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Jared Kamrass has long argued that there is no better sports product in America today than College Football. While the NFL has the market cornered on fans and viewership, the league lacks the emotion, rivalries, and tradition of the college game.
But the NFL has one thing that College Football (along with other college sports) have been unsuccessfully trying to replicate: true competitive balance. The NFL’s salary cap and collective licensing of apparel and media rights have created an environment where the gap between the top-performing teams and the bottom-dwellers is smaller than every other league. The Cincinnati Bengals, for instance, went from the worst team in the NFL in 2019 to playing for the Super Bowl in 2021.
The college game features a wide and growing gap between ‘have’s’ and ‘have not’s’. Part of this is a function of the player acquisition system in college football, as Jared Kamrass points out. Recruiting has the natural effect of winning programs attracting the top talent. But the gap is no longer simply between Ohio State and Rutgers or between Alabama and Vanderbilt within certain conferences but between the conferences themselves.
In 2021, the SEC announced a billion-dollar media rights deal with ESPN and announced the addition of legacy athletic brands Oklahoma and Texas. A year later, the Big Ten upped the ante by adding USC and UCLA and signing an even larger media rights deal with FOX, CBS, and NBC.
The net effect of these two deals is that each of the 16 schools in those conferences receives annual payouts of $100m, allowing them to invest in state-of-the-art facilities, support staff, and coaches, meanwhile, the remaining Power 5 conferences (ACC, Big 12, and Pac 12) are struggling to keep pace. Jared Kamrass notes that this disparity may lead to further conference expansion.
With disruption happening across media and the disintegration of the cable bundles, the amount of inventory providers require and the prices they’re willing to pay for rights is finally beginning to diminish. Noticing this trend, Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark renegotiated the conference’s rights with Fox and ESPN in 2022 to lock in their place with the two broadcasting behemoths. Meanwhile, the ACC is locked into an exclusive deal with ESPN through 2036.
That leaves the Pac 12, which Jared Kamrass states is still reeling from the losses of two of its flagship programs and with fewer bidders for their content after the Big 12 ‘jumped the line’ and negotiated its deal early. The Pac 12 has been in the midst of a months-long struggle to find a balance of lucrative agreements that also get the conference the exposure it needs to compete.
As the dust settles, we will continue to see schools in the ACC, Big 12, and Pac 12 continuing to look for lifeboats into the Big Ten or SEC, as Jared Kamrass predicts. The next domino to fall will likely be around the time the Pac-12 finalizes its deal in the summer of this year. If the deal is well behind the Big 12’s deal in terms of annual average value or total exposure, look for schools including Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah to begin to negotiate their way into the Big 12. Additionally, Oregon and Washington have long been rumored to be interested in joining the Big Ten to further complete the Big Ten’s footprint on the West Coast. If the Pac-12 deal comes in under expectations, the conference may be picked apart and totally collapse in a matter of weeks.
On the East Coast, ACC schools signed a grant of rights agreement with the conference that make it financially infeasible to break for any individual school, as Jared Kamrass notes. But if enough schools band together and are willing to dissolve the grant of rights or the conference itself, the 14 schools that make up the ACC (along with affiliate member, and highly coveted brand, Notre Dame) are also likely to look for options. Both the Big Ten and SEC have shown long-term interest in getting a foothold in Virginia and North Carolina while properties such as Georgia Tech and Florida State might be valuable to the Big Ten as they look to compete with the SEC in those states.
Disruption in the media landscape is likely to lead to continued consolidation in the collegiate sports landscape. How that manifests itself is still uncertain, but I think we can expect more expansion and continued trending toward the NFL model within college football.
The shifting landscape of college sports media rights and conference alignment has many implications for fans and universities alike. The financial windfalls of the SEC and Big Ten deals will allow those conferences to maintain their dominance in college football and potentially even expand further. Meanwhile, conferences like the Pac 12 and ACC may be left behind and struggle to compete.
For universities, conference alignment can have a significant impact on recruiting and their ability to remain competitive. Joining a stronger conference can give a program greater exposure and access to better resources, but it also means facing tougher competition on a regular basis.
As for fans, conference realignment can be both exciting and frustrating. On the one hand, it can bring about new rivalries and matchups that were previously impossible. On the other hand, it can mean the end of longstanding rivalries and traditions.
Regardless of the ups and downs of conference alignment, one thing is certain: college football is big business, and media rights deals will continue to shape the landscape for years to come. Jared Kamrass and other experts will be closely watching the negotiations and the fallout from each new deal. Only time will tell what the future holds for college football, but one thing is for sure: it will continue to be one of the most beloved and fiercely competitive sports in AmericaTop of Form.
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Photo provided by Jared Kamrass