RE: Where is the upside to SEC expansion?
There is a lot more going on with consolidation than adding schools. Additional markets do provide additional revenue, especially if two schools can add 21 million in potential advertising reach (North Carolina and Virginia). That's like picking up another Florida market wise.
The NCAA isn't going to keep upper tier athletics when consolidation is done. Basketball will be monetized and brands like Duke, Kansas, and North Carolina bring national eyes on your product increasing your commercial value. The same year monetization of a new upper tier tournament will multiply the annual payout of tourney credits by X 6 which is the number of years the NCAA takes to fully pay for 1 year's tournament.
For the SEC such additions also tend to lessen the brutality of football scheduling bringing it a little more in line with what the Big 10 does.
Then there is the unspoken of reason, House seats loyal to their state schools and therefore more likely to vote for appropriations which favor the block of schools in which their state school is a member. 2030 census projections indicate that as many as 15 seats could be lost within the Big Ten's current footprint. Where are the states with the largest number of house seats outside of California and New York? Texas and Florida and by combination North Carolina and Virginia. Private schools don't help much. State schools do. To maintain leverage the quickest remedy for the Big Ten is to get into North Carolina, Virginia or Florida as they have no solid approach to get into Texas. Baylor and T.C.U. are private and Texas Tech is way below their norm. It is true that football and competition in the SEC is at peak for earnings. But boys and girls media revenue is only one line in the ledger, and I'll keep hammering that until it sinks in. And media revenue isn't the first or even second most important ledger line. State and Federal funding dwarves athletics revenue in general. Donations to the athletic departments of the best athletically branded state schools would be #2 at most of those schools sometimes trebling media revenue. But the Federal and State funds are key to the university as a whole. So, for political influence and self-interest schools which are consolidating are looking for all angles that influence their revenue inside and outside athletics. For that reason alone, the SEC and Big Ten are interested in North Carolina and Virginia and since the Big Ten wants AAU schools the SEC's best offense and defense is to seek UNC and UVa. But things change in Florida because USF doesn't yet have a significant statewide viewership though they are AAU, and Miami is smallish private that wouldn't carry many dedicated House seats voting for their interests. So, we have the narrative of why Florida State's market is so important the Big Ten would take them. Really, it's because they as the state's #2 school would garner the support of most of the House members in Florida. Remember this isn't a red vs blue issue. This is about appropriations for state schools. Divide the loyalties between the Big Ten and SEC with FSU in the Big Ten and UF in the SEC and the Big Ten covers their potential 2030 census losses.
To understand consolidation, especially the part of it distasteful to explain to alumni, you need to understand that the SEC and Big Ten are turning into two lobby groups for collections of large state schools and top private schools. Why? The enrollment cliff is real, financial instability globally is growing, and while sports is the front porch to attracting enrollment for many schools, ALL REVENUE STREAMS matter more than ever.
Of course, North Carolina and Virginia are not football prizes for the SEC and Big Ten and FSU is not an academic prize for the Big Ten. So why all of the talk of adding any of them? Well, it sure as hell isn't about just sports! When stuff happens for which, you can find no good reason and for which you can't back it up with conventional logic, then it's not about what you think it is about! Therefore, it's not about sports and that is why logic seems to be ignored, and the additions proposed make no sense. And I'll give you something else to use as an early warning device, when schools which once controlled their own conferences leave for another conference (think USC, Washington, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Virginia) it is because something is coming that scares the Hell out of them! A.I., the value of STEM jobs, the current ROI for a liberal arts degree, the baby bust (enrollment cliff), the uncertainty of the value of the dollar, renminbi, Euro, rupee, yen, and ruble, the mass migrations of poor people to nations with more natural resources, and a tension level globally which usually signals a coming war, all are signs of a very, very unstable future and that is motivation enough to find safety in numbers, not football media rights, not monetizing basketball, or even baseball. But because of how government works, the markets trade, and because panic is not an organizing principle, but an obstacle, nobody is talking about it.
What they can talk about without creating anything but curiosity and some bewilderment is why North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida State are viable candidates to either Super Conference. Therefore, sports affiliation is the attributed motive for issues they don't want to discuss, at least not openly.
That is why half of this board is confused and conflicted over the scope of expansion/consolidation. It's not about simply sports! Good luck to us all!
(This post was last modified: 10-26-2025 08:47 AM by JRsec.)
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Where is the upside to SEC expansion?
