It’s hanging out there for all to see, a tantalizingly tempting checkmate expansion move for the Big Ten and SEC.
A quickly shrinking window of opportunity, and a final move to drastically change the college sports footprint before the Protect College Sports Act passes through Congress.
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Why, you ask, would the Big Ten and SEC expand again when it looks like they currently have it all?
Because Congress, forever dysfunctional and routinely spiteful, is a loose cannon.
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There’s no telling what could happen over the next three-plus months of negotiations as the bill winds its way through an unwieldy legislative process. No telling what new unknown hides around the next corner.
No telling just how much danger is truly there for the Big Ten and SEC.
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“We want what’s best for the Big Ten and for Michigan,” Michigan president Domenico Grasso said at a recent board of regents meeting, further underscoring the us vs. them reality of college sports. “We are not going to sacrifice the competitive advantage that we have built for more than a century.”
Translation: we’re not sharing our money, and we’re not sharing our television partner and its prime viewing windows. The same vision that’s shared by the 33 other presidents and chancellors of the Big Ten and SEC.
Heck, the SEC presidents have been telling anyone who will listen this offseason that the time to do their own thing has arrived. it’s not a threat, it’s reality.
The Protect College Sports Act could be passed as soon as early October, if the stars and planets align and everyone in Congress plays nice. Which, of course, almost never happens.
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Using that perfect world timeline, the Big Ten and SEC have roughly 12-15 weeks to make an expansion move — and avoid the one glaring line in the bill that prevents the Big Ten and SEC from future expansion.
So that leaves the Big Ten and SEC with a defining decision: Make the proactive first move of expanding and obliterating the college landscape once and for all, or hope Congress allows the Big Ten and SEC to separate free and clear from any pooling of media rights.
And we all know, that’s not going to happen.
Pooling of media rights is the financial key to the entire bill, a chance for all 10 FBS conferences to go to market as one and — in theory — make twice (or more) than the current combined value of about $5 billion annually (including the College Football Playoff).
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The Big Ten and SEC say there’s no definitive data that shows a $10 billion payout, or anything even close. They see the 10 FBS conferences going to market as one, and barely moving the needle.
ESPN and Fox — the two heavy hitters in college sports — already have what they want. Why would they pay more?
The other side of the argument is the unknown value, and how much NBC, CBS and streaming sites will pay for a piece of the pie. Remember, when you go to market as one, all games are shared with all television partners. And all prime windows.
The only way for the Big Ten and SEC to forcefully eliminate the potential pooling of rights is to strike proactively, and expand again. An expansion move that devastates another Power conference (the Big East and Pac-12 were eaten in the last two major moves), and leaves the Big Ten and SEC too big to fail.
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Instead of protecting college sports, they will have redefined it. They leave and form their own association, and have their own rules — and begin to collectively bargain with players.
Once that move is executed, the Protect College Sports Act is dead in the water. The tenuous, bipartisan agreement will fall apart when collective bargaining enters the equation.
But that also leaves the two super conferences with a you-break-it, you-fix-it model ― a collective bargaining model they’re not exactly sold on ― in their collective lap. It’s that, or allow Congress to push them into a corner and force the pooling of media rights, like it or not.
This ridiculous decision must be made in a matter of weeks by two diametrically different conferences that can’t even agree on CFP expansion — much less the final expansion of college sports.
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The easy move is for the Big Ten and SEC to sit back and hope Congress blows it again. But for the past five years of the NIL era, the presidents and chancellors of the Big Ten and SEC have sat back and reacted to every unintended consequence that dug the hole that much deeper.
Instead of executing the final move on the chessboard.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Expansion clock is ticking. Do Big Ten, SEC make final move? | Opinion
