially suggested that while KU is among the nation’s elite hoops programs every year, the game of Musical Chairs that was being played that year didn’t include the Jayhawks, because their football team was an afterthought. Self’s comments provided fodder for rival coaches on the recruiting trail … but he was right. If UT and OU jump to the SEC and conferences start scrambling to recreate themselves, basketball-first schools like Kansas and Baylor — yes, the current national champions — will be nowhere near the top of any league’s wish list. They’ll have a home somewhere, maybe in what’s left of the Big 12, but the world in which they live will look very different. The Big 12 might field solid football and basketball, and if a team runs the table and the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams, a Big 12 team might grab a spot. But without the Longhorns and Sooners, what’s left of the league?

That howling that can be heard from somewhere east of Austin is not Texas A&M mascot Reveille howling. OK, maybe that’s part of it, but the real noise is from the A&M administration and fans. A&M athletic director Ross Bjork reportedly was against the addition of the Sooners and Longhorns, but then couched his comments to say he simply wants what’s best for the Aggies. He said A&M jumped to the SEC in part “to be a standalone, to have its own identity” (out of UT’s shadow). To be fair, speculation that the conference might go after Clemson and/or Florida State has been dismissed through an accurate-when-convenient guideline about having just one member-institution in a state (note: Alabama and Auburn, Tennessee and Vanderbilt, and Ole Miss and Mississippi State all occupy shared states). So it’s understandable that the Aggies wouldn’t want to share the SEC money — and spotlight — with UT, even if it would revive one of the nation’s great college rivalries.

Since the Aggies headed to the SEC in 2011, they have used their conference for some chest-thumping, with fans, sponsors and recruits. Whether the conference difference actually benefited A&M beyond finances can be debated forever, but if this move goes through, that advantage is erased.

Again, the move is not final. If, as expected, it does happen, it surely will not be the last realignment domino to fall.

Hang on tight.

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