Best Case And Worst Case Expansion Scenarios For The SEC

 Send This Story To A Friend

The conference expansion rumors are flying at warp speed today and the SEC could wind up sitting pretty… or as sitting ducks.  Seriously, what appears to be shaking out is just what Mike Slive and the SEC’s presidents didn’t want.

The SEC is one of the two top conferences in the country.  Its schools have won four straight national championships in football and only Big Ten schools make more cash.

Therefore the SEC does not want to expand.  But as we’ve suggested for the past month, taking a wait and see approach carries its own set of dangers.  Namely, the SEC could wait… and see other leagues pass it by.

Below are a few scenarios out of the thousand or so that are being talked about this afternoon.  We’ll start with the best case and work our way down.

Best Case Scenario:
The rumors are all just a bunch of talk and there is no paradigm shift looming on the college sports landscape.

If the Big 12 and Pac-10 are to merge or come close to merging, a whole lot of details will need to be worked out.  Most important among those will be the new league’s revenue-sharing plan.  The uneven split that Texas and Oklahoma brokered when the current Big 12 formed 15 years ago is the main reason why that league appears headed to an early demise now.  Television rights, contracts, buy-ins, buy-outs, travel plans, divisional plans, etc, etc.  All of those issues would have to be tackled, too.

I would be surprised if the parties involved have had conversations that dug deeply into those issues.  Quite frankly, if the schools had been working on those details for long, I think we would have heard some leaks before now.

It’s possible then that this plan still can’t gain enough traction to actually come to fruition.  And while keeping an eye on the West, the SEC will also need to hope that the Big Ten to the North adds no more than three schools.  If the Big Ten added only Notre Dame or a three-team combination, it’s likely that the SEC would not be forced to respond at all.

Good Case Scenario:
Things do change for the SEC, but Texas and Texas A&M climb on board.

Combined, UT and A&M are worth many eyeballs and even more dollar signs.  If the Big Ten and Pac-10 expand or evolve it wouldn’t have much impact in Dixie if the SEC inked the two jewels of the Lone Star State.

If the SEC could grow by just two teams, all the better.  Clearly, Slive and the SEC presidents are looking to stay as close to the status quo as possible.  But if the SEC was forced to absorb Texas Tech as well, so be it.  Texas and A&M are worth a long trip to Lubbock every now and again.

Perhaps the SEC could stop there and set itself up with three five-team divisions:

(The competitors in the SEC title game could be the league’s two highest rated teams in the BCS standings, if you’re wondering.)

If the league wanted to grow further, then perhaps a Florida State could be added to reach 16 teams total:

You have to admit, that would be a pretty powerful sports brand, whether it’s the SEC’s most desired result or not.

Bad Case Scenario:
All Hell breaks loose and the Pac-16 and Big Ten (16) force the SEC to become a regional, small market league.

As of today, most conferences are regional.  That’s the lay-out that’s worked for decades.  But it looks like that’s about to change.  Twenty years ago, expansion wasn’t driven my television money and television markets.  Today it is.

If the Pac-16 combines the current Pac-10 schools with six major players from the Big 12, it will stretch from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean and will account for about 1/3rd of all the TV households in America.  Seven of the nation’s Top 20 markets would be Pac-16 markets.

If the Big Ten stretches from Nebraska to New York City — and grabs a national brand like Notre Dame — it will dominate the biggest cities in the country.  New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago.

If this occurred, then it’s likely that the SEC would chase four schools from the ACC — Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Miami.  All four are located in lands that can already be claimed by the conference.  Therefore, this kind of expansion would bring in no new recruiting grounds, no new population base, and no new television markets.  Florida State and Miami are at least “power” brands in college sports, but the Hurricanes appear to be an odd fit with the SEC in terms of its city location, less than fervent local fanbase and off-campus stadium.

Sadly, this is likely the SEC’s goal if forced to expand.  While it might suit fans and it may well be the easiest option, it would leave the SEC as a regional player only.  With smaller television markets, SEC schools would likely bring in millions of dollars less per school per year than those schools in the Pac-16 and enlarged Big Ten.  So the idea of maintaining the league’s dominance via on-field success would even be brought into question.  Other schools in other leagues would have bigger budgets.

Worst Case Scenario:
Everyone expands to the point that the SEC is left with no good dance partners at all.

If you think that sounds far-fetched, you’ve not been paying attention.  Back on May 13th we put forth the first piece of our “Expounding On Expansion” piece.  In it we laid out some possible events that quite frankly look more likely today than they did last month.

If the Pac-16 and Big Ten (supersized version) come to fruition as we mentioned above, the SEC’s hopes and dreams will likely rest with luring ACC schools to jump ship.  Would they likely come onboard?  Probably.  But that’s not a guarantee.

If the ACC’s schools — fresh off cutting a bigger per year deal with ESPN than the SEC has in place — decided to partner with some of the remaining Big East schools, would they be able to make more money than a jump to the SEC would provide?

Let’s look at it from the perspective of Georgia Tech, for example.  If Connecticut, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Louisville could be added to the ACC, would Tech (along with the other league schools) be able to renegotiate the league’s new ESPN deal?  Likely so.  The question, then, would be simple: Would Georgia Tech make more money by moving with three other schools to a regional SEC that would feature just two major television markets — Atlanta and Miami — or would Tech stand to make more money in a league that stretched from Boston to Miami and included every major market up and down the Atlantic Coast?

And keep in mind, with its current ESPN deal, ACC schools like Georgia Tech will likely make about $5 million less per year than SEC schools.  Would a stronger North to South version of the ACC make up enough money to negate that deficit?

This nightmare scenario probably won’t come to pass.  But it’s not idle talk, either.  If the paradigm does shift in a big way, it’s possible that a slow to move SEC could find itself as a 12-team regional league having to look to schools like South Florida and UAB to expand.  Again, it’s not likely… but it is possible.

That’s why we’ve been saying for nearly a month that the SEC should try to act rather than react.