College Football: On media deals, money, power shifts and parity

The next sea change for college football will be when new Big Ten media deals are finalized. At that point, Big Ten schools are expected to see a huge boost in annual distributions from the conference.

Currently, B1G schools receive around $57M annually, not including reimbursements and revenues from CFB Playoff participation.

Speculation is the combined deals with Fox, CBS and NBC will total between $1B and $1.5B annually.

In the 2020-21 fiscal year, the SEC distributed $54.6M to each school. That distribution included all post-season revenues.

If the speculation of new Big Ten media deals is accurate on the high end, the B1G could come close to paying out close to $100M to each of its schools. As Joseph Goodman argued in a recent column, there is something very wrong if schools like Illinois and Rutgers are getting larger conference payouts than Alabama and other high-draw (as in eyeballs) SEC football programs.

Beyond such a clear disparity in value, there are the actual impacts coming from the massive dollars. At the least, it will mean Big Ten schools will have even crazier money to throw at coaches. As the college football world steadily moves toward paying players, Big Ten schools will have another advantage in distributing money to players.

Joseph Goodman warns a disparity in revenue distribution could well lead to a power shift that affects recruiting and the ability to compete. He even suggests the B1G could “leave the SEC behind.”

College Football needs to stop talking about parity

Many arguments about expansion of the CFB Playoffs were based on creating more parity in college football. On the surface, parity is a goal to be embraced. It is, however, not achievable. There has never been parity in college football and there never will be.

The other problem with parity arguments is they are often based on parity in ‘outcome’ rather than ‘opportunity.’ When Nick Saban endorsed parity, he simply meant every program playing by the same rules.

What will Greg Sankey and the SEC do to not be left behind? The SEC’s most recent media deal was with ESPN, for $3B over 10 years. It begins after the current CBS deal expires in 2023. It is estimated after the new deal kicks in, annual payouts to SEC schools will exceed $65M.

That amount does not include a renegotiation with ESPN once Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC. The Longhorns and the Sooners (and maybe other schools later) will drive added payments from ESPN.

Will the added payments be on par with the Big Ten or perhaps exceed the B1G? When the answer is known, a guess is if either conference is left behind, it will not be the SEC.