How does recent NCAA conference realignment affect the SEC?

Conference realignment between the Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC continues to go on after the Pac-12 has chosen to collapse on itself after multiple years of mismanagement. After being handed life preserver after life preserver, they were left with not of a lot good options for their TV contracts. 

After it became clear that the Pac-12 could not sustain itself, Oregon and Washington left the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. With Arizona, Arizona St., and Utah also heading for the Big 12, the Pac-12 is all but gone.

The Big 12 might end up being the only other major conference that survives. Maybe at some point way down the line, the SEC and Big 10 will try to poach some of their top football schools (once again) but the conference rebounded nicely from losing Texas and Oklahoma by getting BYU, Houston, Cincinnati, and UCF. They added to Pac-12 leftovers which beefed up their protection against SEC/Big Ten.

The main other big piece of college football news is that Florida State met with JPMorgan Chase to discuss options about private liquidity to buy them out of the ACC. With that in mind, the SEC could potentially look to add teams from the ACC at some point in the future.

In all likelihood, that is the next battleground for these two conferences. This may take some time due to the fact that it would cost a boatload of money to get out of the ACC TV contract. Any team that wants to leave the ACC would need to pay three times their annual revenue in order to move away from the former conference.

Additionally, these ACC teams will have to get out of the “grant of rights clause” that the conference has if they want to join another conference. According to Brett McMurphy, some schools have been trying to do this.

This is probably why the SEC will not make any “knee-jerk reaction” to this recent realignment news (according to ESPN). The Southeastern Conference will not make any.

Is this good for the SEC, College Football, and college sports as a whole?

It is not good that the landscape of college sports is turning into 2.5 big conferences that are both vying for more share of the profits. It makes no sense why schools in the Midwest are in the same conference as West Coast schools. This move is driven by greed and a lack of consideration for student-athletes who do not play college football.

At first, it might be fun for alumni and student-athletes (also maybe college students) to make the long trip to Los Angeles from Michigan/Ohio State/Northwestern/Indiana/Michigan State/etc., but eventually these teams will feel disconnected from each other. Ditto with Oklahoma, Texas, and the rest of the SEC.

I feel very bad for the college student-athletes who now have to make long road trips in order to satisfy the profits of the college football program. In the end, the Big Ten or SEC make way more of a profit margin than the other conference but the student-athletes are not making any of that profit.

I am not saying that college athletes should get paid (which they should but the system of how they get paid is a totally different conversation). Rather I am saying that AD’s, conference commissioners, and other people at the top will be making all of the money.

All of this feels very dystopian. Maybe these changes will make sense down the line but it feels like an idea that seems cool. Having Texas and Alabama in the same conference seems fun but it feels manufactured and just straight-up unnatural.