In the never-ending journey to find more money as college football hurtles toward a major reallocation of its resources, leaders appear to be exploring three different tracks:
The Southeastern Conference–Big Ten power play.The College Sports Tomorrow initiative called the “College Student Football League,” that would develop a multibillion-dollar “super league” encompassing all 136 FBS programs.The Smash Capital outside investment plan dubbed “Project Rudy,” which would pour billions in new money into a single business entity that largely maintains the current structure of the Power 4 conferences (the SEC, Big Ten, Atlantic Coast and Big 12).
All three tracks meet resistance at varying points. None is without flaws. They all have competing interests. But the race is on to plot the course into a future that will include sharing a massive amount of revenue with the athletes. How best to take on that added expense while simultaneously trying to get richer?
Among recent developments that have brought that race into sharper focus:
Industry sources tell they believe the SEC and broadcast partner ESPN are “honing in on” talks that would alter the conference’s scheduling while potentially enhancing its media-rights revenue. Specifically, the alleged plan revolves around an SEC–Big Ten scheduling agreement that would produce annual matchups between the two leagues. The presumptive accompanying piece of such a move would be the Big Ten and broadcast partner Fox sharing some of that game inventory and producing more money for that conference as well.
Adding marquee games could be a vehicle for the leagues to open up contracts in pursuit of more revenue. From a network perspective, the benefit would not only be higher-rated games but a chance to ask for more years on the existing deals with those leagues, further boxing out potential competition from streaming services eager to become more established in the college sports market.
“The timing seems to indicate they’re trying real hard to get extensions done soon,” one industry insider tells SI. “I would say even before the end of the year.” However, another source says the timeline for the SEC and Big Ten to enter into a scheduling agreement is more likely to extend into 2025.
An ESPN spokeswoman declined comment Thursday. However, a source familiar with the network’s plans says there is “no truth” to a potential renegotiation by ESPN with the SEC.
The backdrop: Athletic directors from the two leagues met in Nashville in October as part of the SEC–Big Ten Advisory Group that was formed earlier in 2024. While no major announcements came out of the meeting, it reinforced the belief that the two richest and most powerful conferences in college sports were working together to further distance themselves from everyone else. One source says the leagues directed their member schools to hold off on completing future nonconference schedules in order to accommodate games against one another.
“We have had conversations with the Big Ten about future scheduling opportunities, but it has not been a major topic of conversation,” SEC associate commissioner Herb Vincent tells SI. “We formed the SEC–Big Ten Advisory Group to work through the really important issues facing college athletics, and that is where the focus has been in our discussions with the Big Ten.”
The SEC has been in a multiyear holding pattern about adding a ninth conference game to its current eight-game slate, in part due to resistance from some member schools and perhaps in part because ESPN is unwilling to sweeten the pot in exchange. Commissioner Greg Sankey has said the league will not discuss going to a nine-game model until after this inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff plays out. That will give the nation’s premier football conference more information about the necessity of adding to the league slate. Adding an annual Big Ten opponent instead might end up being more effective.
A Big Ten official declined comment, citing policy about not discussing business deals.
“You got, really Fox and ESPN, who have already built a pretty big moat around college football, that are now looking to use this as an opportunity to lock everybody else out,” a second industry source says, citing potential competition from streaming services. “And then on the other side of that, the two conferences looking to wall themselves off from the rest of the college football world.”
If the two conferences are working on a scheduling agreement that advances their own interests, it comes amid pushes by other groups to rework the college football structure with an eye on greater financial and competitive balance.
“I think much of the timing, and now seemingly urgency, has likely arisen over the last couple of months since groups like College Sports Tomorrow have gotten out there, as well as private equity groups like Smash Capital and others looking to invest in the college space,” says another industry insider well-versed on the current landscape. “If you’re the two main conferences and you’re the media companies, the sooner you could extend your media deals and cut off any centralized approach to football, the better.”
Those “centralized approaches” are where College Sports Tomorrow and Smash Capital come into play. At present, the Big Ten and SEC have rejected all overtures from those two groups. Given their position of primacy, extending a hand to competing conferences to level the playing field seems counter-intuitive. But that doesn’t mean the outside entities aren’t trying.
ESPN first reported this week that Baylor president Linda Livingstone, a prominent voice in the college sports space, sent a letter to presidents and chancellors nationwide inviting them to gather in person in Dallas next month to discuss “models for the future of college football specifically and college athletics overall.” Although Livingstone is chairwoman of the Big 12 executive committee, league sources tell SI that her outreach was not a league-sponsored initiative.
While both SEC and Big Ten sources tell SI their campus CEOs are unlikely to attend Livingstone’s summit, others might heed the call. This fits the College Sports Tomorrow M.O. of working around resistance from conference commissioners, instead taking their pitches directly to campus leaders.
“We’re taking meetings with athletic directors, chancellors and presidents and sometimes their board chairs and people on their boards, and we’re just continuing to educate,” said College Sports Tomorrow’s Len Perna, who is also the chairman and CEO of TurnkeyZRG Search, a firm that has placed many college sports leaders in their current positions. “There’s nothing that we’re really selling. We’re really educating. And I think the more of those we can continue to do, the better. And I think a lot of the issues that you’re seeing here that we’re trying to educate on is the importance of planning. We know you can’t wave a magic wand and get all of this sort of synchronized for 2025 or 2026. We’re just saying, ‘Look, be really smart about thinking about what 2027 or ’28 or 2030 is going to look like and get yourself ready for that.’”
Meanwhile, a “Project Rudy” pitch was made this week to athletic directors in the ACC, sources confirm. The pitch was part of a call devoted to the settlement, and was purely informational in nature. Recently retired Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, who led that school into the ACC in all sports but football, is part of the Project Rudy team.
Both outside entities are fighting uphill to win over converts. But they’re showing no signs of fatigue.
“They’re not going away,” as one conference official put it.
Over the past 40 years, the leaders of college football have ceded increasing amounts of control to the television networks that pay them billions. That escalated in the most recent rounds of realignment, with ESPN suspected of being an enabling entity in the move of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC and Fox being a prime player in sending USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten.
While those two leagues and their broadcast partners may be motivated to further separate themselves from the rest of the 136-school FBS structure, others see greater value for the sport nationally in pulling them back.
“Letting the media companies drive the industry of college sports is a one-sided equation,” says Chris Bevilacqua of College Sports Tomorrow, a former ESPN exec. “And it’s only going to ultimately benefit them more than it does the membership in general.”
