SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, probably the most influential person in college athletics, said Thursday he wants to take “a fresh look” at the NCAA men’s basketball tournament—perhaps with an eye toward expansion of the current 68-team field.

Sankey cautions that he is “not ready to make headlines there yet.” But he also is open to conversations about a Big Dance that doesn’t exclude small-conference champions while potentially including more teams.

As an example, he mentions the 2022 College World Series baseball championship, which was won by SEC member Mississippi—the last team into the 64-team field.

“If the last team in can win the national championship, and they’re in the 30s or 40s from an RPI or [NCAA] NET standpoint, is our current approach supporting national championship competition?” Sankey asks. “I think there’s health in that conversation. That doesn’t exclude people. It goes to: How do we include people in these annual national celebrations that lead to a national champion?”

Sankey’s remarks pertained to the men’s tournament, but given the recent NCAA emphasis on an equal tournament experience for both the men and women, it is conceivable the discussion of an expanded bracket would also apply to the women’s tournament as well.

There has been a rising tide of concern about being left out of March Madness among conferences that send only their tournament winners to the NCAA tourney—the underdogs who so often give the event their best moments and unique flavor. Some of that comes from comments Sankey reportedly made to members of the Division I Council earlier this summer about the NCAA tournament looking different in the future.

Sankey stresses that he said the tourney “could” change, not that it would. But the suspicion among some mid-major and low-major programs is that their automatic bids would instead be given to more teams from the rich and powerful multi-bid leagues.

“March Madness will become much more controlled by a handful of schools,” Florida Gulf Coast president Michael Martin told a Fort Myers TV station recently. “And automatic qualifiers that we now get from being in the A-Sun will disappear.”

Sankey, though, makes no mention of potentially taking away automatic bids. He’s aware that tinkering with one of the most popular formulas in college sports could lead to enormous backlash. Instead, he talks about the quality of teams that either just barely make the field or are left out.

“I thought [SEC member] Texas A&M should have been in the field in basketball [last season],” Sankey says. “People didn’t agree. But the way they played at the end of the year, I firmly think they were one of the better teams in the country. I’m biased. But somebody else, Dayton was one of the first four out.

“Look at what UCLA did as an 11-seed [in 2021], what Virginia Commonwealth did as an 11-seed [in 2011], what Syracuse did as an 11-seed [in 2018]. Those are three teams that played [in the First Four] in Dayton and went to the Final Four eventually. It should broaden our thinking.”

(Sankey was conflating two Syracuse appearances. In 2016, it made the Final Four as a 10-seed that did not play in Dayton, but played against Dayton. In 2018, Syracuse was in the First Four in Dayton but was eliminated in the Sweet 16.)

One potential method of expansion—which was not raised by Sankey—would be to have a quartet of First Fours, one at each region. That would increase the total number of bids from 68 to 80.

But quadrupling the moving parts also would increase the logistical hurdles for the NCAA. Getting eight teams to Dayton in short order after Selection Sunday, then dispersing the winners to various sites around the country with a fair chance in their first-round games, is not easy.

Still, Sankey sounds willing to explore several options for a bigger Big Dance.

“Just take a fresh look at all of it,” he says. “As we think collectively, everyone goes to the corner and says, ‘I have to hang on to what’s mine.’ But how do we contribute and build it better together?”

Though the Big Ten reached a historic seven-year deal with CBS, Fox and NBC on Thursday, the conference may soon have more inventory on its plate. The Big Ten may consider further expansion before -- or even after -- its new media rights agreement with the three broadcast behemoths on July 1, 2023.

CBS Sports reported last month the Big Ten was evaluating California, Oregon, Stanford and Washington as potential future league members. Rightsholders pushed back on the notion as they did not believe those current Pac-12 schools would bring equal value to the league as USC and UCLA did upon being added. CBS Sports subsequently reported interest had cooled on those four schools; however, adding those four schools would create additional inventory for the Big Ten, which could result in ESPN getting a piece of the action.

Though the Big Ten has expressed interest in Notre Dame, there is growing sentiment the Fighting Irish will remain independent, sources told CBS Sports.

Much was made Thursday of ESPN walking away from bidding on the rights to the Big Ten, ending what had been a 40-year relationship with the cable sports giant airing Big Ten football and basketball games.

Should it expand, the Big Ten would need a rightsholder (or rightsholders) to pay for its extra inventory. CBS, Fox and NBC already have their schedules set with what they believe to be cost certainty -- number games to be televised, windows to televise those games and a "selection draft" for the most desirable games.

"I would keep that window open for ESPN," a high-profile source with extensive knowledge of media rights told CBS Sports. "Until all this is done, there are lots of moving parts. Never say never."

ESPN will still show nonconference games and bowl games involving Big Ten teams as part of its existing deals with other Power Five conferences. And there is no use in the Big Ten alienating ESPN, which will be among the networks falling all over themselves to bid on what is expected to be an expanded College Football Playoff in the next few years.

"I don't think there's any concern [regarding expansion]," said CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus. "We have really good exclusivity provisions in our contract. I can't go into specifics, but our window [to show games] is protected.

"If there were additional games to be added in different time slots, we would certainly take a look at that. I'm sure NBC and Fox would also. Expansion, by and large, would only be a positive. But we would have to find windows and time slots to air any potential games but that would be a benefit to everybody."

McManus spoke only about the concept of Big Ten expansion, not referring to any specific schools or addressing the likelihood of it occurring.

It may be only a coincidence, but it was noticed throughout the industry when Anil Gollahalli was hired away from Oklahoma by the Big Ten in March to become the league's chief legal officer. That was three months before USC and UCLA joined the league.

Gollahalli had been with OU for 14 years. He was obviously in place when the Sooners made the move from Big 12 to the SEC. Prior to that, he guided the school through two rounds of Big 12 realignment including the Pac-12's failed attempt to take half the Big 12, including Oklahoma, in 2010.

There are already huge implications to the Big Ten growing to 16 teams with a record rights deal. The SEC and Big Ten will further separate themselves from the rest of major-college football with their schools making at least $30 million more annually compared to the rest of FBS.


Fallout from the Big Ten media rights deal
Futures of Pac-12, Big 12 hang in the balance: Separate from any Big Ten discussion, ESPN now has a chance to become somewhat of a "kingmaker" regarding these leagues. Each conference is eying the other's schools in what could become the next big realignment story. Without a Big Ten deal, ESPN has theoretically freed up money to spend as both conferences are currently in flux.

The Pac-12 is desirable because ESPN would not otherwise have any games in the valuable "fourth window" -- after 10 p.m. ET. The "Pac-12 After Dark" tag has been ridiculed by some, but it would be valuable to ESPN.

Taken to the extreme, it's worth asking: Would ESPN now have an influence over which league survives this round of realignment? There is already word circulating that the Pac-12 -- in the middle of its own media rights negotiations -- might have to agree to a media rights contract that allows Cal, Oregon Stanford and Washington an "out" if approached by another conference.


It is already known that any combination of the two leagues doesn't necessarily add value to one or the other. The Pac-12's current deal expires in 2024, while the Big 12's deal with Fox and ESPN ends in 2025.

There is some feeling in the industry that, if the Big 12 doesn't strike now and snag some Pac-12 teams, the opportunity might be lost. "This is their window," one insider said of the Big 12. "If they can't do it now, I would think the Pac-12 is going to find their financial situation."

There is still value to the remaining 10 Pac-12 teams staying together because Oregon and Washington are considered next-best schools "available" following USC and UCLA's departure to the Big Ten; however, neither school brings pro rata (equal value) to a 16-team Big Ten.

But in the Pac-12? They have plenty of leverage. That has led to speculation Oregon and Washington could agree to stay in a reconstituted Pac-12 with an uneven revenue distribution paying the Ducks and Huskies more than other programs. If the pair make that demand, what option would commissioner George Kliavkoff have to consider?

New Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is being aggressive in realignment if judged only by his comment last month at media days. "The Big 12 is open for business," he said.

Despite the upheaval, the Pac-12 still has an advantage because it is closer to calling for a show of hands (grant of rights) in a new agreement than the Big 12. The Big 12 is at least a year from the beginning of formal negotiations on a new rights deal.

Closest thing to the NFL: It's more than coincidence that the Big Ten and SEC combined have the same amount of teams as the NFL, 32. There have already been comparisons the leagues are so NFL-like that the SEC might as well be the AFC and the Big Ten the NFC. "I have heard that," Warren said.

They will be mini corporations running themselves with little or no NCAA oversight. That is a certainty. Deregulation is coming soon, perhaps by the end of the month. That means less enforcement and perhaps fewer FBS members to dilute the voting process. The two big boys will have such a monopoly the transfer portal and NIL won't matter. They will control it all. Revenue sharing? Cool. Pay the players? No problem.

The amount on money in the system as a whole -- not just in the Big Ten and SEC -- adds questions to how much of it should go to athletes in the future. The Big Ten recently endured what must be characterized as a unionization effort at Penn State. Some representatives are seeking a student-athlete bill of rights in Congress. NIL has made overnight millionaires of some athletes.

Warren reiterated to CBS Sports that he is open to learning more about unionization. "In the next couple of months, I'm going to be digging into the legitimate facts regarding unionization," he said.

There is no College Football Playoff without these two leagues, so why wait to expand until 2026 like the CFP contract says? A 16-team playoff has already been discussed by FBS commissioners.

These 32 are about to form a different way to think about college football. Big Ten has the best markets and biggest population. SEC has the best traditions, best recruiting grounds and most successful programs over the last 15 years. Together, they offer the best college football. Does anything else matter?

The implications are huge. The move all but formalizes the separation by the SEC and Big Ten from the rest of the sport. There are even dueling major networks representing each conference. How that plays out in the future is anyone's guess. There has never been this battleground for advertisers, ratings, recruiting, even playoff berths at this level.

To get a glimpse of the future, take a look at the 2022 CBS Sports Preseason All-America team released Wednesday. Accounting for USC, UCLA, Texas and Oklahoma in their 2024 conferences, the SEC and Big Ten would have combined for 70% of the first-team selections (19 of 27).

The CFP hopes to arrive on an expansion decision by next summer. FBS commissioners have let it be known they prefer multiple partners on the next CFP contract that expands after the 2026 championship.

Circle of life: The outgoing Big Ten chair, Northwestern president Morton Schapiro, is a former chair of the USC economics department. In that sense, the Big Ten continues to take from the Pac-12. Schapiro is being replaced at Northwestern by Oregon president Michael Schill.

Schill currently serves on the NCAA Board of Directors, which will approve how the association looks in the future with deregulation on the way. That deregulation will have to account for a consolidation at the top of college athletics, in part, because of the Big Ten and SEC media
deals.

Warren, 58, has now overseen the biggest college TV deal in history two years after controversially cancelling the Big Ten season -- then reinstating it -- over COVID-19. This deal reinforces his place, along with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, as one of the most powerful
persons in college sports.

The deal sets a new benchmark in the college sports arms race, which is based heavily on TV money. The Southeastern Conference has a deal with ESPN that starts in 2024 and is also worth upward of $7 billion, but over 10 years. That deal was announced before the conference moved to expand to 16 schools with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma.

"Before I came here, even to this day, I stayed incredibly prayerful," Warren said. "I do the best I can, have a tremendous work ethic, stay optimistic and try to keep stacking really good days. I'm not really one of those persons who reflects a lot."

At halftime of the Oregon-Ohio State football game last season, I bumped into Kevin Warren and George Kliavkoff in the press box of Ohio Stadium.

The Big Ten commissioner and Pac-12 commissioner were good buddies back then. They were eating meals together and sat alongside each other at the game. After all, Warren and Kliavkoff were part of the so-called “alliance” and the two men humored me by posing for a quick photograph in the hallway.

The Big Ten Conference unveiled the details of its seven-year media rights deal on Thursday. It’s worth $1.2 billion a year, but the real kicker was the room it left for further conference expansion and lucrative escalation of the deal.

Be certain, Warren isn’t done trying to raid the Pac-12. Be sure, Kliavkoff knows it and understands his job just got more difficult.

More on that in a moment.

First a few quick thoughts on the Big Ten’s deal:

• $1.2 billion per year average over seven years is in line with the $1.23 billion estimate that former Fox Sports Networks President Bob Thompson floated to me a few weeks ago. He’s been money on this stuff, in part, because he’s negotiated a bunch of these deals himself.

• Thompson crunched the numbers again on Thursday and figured out that the media-rights distribution to Big Ten members caps out at $78.2 million per university in 2029-30.

• Neither Amazon nor Apple made it to the dance floor. Peacock is the only party with an exclusive-streaming package. This surprised some industry insiders who expected Amazon and Apple to be bigger players. Maybe this bodes well for the Pac-12? Or maybe it’s just too soon for the streamers to be factors. We’ll soon know.

• Also absent — ESPN. This was widely reported and not a surprise. For the first time in 40 years the network won’t carry Big Ten football or men’s basketball games. The Big 12 and Pac-12 must have smiled when they heard this.

• The Big Ten’s deal made some accommodations for CBS. Seven games in the first year, then it jumps to 15 games in 2024. The prevailing thought is that the Big Ten probably also made some accommodations for NBC to put Notre Dame games in primetime.

• The UC Regents are still discussing UCLA’s departure to the Big Ten. After seeing the Big Ten’s media rights deal, I’m less optimistic that the system will effectively block the Bruins’ exit. UCLA signed on with the Big Ten as the conference was negotiating this rights package. I’m not a lawyer, but a breach of that contract would most assuredly trigger significant damages. It feels like the face-saving move by the UC Regents might be to try and force UCLA to share some of its new-found loot with Cal.

• USC and UCLA took the money and ran to the Big Ten. Any of the remaining 10 athletic directors and presidents/chancellors in the Pac-12 would have likely done the same thing when offered $70-plus million a year in distributions.

Kliavkoff’s job got a little more difficult today. He not only needs to out-maneuver the Big 12 for a deal with ESPN, his Big Ten worries aren’t going away, either. Kliavkoff knows that the Big Ten would love to someday add Washington, Oregon, Stanford and Cal for a potential “west” division that would ease the travel concerns for USC and UCLA.

Lose two teams, and you pull yourself together and scrape by.

Lose six?

You’re cooked.

It’s why Kliavkoff has to be at his absolute best in the next few months. He’ll need to hold together his membership — particularly Oregon — while simultaneously negotiating the conference’s media rights deal. He’ll have to beat out the Big 12, hold off the Big Ten, make ESPN happy, find a streaming option, decide if adding San Diego State (or others) makes sense, and land a distribution number that doesn’t leave the door open for further raiding.

Got all that?

There are some other tricky nuances at work, too. For example, Kliavkoff’s conference can’t provide inventory to any potential television partners before 2 p.m. Eastern Time. The Big 12 can. ESPN may value that. So may NBC and Fox/FS1, who still may be hunting for a few early games to fill in their schedules.

The biggest advantage that the Pac-12 has right now is the Pacific Time Zone, which leaves ESPN and the streamers as the most likely options. But it’s becoming evident that the Pac-12 doesn’t have a long line of suitors to create valuable leverage.

Said Bob Thompson: “I still think ESPN will be the Pac-12’s primary carrier, I just think Big 12 will have more bidders.”

Kliavkoff and Warren were reportedly in Napa Valley, Calif. together on Thursday when the details of the Big Ten’s deal went public. They’re at Rose Bowl meetings with other officials. It must be awkward.

A few weeks ago, I asked Kliavkoff about whether he felt betrayed by Warren. Kliavkoff said, “I’ve been always someone that has given every single person I meet, respect and trust until they give me a reason not to give them respect and trust.

“I’ll just leave it at that.”

The song was written to introduce the Super Bowl XXI telecast on CBS. It became the theme of college football on CBS in 1987, nine years before CBS started televising SEC games regularly. But thanks to more than two decades of classic matchups at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS on fall Saturdays, not many people think of composer Lloyd Landesman’s nameless song as a Super Bowl anthem or as the introduction to a Mountain West game on CBS Sports Network. For a generation of college football fans, those raging synths meant one thing: SEC football.

That tweet was part of a multimedia salvo Thursday from the Big Ten, Fox, CBS and NBC celebrating the finalization of a massive package of media rights deals worth a reported $8 billion over seven years that will make the Big Ten — already America’s richest conference — even richer. Even though the song never actually belonged to the SEC, it felt like CBS saying “… and we gave them your theme music, too.”

It also likely is the first of many shots in an off-field conflict that will turn college football’s obsession with conference superiority into strictly a Big Ten versus SEC affair.

Those two were the richest, most successful conferences before, but with Oklahoma and Texas headed to the SEC and UCLA and USC headed to the Big Ten, there is no more Power 5. There is only a Power 2. And they’re going to spend a lot of time trying to convince us that one is superior to the other.

“We’re going to continue our efforts to grow our comprehensive revenue,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said this week. “And we’re going to do it in a healthy way.”

The SEC can point to its success on the field. The league has produced 12 of the past 16 national champions — 2014 Ohio State is the Big Ten’s only champion in that period — and twice in the past five seasons SEC teams have met in the national title game. And yet the Big Ten makes more money, and will widen the gap with this new set of deals.

How did the SEC let that happen? It’s a matter of timing.

The people who run the SEC don’t like to be No. 2 at anything, but in this case, there wasn’t much the current administration could have done to stay even with the Big Ten. The Big Ten’s ability to cash in this big dates back to a shrewd decision by former commissioner Jim Delany in 2016 to sign six-year deals with Fox and Disney/ESPN. Conventional wisdom at the time suggested that cable cord-cutting would lead to a “pop” of the media rights bubble that would lead to lower rights fees in the future, and other leagues — most notably the ACC, which locked itself up with Disney/ESPN through 2036 — had sought long-term deals to guarantee security. Delany believed changes in technology would cause live sports to only increase in value over time, so he bet on the possibility that the Big Ten’s best games would be worth even more. And then he made sure the league would be able to sell them again before the SEC, Pac-12 and Big 12 deals expired.

How much money are we talking about? In February, the SEC announced an annual revenue distribution of about $55 million per school. This year, Iowa received $57 million from the Big Ten. Those figures include television revenue, bowl revenue, College Football Playoff revenue and NCAA men’s basketball tournament revenue, and both figures will only rise thanks to new TV deals.

In May, Florida football coach Billy Napier said SEC projections shown to schools suggest the payout per school will increase to somewhere between the high $60 millions and the low $70 millions when the league’s new $300 million-a-year deal with Disney for the games CBS was broadcasting kicks in. Big Ten revenue distributions will top those numbers once these new deals begin next year. The gap between the Big Ten and SEC won’t be as wide as it is between the SEC and whichever league winds up No. 3, but it should be larger than it was before.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has never had a chance to sell all his league’s rights, and the SEC hasn’t had a chance since 2008 to use the leverage that comes with having all its inventory available. Sankey took over in 2015 for Mike Slive. At the time, the league was in the middle of a 15-year deal with CBS that paid $55 million annually so the network could broadcast the best SEC game each Saturday. Disney/ESPN owned the rights to the other games, but the terms of that deal had changed.

The original deal that Slive and consultant Chuck Gerber forged in 2008 called for Disney to pay the league about $2 billion over 15 years starting in 2009. The terms of that deal changed after the SEC added Missouri and Texas A&M. The SEC partnered with Disney to create the SEC Network. The new deal between Disney and the SEC would extend to 2034. Disney would pay a rights fee for games broadcast on its channels other than the SEC Network, and the league and the network would split network profits 50/50. That significantly increased the SEC’s revenue, and because the SEC Network is the best distributed of the conference networks and carries the highest subscriber fee, that figure continues to rise.

When Slive and Gerber redid that Disney deal, they tried the same tactic with CBS. But the network refused to pay any more money. The only change? Instead of CBS being guaranteed an exclusive window with no other SEC games on during the 3:30 game, the SEC Network was allowed to have a game kick off at 4 p.m. This infuriated SEC administrators and leaders at SEC schools, and it likely killed any chance CBS had of continuing to do business with the SEC following the conclusion of the current deal after the 2023 season.

For CBS, the reward probably was worth the hurt feelings and the possibility of losing the relationship. It had 10 more years of a premium property at a cost that would be pennies on the dollar compared to what it would be worth by the end of the deal.

Even though they couldn’t consummate the deal until 2024, Sankey and company decided to take those rights that CBS owned to market prior to the pandemic. Knowing networks were counting their pennies ahead of the next NFL media rights deal — which was finalized in 2021 — the SEC decided to see what its best game of each week might fetch. The answer? A reported $300 million from Disney in a deal locked down in 2020. In 2024, the best SEC game would move from CBS to Disney-owned ABC. By agreeing to the deal, the SEC cast its lot entirely with Disney and also re-synced its rights. For 2034, the SEC can put its entire rights package on the market.

That deal likely will reset the market, but that is a long time from now. How long? Because the Big Ten did seven-year deals with Fox, CBS and NBC, it will have sold its rights again before the SEC gets another crack.

If CBS really did pay more for its Big Ten package — which doesn’t include the choice of best game every week and includes only two Big Ten title games — than Disney paid for the SEC’s best game and every SEC Championship Game, did the SEC make a mistake by locking in its deal so early?

“One can always second guess timing, but with the deal ending with CBS in 2024, it was time to move,” said Greg McGarity, who was Georgia’s athletic director when that deal was made. “And the dollars were staggering.”

The pandemic might also have provided some motivation. At the time the SEC and Disney made the deal, it was unclear how much financial impact college athletics might take in successive years. “Think about at the time,” sports media consultant Ed Desser said. “You had enrollment issues, attendance issues, issues delivering games.”

There might have been one unplanned side effect of doing that deal when the SEC did that could help grow revenue in the future. The SEC doing its deal four years early inspired Big 12 schools to ask that league’s leadership to look into negotiating its next media rights deals to follow the current ones that expire in 2025. Disney and Fox declined to engage, telling the league in early 2021 that they’d rather wait until closer to the conclusion of the current deals.

Sources at Oklahoma and Texas have indicated that moment was something of a final straw for those schools. Afterward, both began seriously considering switching conferences. That came to a head in July 2021, when someone at Texas A&M leaked to the Houston Chronicle that Oklahoma and Texas were deep in discussions to join the SEC.

Industry sources have suggested that the SEC may be able to use the addition of Oklahoma and Texas to generate more revenue. While the league’s deal with Disney calls for a pro rata increase for additional members, it’s possible Disney could be willing to pay more to keep the relationship happy. After getting left out by the Big Ten, Disney needs the SEC more than the SEC needs Disney. And perhaps they could help one another. Maybe the league changes its scheduling model to create more high-quality inventory. (A change that was in the works before the addition of Texas and Oklahoma as schools tried to increase demand for season tickets.)

That could be worth a few more dollars under the correct circumstances. Further realignment also could change the math, but no one at the SEC has even hinted that the league is trying to add any new members at the moment. (Any new members probably would come from the ACC, which has a grant of rights agreement that lasts through 2036. No league would dare suggest any interest in an ACC school and risk litigation.) The SEC allowed ESPN to place one of each school’s home games on streamer ESPN Plus last year. Could the league allow more — for a price, of course? Sankey declined to comment on any specific plans to make more money for the league’s schools.

With Pac-12 and Big 12 membership potentially in flux, the SEC’s situation remains fluid. The plan at the moment is to bring in Oklahoma and Texas in 2025, but that could change. New Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has hinted at a willingness to make a deal if it works for all parties. That’s a departure from the previous administration.

Meanwhile, the SEC’s old deal and the Big Ten’s new one will collide in 2023.

CBS will carry only seven Big Ten games that season as it completes its agreement with the SEC. The next two seasons, with lame-duck CBS carrying the SEC’s biggest games, will be quite awkward. CBS analyst Gary Danielson, the former Purdue quarterback who previously had been painted as an SEC homer, will have every word parsed to see if he’s already favoring the conference his network is about to carry, and/or tweaking the SEC. (There have already been instances of carping behind the scenes, such as in 2017 when Kirby Smart seemed irked that Danielson broadcast something that was said in their standard Friday meeting.)

And in 2024, when that song plays, it will mean something entirely different. No pressure, Disney, but ABC had better have one hell of a theme song ready to replace it.

This past week, the Big Ten reportedly dropped ESPN as one of its television partners and brought CBS and NBC into the mix with FOX Sports. Many assume some combination of Peacock TV and Paramount+ will also be added to the mix for streaming partners.

But the best games of the day will be set up very similarly to the NFL. FOX will get the Noon ET kickoff. Then Big Ten fans would switch to CBS for a 3:30 p.m. ET game. Finally, you’d wrap up with a primetime game on NBC. It will be interesting to see how that coincides with any night games for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who have a deal with NBC as well.

All in all, it was a pretty big surprise as the Michigan Wolverines and other programs from the conference had been playing on ESPN for the last 40 seasons. After all the changes, let’s see where each conference currently calls home for their television rights.

AAC
Even though the four-letter network lost the Big Ten, they still have plenty to go around and that starts alphabetically with the American Athletic Conference. Back in 2019, the AAC reached a 12-year, and nearly $1 billion dollar contract with ESPN. However, a majority of the games are played on ESPN+ instead of broadcast television. That is mostly because of the network’s overall control over college football which we will see more of down the line.

ACC
The Atlantic Coastal Conference is also on ESPN. In 2016, a new 20-year deal began worth $4.8 billion. Each team in the conference takes home about $17 million a season with the 14 programs that currently reside in the ACC.

Big 12
After losing Oklahoma and Texas in 2025, the conference will likely take a hit in their television deal that ends in the same year. The Big 12 currently is set up very similarly to the Big Ten with broadcast rights going to FOX and ESPN. The current deal started in 2015 and was for $2 billion. Expectations are not going to be as high once the powerhouses depart.

Conference USA
A combination of Stadium, Facebook, ESPN+ and CBS Sports Network have the broadcast rights for C-USA until the end of the 2023 season. They are currently on the hunt for a new deal where I’m sure they would like to be closer to the AAC’s standards.

MAC
Through 2022-23, the Mid-American Conference will be on display via the CBS Sports Network. But the majority of the MACtion is on ESPN on weeknight matchups and on ESPN+ through 2026.

Mountain West
The Mountain West beat the Big Ten to the punch in cutting ESPN loose. In 2020, they added FOX as a partner while maintaining their relationship with CBS Sports. The deal runs through 2026 and the league is paid about $270 million.

Pac-12
On brand with the Big 12, USC and UCLA will depart for the Big Ten as soon as the TV deal ends in 2024. A 12-year, $3 billion contract with FOX and ESPN is set to expire, and many people are questioning where they will be headed without two of their historic programs.

SEC
The SEC is the main reason ESPN was okay parting ways with the Big Ten. Starting in 2024, ESPN will be the exclusive carrier for SEC football and men’s basketball. CBS was desperate to fill the void, and it appears the Big Ten will fill that.

Sun Belt
If you are a mid-major, you probably have a relationship with ESPN. The Sun Belt announced a deal with ESPN in 2020 that runs through 2031. There’s plenty of college football on that ESPN+ app.

College Football Playoff
So here is what it really comes down to. Right now, ESPN pays the College Football Playoff $470 million annually to broadcast the four-team playoff. That deal expires in 2026. Everyone who isn’t associated with ESPN (like the Big Ten and Notre Dame) are going to fight hard for other networks to get some of the games. Maybe even a rotation like what currently happens with the Super Bowl.

Many are concerned ESPN has too much power over college football, as nearly every conference has ties to the network. Many have feared the monopoly ESPN has hurts those who are not associated with it, and that may even dip into the rankings for the College Football Playoff.

As the Big Ten goes elsewhere, that has to be the conference's biggest fear. Kevin Warren and others will fight hard for potential expansion and movement away from just ABC and ESPN for the playoffs.

In total, here is what every major broadcast network has access to:

ESPN
College Football Playoff
SEC (Exclusively in 2024)
Big Ten (reportedly ends in 2023)
ACC
Big 12 (ends in 2025)
Pac-12 (ends in 2024)
AAC
Sun Belt
Mountain West
MAC
C-USA (ends in 2023)

CBS
SEC (ends in 2023)
Big Ten (reportedly, starting in 2024)
C-USA (ends in 2023)
MAC
Mountain West

FOX
Big Ten (reportedly extending in new deal)
Big 12 (ends in 2025)
PAC-12 (Ends in 2024)

NBC
Notre Dame (ends in 2025)
Big Ten (reportedly starting in 2024)
Basically, ESPN is fine with keeping all they have on top of becoming the exclusive broadcasters for the SEC.

Meanwhile, CBS is replacing the SEC with the Big Ten in that Saturday 3:30 p.m. ET spot while also keeping some Group of 5 games. FOX remains strong with the Big Ten and could re-up deals with the depleted Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences. Then, NBC is covering their own butts in case Notre Dame jumps ship in 2025 by bringing in primetime matchups with the Big Ten starting in 2024. Surely, they are hopeful Notre Dame just joins the Big Ten and stays on their network in a larger deal.

I did some calling around after the Big Ten Conference announced it had finalized its media rights packages on Thursday. I asked a South Division athletic director from the Pac-12 Conference how he felt about things.

He said: “Next up… now at the plate… energized.”

It’s the Pac-12’s turn to negotiate. Conference commissioner George Kliavkoff will need to be very good in the next couple of weeks. The landscape is tricky. The market has been disrupted. The conference is negotiating from a less-than-ideal position. Kliavkoff is going to have to be shrewd, creative and wise.

While we wait for the Pac-12, I had a few thoughts:

• The Big Ten’s deal was reported by some to be a total of $8.4 billion over seven years. That figure sounded inflated to those who work in the industry. I asked two media experts to crunch numbers and deconstruct the deal. They both came back with estimates that place the total value of the deal in the $7.5 billion to $8 billion range. One guessed that the involvement of the Big Ten Network, 60 percent of which is owned by Fox, may be causing the accounting discrepancy.

Regardless, it’s a massive windfall for members. As Dennis Dodd of CBS pointed out on Twitter, the last media rights deal for the Big Ten was a seven-year deal with a total of $2.64 billion.

• The Big Ten signed a seven-year agreement in this round of media rights. Why seven years and not eight or 10? Because it gets the conference back to market before the SEC. That was apparently important to Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren.

• Warren will appear on an episode of HBO’s Real Sports next Tuesday night. The promotional transcript of the interview includes host Bryant Gumbel asking Warren whether the Big Ten could foresee paying players.

Warren’s answer: “Yes. Yeah.”

Also, Gumbel asked whether Warren could foresee Big Ten expansion from 16 teams to 20 teams. Warren’s answer: “I could. Yeah. I could see perpetual and future growth.”

• The first year of the Big Ten’s new media rights deal won’t include USC and UCLA. It will just be 14 universities. That first-year figure is estimated by Bob Thompson, the former Fox Sports Network executive, to fall well short of the $1 billion-a-year figure that has been floated for months. The first year payout will more likely be around $700 million to $750 million.

• The annual distribution to the Big Ten jumps over $1 billion in 2024 with the additions of USC and UCLA. Then, the deal kicks up approximately four percent annually. This allows the media partners to start at a lower payment, then raise their prices for carriage and advertising over the length of the deal. Schools get a little more on the back end. Everyone wins.

• A lot was made of the Big Ten including an “escalator” clause in its newest deal. It raised speculation about Oregon and Washington and presumably left the door open for additional members to join the conference. But Thompson, who negotiated hundreds of these deals in his career, told me those clauses have been around since 2010.

“We started putting them in because schools were coming and going,” he said. “The thing is that there’s no set dollar figure. It’s basically just a requirement to negotiate in good faith on an adjustment to the right deal. I’ve never seen one actually be invoked.”

• A second Pac-12 AD told me of conference expansion and realignment, “It always starts with shock, surprise and frustration, then folks who weren’t invited start knocking on doors asking, ‘Why not us?’ Then, the dust settles and folks confront reality. This is when the work begins.”

• I’ve been thinking a lot about San Diego State and some others as Pac-12 expansion candidates. I am focused primarily on the television households and media rights value that the potential universities bring. San Diego has 1.1 million television households. Portland and Salt Lake City are both around 1.1 million TV homes as well, by comparison. San Diego is an intriguing fit and gives the conference a presence in Southern California.

• I think ESPN is going to get a very important vote on this subject. If the network wants to be in Southern California, I think the Pac-12 will expand. If it’s not as important, it won’t. Most of the time we talk about academic fit, geography, and the votes of presidents and chancellors, but TV executives are running the show right now.

• UNLV is in the No. 40 television market in the country. Las Vegas has 757,840 television households, but would the Pac-12 make a bet on the rapid growth of that region? The NHL won big in Vegas. The NBA and MLB will soon follow. Between the summer of 2020 and 2021, the Las Vegas metro population grew by nearly 20,000 people and is now more than 2.3 million total residents. There’s a lot of money in the desert, a line of potential corporate partners, and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff is well connected in Vegas. Keep that in mind.

• SMU is a little bit interesting. It brings a robust television market, but it has a tiny footprint in Texas. Beyond that, we’ve talked about Boise State (517,000 TV households), Fresno State (the giant of the Central California’s valley) or the potential that the Pac-12 poaches Big 12-bound Houston (2.45 million TV homes). The Pac-12 will only expand if it’s a no-brainer. I can’t be the only one having a difficult time finding can’t-miss expansion candidates for the Pac-12.

• I continue to hear enthusiasm within the Pac-12 about a “loose partnership” with the ACC. One Pac-12 university president whispered about this to me last month and it makes a lot of sense when you consider a partnership solves two problems for ESPN. One, it gives the network inventory in the Pacific Time Zone. Two, it creates an opportunity for ESPN to keep restless ACC members happy by sprinkling unexpected money on them.

• Neither Apple nor Amazon got in on the Big Ten media rights deal. The prevailing thought is the Pac-12’s Tier 1 rights will land on linear television. But I keep thinking there’s a place for one of the major streaming platforms when it comes to the Pac-12. Or maybe Amazon and Apple are just here to help create leverage for the conference. ESPN+ would probably love to absorb the Pac-12 Network content itself.

I’ll update this as more develops…

• Talks between ESPN and the Pac-12 have been “productive” per a conference insider. “We’re still in the midst of positive conversations but haven’t reached a final offer stage,” the source said. “We’ve been much more engaged with George (Kliavkoff). We’re all in sync, we’re all in line. We’ve got some high level media consultants at the tables.”

• The Pac-12 has hired two consulting firms — one of them is Sports Media Advisors. SMA comes with a great reputation. Doug Perlman runs the shop. He attended University of Virginia law school with Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff. Perlman was the point person on the NHL’s television deals for years.

• I’m being told by multiple sources not to expect much in the way of Pac-12 media rights news before Labor Day.

• Brett McMurphy caused a stir when he tweeted on Monday that Oregon was kicking the tires in Chicago with the Big Ten to determine if the Ducks are compatible:

• No Michael Schill? No Rob Mullens? No Kevin Warren? McMurphy is a good reporter. I trust him. I was told early on that Phil Knight and Tinker Hatfield were interested in exploring some options. Sounds to me like the Nike contingent may be doing the heavy lifting.

• One source in Knight’s inner circle told me after USC and UCLA defected to the Big Ten: “The good news is Phil is working hard to determine the correct path forward and hopefully to determine one that is viable. My guess is, his aspirations aren’t practical or achievable. But try to tell that to the man that has won most battles in his life that seemed out of reach.”

• Oregon is a tentpole among the remaining 10 universities in the Pac-12. The prevailing sentiment among conference athletic directors is that UO shopped itself around significantly after USC and UCLA announced their departure, and learned it didn’t have great immediate options.

• The Pac-12 ADs continue to meet at least once a week. I asked a few of them if Oregon had expressed a desire for unequal revenue sharing or maybe even a shorter media rights deal. Said one AD: “Not at all. Oregon hasn’t been pounding on the table. They’ve made no demands in an open forum. I think, like the rest of us, they’re interested in seeing what comes of this media rights negotiation.”

• There has been ongoing conversation among some of the ADs about the role that Phil Knight could play in holding the Pac-12 together. If Oregon sticks around, could Knight come in as an equity partner? Said one North Division AD, “Knight’s involvement would be a game-changer.”

• A “loose partnership” between the Pac-12 and ACC is still very much on the table, but nobody is quite sure how much new money ESPN might be able to squeeze out of it — and the money is why you’d do it.

• Said one current Pac-12 North Division AD: “There’s some interest in that from our side. There are some great things that could happen… it’s not like we are going to go crazy playing a bunch of crossover games, but the two conferences could put together some matchups with value.”

• I spoke with Oregon first-year head coach Dan Lanning on Sunday. I asked him if he was ready to play a game. Lanning said, “My guys are ready to hit someone else and I’m sure ready to see them do that, but if you ask me, I’m always going to tell you I want one more week of practice.”

• I talked with former Oregon coach Mario Cristobal via FaceTime on Sunday morning. I wrote a column about Ducks’ linebacker Noah Sewell and Cristobal was happy to provide some background on the kid. Cristobal popped up on my phone wearing a University of Miami polo shirt.

• Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is currently on a “listening tour” and trying to visit all his conference universities. It’s a wise move and can galvanize a conference. Yormark gave the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal five minutes for a Q-and-A that I found interesting.

• In the piece, Yormark clarified the “open for business” comment he made at Big 12 Media Days. He told the newspaper, “‘Open for business’ doesn’t mean just expansion, where I think some people read into it that it was very much focused on expansion. That’s not necessarily the case. When I say ‘open for business’, it means that this conference is no longer going to be stagnant. We’re going to be very proactive. We’re going to explore and identify any and all opportunities that create value in every respect. Is expansion a part of ‘open for business’? A hundred percent. But it’s only a small piece.”

• I asked a South Division AD that I haven’t previously quoted about the Big 12. Is that conference actively trying to poach Pac-12 teams? He said, “I don’t know where all this stuff comes from. There have been no offers or conversations. I’ve been in no dark rooms. It’s insane.”

• I think adding San Diego State makes a lot of sense from an expansion standpoint by the Pac-12. It would get the conference back into Southern California and add 1.1 million TV households. Beyond that, though?

• UNLV? SMU? Fresno State? Boise State? I dunno. It feels to me like poaching a Big 12 team… or five… would be a better option for the Pac-12 than diluting the conference with a few less-than-ideal candidates. I’d rather have Baylor, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State and maybe 1-2 others. Then again, I’d rather that college football returned to a time before TV-money greed… you know, when geography and tradition dictated your conference affiliation.

Brett Yormark, the former co-chief operating officer at Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, has emerged as a polarizing figure in the college football realignment discussions. The Big 12 commissioner been on a “listening tour” but this week he decided to do some talking.

Yormark was visiting the University of Cincinnati on Wednesday. Yormark told reporters that when it came to potential expansion targets, his conference wants to go “out west” in the fourth time zone.

“A program that has national recognition,” Yormark said. “One that competes at the highest level in basketball and football, stands for the right things, is a good cultural fit.”

The Big 12’s commissioner declined to get more specific. When he says “out west” is he talking about San Diego State? How about Fresno State? Or maybe Utah, Colorado, Arizona or Arizona State?

Said one “four corners” Pac-12 ADs: “I have no idea what he’s talking about. He just continues to throw stuff out to disrupt. Seems like some level of desperation.”

I’m fascinated by the 180-degree difference in strategy between Yormark and Pac-12 commissioner Georgia Kliavkoff. Outside of Kliavkoff’s spicy Media Day appearance in July, he’s remained silent.

In fact, the Pac-12 commissioner was in Atlanta for the Oregon-Georgia game and didn’t do interviews. Presumably because the Pac-12 is amid a media-rights negotiation. On the same day, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey conducted a lengthy impromptu news conference in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium press box.

The Big 12’s Yormark was also asked on Wednesday about his conference’s media rights negotiations. There’s some confusion about whether the Big 12 is — or isn’t — in the exclusive negotiating window.

“That process has started,” Yormark told reporters. “I met with ESPN last week... I’ll be meeting with FOX in the next week... My gut tells me that both FOX and ESPN would like to (negotiate early) but I’ll know for sure...in the next week.”

Some interesting semantics at play here. I bounced Yormark’s quote off two TV-industry insiders. They agreed that it sounds like all Yormark has is an indication from ESPN that they’d like to talk outside the exclusive-negotiating window. Per the contract, the Big 12 can only talk with ESPN and FOX at this point. The networks like it that way, too. If they’re not in an exclusive, 30-day negotiating window, there’s no ticking clock.