SEC replacing its "have-nots"? Not happening anytime soon, says Seth Emerson

[BrentVU]

Seth Emerson covers the SEC, and especially conference realignment stories, for the Athletic. Someone asked him... "With all this realignment, at what point do the “haves” in the B1G and SEC decide to replace the “have-nots” in their respective conferences? For example, wouldn’t it be much more lucrative to Alabama, Georgia, etc. to replace Vanderbilt with FSU instead of just adding FSU, which just dilutes the payouts?"

Here's his answer:

In purely economic terms, yes. But it’s not quite that simple. For one thing, on-field success also drives the economics, and the more FSUs and Clemsons you have in your league, and the fewer Vanderbilts and Mississippi States, then the fewer wins everyone gets.

College presidents like money. They also like winning. But what if television people come to those presidents and show them how much more money they would make if it’s just the powerful teams playing each other? The SEC television package is already much more about Alabama-LSU than Missouri-Ole Miss. But Sankey and his presidents don’t have to ditch anybody. There is not an arbitrary maximum that a conference can have, only an average payout that higher-end teams start to get antsy about sharing with lower-end teams, à la Florida State in the ACC. And the bigger a conference gets, the more likely you have a scenario where football programs become a separate entity within college sports.

Football is driving all this, but it’s bringing all the sports with it, which doesn’t make as much sense. It’s fine to make cross-country trips in a sport that has only 12 regular-season games, and on weekends, but the travel costs to do it for every sport, not to mention the mental and physical load, are ridiculous. So I could see a day when the powers-that-be say: You know what, we should keep geography as a priority for the other sports, but let’s make football separate. And while we’re doing that, let’s just have the best football programs play each other.

They tried to do that in English soccer a few years ago, but the Super League collapsed because fans — as well as many players and coaches — revolted. They hated the idea, admirably so, since it would have shut out the lesser clubs and taken away both the romance of having a chance to become one of the elites and getting a chance to play the elites. It’s not as fun having a league just of Goliaths and no Davids.

But how would American sports fans react? We already have super leagues, they’re called the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS, where there is no relegation and promotion of minor leagues, not even our version of pro soccer. But college sports offered that more romantic notion of bringing in everybody, giving everyone a chance if they try hard enough. Yes, the comparison isn’t perfect, as the Super League was going to be 20 clubs, while the U.S. pro leagues are about 30, but that’s why the number 30 is thrown around if there is some sort of consolidation in college football.

So you could see the College Football League someday being born out of the best teams from the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC. (And of course, Notre Dame, which at that point would finally have to join a conference.) But you can imagine how messy it would get within conferences as schools angle to be in the CFL (maybe we’d have to work on that name). Depending on how many teams are in this super league (25? 30 or more?), you’d imagine the certainties in the SEC would be Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma and Texas, while Auburn, Tennessee and Texas A&M would also have great arguments for it. But what about Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ole Miss? And how does this all get hashed out?

If you’re hoping this doesn’t happen, the pure messiness of putting it together is a hopeful thought. So is the television part of it: Would ESPN and Fox actually get together to form this super league? This is where the cause of the problems in college sports could be what keeps it from getting worse: Nobody is in charge, so nobody can step in to “fix” it by creating one big super league that locks out the have-nots.

[commadore]

Seth Emerson covers the SEC, and especially conference realignment stories, for the Athletic. Someone asked him... "With all this realignment, at what point do the “haves” in the B1G and SEC decide to replace the “have-nots” in their respective conferences? For example, wouldn’t it be much more lucrative to Alabama, Georgia, etc. to replace Vanderbilt with FSU instead of just adding FSU, which just dilutes the payouts?"

Here's his answer:

In purely economic terms, yes. But it’s not quite that simple. For one thing, on-field success also drives the economics, and the more FSUs and Clemsons you have in your league, and the fewer Vanderbilts and Mississippi States, then the fewer wins everyone gets.

College presidents like money. They also like winning. But what if television people come to those presidents and show them how much more money they would make if it’s just the powerful teams playing each other? The SEC television package is already much more about Alabama-LSU than Missouri-Ole Miss. But Sankey and his presidents don’t have to ditch anybody. There is not an arbitrary maximum that a conference can have, only an average payout that higher-end teams start to get antsy about sharing with lower-end teams, à la Florida State in the ACC. And the bigger a conference gets, the more likely you have a scenario where football programs become a separate entity within college sports.

Football is driving all this, but it’s bringing all the sports with it, which doesn’t make as much sense. It’s fine to make cross-country trips in a sport that has only 12 regular-season games, and on weekends, but the travel costs to do it for every sport, not to mention the mental and physical load, are ridiculous. So I could see a day when the powers-that-be say: You know what, we should keep geography as a priority for the other sports, but let’s make football separate. And while we’re doing that, let’s just have the best football programs play each other.

They tried to do that in English soccer a few years ago, but the Super League collapsed because fans — as well as many players and coaches — revolted. They hated the idea, admirably so, since it would have shut out the lesser clubs and taken away both the romance of having a chance to become one of the elites and getting a chance to play the elites. It’s not as fun having a league just of Goliaths and no Davids.

But how would American sports fans react? We already have super leagues, they’re called the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS, where there is no relegation and promotion of minor leagues, not even our version of pro soccer. But college sports offered that more romantic notion of bringing in everybody, giving everyone a chance if they try hard enough. Yes, the comparison isn’t perfect, as the Super League was going to be 20 clubs, while the U.S. pro leagues are about 30, but that’s why the number 30 is thrown around if there is some sort of consolidation in college football.

So you could see the College Football League someday being born out of the best teams from the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC. (And of course, Notre Dame, which at that point would finally have to join a conference.) But you can imagine how messy it would get within conferences as schools angle to be in the CFL (maybe we’d have to work on that name). Depending on how many teams are in this super league (25? 30 or more?), you’d imagine the certainties in the SEC would be Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma and Texas, while Auburn, Tennessee and Texas A&M would also have great arguments for it. But what about Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ole Miss? And how does this all get hashed out?

If you’re hoping this doesn’t happen, the pure messiness of putting it together is a hopeful thought. So is the television part of it: Would ESPN and Fox actually get together to form this super league? This is where the cause of the problems in college sports could be what keeps it from getting worse: Nobody is in charge, so nobody can step in to “fix” it by creating one big super league that locks out the have-nots.

American Clueless Conference?