What will the Big Ten-SEC partnership look to accomplish?
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Pete Thamel, ESPN
The most important thing to know about the burgeoning cooperation of the Big Ten and the SEC, announced late last week, is to not call it an alliance. Let alone The Alliance.
The ill-fated — and roundly mocked — conference alliance of August 2021 was a ham-handed move. But most notably, it was the ACC, Pac-12 and Big Ten acting defensively in response to the SEC’s acquisition of Oklahoma and Texas.
This “joint advisory group” announced last week between the Big Ten and the SEC should be viewed more as a bellwether for where college sports are going, and the desire of SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti to be proactive. It will be a consultant for the two leagues but won’t have the authority to implement changes.
While further details remain unclear, the Big Ten and SEC are sharing ideas to carve a path forward for college sports, something NCAA leadership has failed to do for a generation, capped by the recent flop of the transformation committee.
This isn’t a breakaway, a point Sankey and Petitti have done great gymnastics to point out. It’s rather an arrow pointing toward progress, ranging from micro issues such as squabbles in the College Football Playoff (governance, access and monetary distribution) to larger-scale issues all the way up to Congress.
Here’s what’s definitive about this new linking: These leagues don’t want Eastern Michigan having a say in what happens at Michigan or Florida International affecting Florida. They don’t, for example, want the Dartmouth basketball team’s unionization effort to impact the Auburn and Iowa football teams’ futures.
The SEC and Big Ten are cool on new NCAA president Charlie Baker’s proposal that calls for a new tier of Division I, which includes $30,000 payments to at least half of a school’s athletes and allows schools to make name, image and likeness deals directly with athletes.
One of the reasons the SEC and Big Ten breaking away isn’t rooted in reality comes from the Supreme Court ruling in 2021 in the NCAA v. Alston case. That ruling stresses time and again that conferences are free to forge individual paths forward.
So where could this SEC-Big Ten partnership show up to forge the future of college sports? The simple answers are lawsuit settlement and revenue share.
Multiple sources told ESPN there’s a lot of chatter that this SEC-Big Ten arm-linking could manifest itself amid the thicket of lawsuits facing the NCAA. Some of the wealthiest conferences want to find a way to settle those suits — particularly the billions in potential exposure of House v. NCAA — and use the settlement structure to create a path forward.
This is not simple, nor is it inevitable, as it’s a complicated play that likely would involve Congress. But as one industry source told ESPN on the building settlement chatter: “Congress doesn’t want to save us. They want to help us. There’s a big difference.”
Sources pointed to the House vs. NCAA case, a class-action lawsuit that has the NCAA facing a multibillion-dollar payout in damages to former athletes if a federal judge decides the association’s old prohibition on NIL deals violated federal antitrust laws. That case is scheduled to go to trial in January 2025, but it could be settled before then.
All of the so-called Power 5 conferences — SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 — are listed as defendants in the House case, which is part of the reason they could be motivated to settle.
This spring appears to be the optimal window for settling.
The NCAA is also facing two other open antitrust complaints and a federal lawsuit that argues that all college athletes should be considered employees of their schools.
There’s no clean path to a settlement, and the circles around those talks are typically tight. But could the Big Ten and SEC spearheading some type of settlement — perhaps in multiple looming cases — mean they agree to pay some of the past damages and figure out an approved structure to revenue share with athletes going forward?
Other leagues could and will follow along. With revenue sharing with athletes seemingly inevitable at some point, would this be a way to instill it?
Gabe Feldman, director of the Tulane sports law program, warned of myriad complications but acknowledged a potential path through settlement that could create a framework going forward.
“It’s certainly plausible,” he said. “The realistic part is about the will of the parties. Are the parties willing and able to find a dollar amount to make these cases go away and able to find a structure that they would continue under? It’s certainly plausible.”
Some protection would likely be needed to slow or prevent future lawsuits from coming and challenging the structure. There are various opinions on how and whether that could be achieved, but that’s likely something that would need some type of government intervention. A settlement and some sort of revenue share could help encourage action from federal lawmakers, who have thus far made little tangible progress toward voting on the type of bill the NCAA and its members say they need.
“What they need from Congress, to be clear, is clarity,” said Mark S. Levinstein, senior counsel for Williams & Connolly, who has decades of experience in the sports space. “They need a lot of answers. For example, with respect to labor law, can the athletes unionize? If they unionize and choose the labor laws, is everything the universities did now protected from being challenged under the antitrust laws?”
Levinstein added: “The universities would also need some help with Title IX — if the football players receive a percentage of the university’s revenues, what do they have to do for the women’s rowing athletes? And they will need some clarity on any restrictions they impose on NIL. Can they prevent boosters from paying athletes to come to the university? Do you allow the quarterback to receive millions in NIL deals if they’re actually NIL deals and not payments to get him to enroll at a particular university?”
That’s a lengthy way to say there’s nothing linear here. But the settlement as a bridge to federal help is an idea being discussed, and it’s one the SEC and Big Ten appear set to dig in on once they determine which members — presidents, chancellors and athletic directors — will make up the advisory group.
We’ve seen plenty of committees, commissions and expert panels in college athletics over the years that have led to nothing more than additional committees, commissions and expert panels. What makes this partnership different is that the SEC and Big Ten have the financial muscle, alignment and leadership. But that doesn’t diminish the challenges.
Since Sankey took over at the SEC in 2015, we’ve learned that he’s calculating, the type of leader who measures many times before cutting. Sankey is, in general, a believer in the NCAA and the need for rules and a governing body. But there’s also a boiling point when Georgia State has the same juice as Georgia.
Sankey served as the co-chair of the transformation committee, a group that met for more than a year. It was formed in an effort to reshape Division I rules in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, and there were few tangible results. The time Sankey dedicated to it showed that he believed in some type of healthy NCAA for the future of college sports. But the reality is the transformation committee couldn’t transform anything. So here we are.
Petitti got hired in April of last year, and as he has gotten acclimated to all the issues in college sports, he has made the strategic decision to link with Sankey. Former Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren and Sankey had a poor relationship, summed up upon Warren’s departure by Sankey saying, “We saw the world differently.”
Alignment among leadership doesn’t mean they can change anything. The most gobsmacking thing about college sports is that, for as popular and profitable as they are at the highest levels, there has long been no one in charge. And those who do qualify as leaders can’t tell you with any confidence what the basic structure surrounding their business will be in five years. Truly, no one has any idea. Everyone is guessing.
With cohesion in the landscape’s two most powerful leagues, they will plow forward. The task is daunting, but luckily the last alliance for power conferences set the bar pretty low.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR went before a federal judge Wednesday and asked for the antitrust suit filed against the stock car series to be dismissed. Should it proceed, NASCAR asked that the two teams suing be ordered to post a bond to cover fees they would not be legally owed if they lose the case.
NASCAR also asked U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell of the Western District of North Carolina to dismiss chairman Jim France as a defendant in the suit filed by 23XI Racing, a team co-owned by NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan, and Front Row Motorsports, which is owned by entrepreneur Bob Jenkins.
Bell promised a fast ruling but indicated he was unlikely to dismiss the suit when he closed the 90-minute hearing. The calendar he set when he received the case last month calls for a December trial.
“This case is going to be tried this year, and deserves to be tried this year,” Bell said.
Bell replaced Judge Frank Whitney, who heard the first round of arguments in early November. The teams went before Whitney and asked to be recognized as chartered teams this year as the suit progresses, but Whitney denied the motion.
The teams appealed and the case was transferred to Bell, who overruled Whitney and granted an injunction that allow 23XI and Front Row to compete with charter recognition throughout the 2025 season. That led NASCAR to request the teams post a bond to cover all the payouts they will receive as chartered teams as collateral should the teams lose the case.
NASCAR and the teams that compete in the top Cup Series operate with a franchise system that was implemented in 2016 in which 36 cars have “charters” that guarantee them a spot in the field at every race and financial incentives. There are four “open” spots earmarked for the field each week.
The teams banded together in negotiations on an improved charter system in a contentious battle with NASCAR for nearly two years. NASCAR in September finally had enough and presented the teams with a take-it-or-leave-it offer that had to be signed same day — just 48 hours before the start of the playoffs.
23XI and Front Row were the only two teams out of 15 who refused to sign the new charter agreement. They then teamed together to sue NASCAR and France, arguing as the only stock car entity in the United States, NASCAR has a monopoly and the teams are not getting their fair share of the pie.
Both organizations maintained they would still compete as open cars, but convinced Bell last month to give them chartered status by arguing they would suffer irreparable harm as open cars. Among the claims was that 23XI driver Tyler Reddick, last year’s regular season champion, would contractually become an immediate free agent if the team did not have him in a guaranteed chartered car.
Bell peppered both sides with questions regarding payout structures, what harm NASCAR would suffer if the teams were open cars and other issues.
“Why give a charter to anyone?” he at one point asked NASCAR.
Replied NASCAR attorney Christopher Yates, of Latham & Watkins: “NASCAR would be perfectly fine going back to that (pre-charter) model.”
Bell admitted he doesn’t normally hear motions to dismiss but did Wednesday because “we’ve got to get this case moving.” He later said he felt the hearing was beneficial as he was able to “size up” the attorneys and they could do the same with him.
Bell also warned both sides to work together to avoid disputes and promised the losing side will pay the fees for the discovery portion of the case.
With all indications that Bell is not going to dismiss the suit, it appears the only suspense will be if he orders the teams to post bond before the season begins next month. NASCAR argued Wednesday that it needs that money earmarked because it would be redistributed to the chartered teams if 23XI and Front Row lose.
Jeffery Kessler, considered the top antitrust lawyer in the country, argued that NASCAR has made no such promise to redistribute the funds to other teams. Kessler said NASCAR told teams it was up to NASCAR’s discretion how it would use the money and didn’t rule out spending some on its own legal fees.
Jordan and Jenkins attended the first hearing but were not present Wednesday. Only 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin was present, along with his fiancee and mother. France and vice chairman Mike Helton were in the gallery with NASCAR’s in-house legal counsel and members of the communications team.
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
DANIA BEACH, Fla. — While discussing the opportunity that awaits Penn State in the College Football Playoff, coach James Franklin said Wednesday that the showdown against Notre Dame is about “representing our schools and our conferences.”
Franklin then caught himself, realizing Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman was sitting just to his right.
“Or our conference, excuse me,” Franklin said.
Penn State will be representing the Big Ten against FBS independent Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl on Thursday night (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) at Hard Rock Stadium.
The Nittany Lions reached the Big Ten championship game before earning a No. 6 seed in the first 12-team CFP, while the Fighting Irish made the playoff as an at-large and earned the No. 7 seed despite playing in one fewer game.
Franklin said he thinks a larger CFP ultimately requires more uniformity around college football, including every team to be part of a conference and playing the same number of league games. Notre Dame, one of three remaining FBS independents, sees its status as central to the school’s identity and has resisted chances to join the Big Ten and other conferences over the years. The Fighting Irish compete in the ACC for most of their other major sports, and they have a scheduling agreement with the ACC in football.
“It should be consistent across college football,” Franklin said. “This is no knock at [Freeman] or Notre Dame, but I think everybody should be in a conference. I think everybody should play a conference championship game, or nobody should play a conference champion championship game. I think everybody should play the same number of conference games.”
Penn State reached the CFP by playing nine conference games as well as the Big Ten championship game against No. 1 Oregon, which defeated the Nittany Lions 45-37 on Dec. 7. The Big 12 also has maintained a nine-game league slate, while the SEC and ACC have stayed at eight conference games.
Franklin, who coached at Vanderbilt before Penn State, praised the SEC for remaining at eight league games, which the league’s coaches wanted. The SEC has repeatedly considered going to nine league games during Franklin’s time in the Big Ten.
“I was not a math major at East Stroudsburg, but just the numbers are going to make things more challenging if you’re playing one more conference game,” he said.
Franklin also highlighted other areas of the sport that could be made more uniform, including starting the season a week earlier to ease the strain of playing more games with an expanded playoff. He reiterated his desire to appoint a college football commissioner unaffiliated with a school or a conference, and once again mentioned longtime coach and current ESPN analyst Nick Saban as an option, along with former Washington and Boise State coach Chris Petersen, now a Fox college football analyst, and Dave Clawson, who recently stepped down as Wake Forest’s coach.
“We need somebody that is looking at it from a big-picture perspective,” Franklin said.
Freeman acknowledged that Notre Dame prides itself on its independence. He said the team uses the weekend of conference championships, when they’re guaranteed not to be playing, as another open week for recovery and other priorities.
Notre Dame ended the regular season Nov. 30 and did not play again until Dec. 20, when it hosted Indiana in a first-round CFP game. In helping craft the format for the 12-team CFP, former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick agreed that if the Irish were selected, they would not be eligible to earn a bye into the quarterfinals.
Freeman noted that he doesn’t have a strong opinion on whether college football needs more uniformity.
“I’m a guy that just [thinks], ‘Tell us what we’re doing and let’s go, and you move forward,'” Freeman said. “I love where we’re at right now. [Athletic director] Pete Bevacqua and our Notre Dame administration will continue to make decisions that are best for our program.”
Franklin said his desire for greater consistency stems from the CFP selection process and the difficulty of committee members to sort through teams with vastly different paths and profiles, and determine strength of schedule and other factors.
“How do you put those people that are in that room to make a really important decision that impacts the landscape of college football, and they can’t compare apples to apples or oranges to oranges?” Franklin said. “I think that makes it very, very difficult.”
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