With the reported moves of USC and UCLA going to the Big 10 in 2024, many have shared their opinions on what it means for college football going forward. One person who was at the heart of negotiating TV deals for college football and college basketball was the former president of ESPN, John Skipper.
Skipper was a guest on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Thursday and he made the point that an “arms race” is developing in college sports and it is clear that the Big 10 and SEC have emerged as the two leaders:
“Now we are in kind of an arms race where everybody wants to move to a conference in order to get more money. We are coming to an era of diminishing returns in terms of just being able to move somewhere and get a bunch more money. I think it’s clear the Big 10 and SEC have emerged as the dominant players here, particularly in terms of ratings and achievement on the football field.
The SEC’s rights are tied up until 2034 and the Big 10 is probably going to have 2 new rounds of rights negotiations before 2034, so they are in a very good position to get more money. With the streamers looking to come in, they look to take advantage of that as well.”
One of the things Skipper doesn’t think is being talked about enough in realignment is what states these schools are in and how it can help a network gain more money. He remembers first-hand the deal he negotiated with the ACC when Pittsburgh, Boston College, Syracuse, and Louisville joined the conference:
“One of the more important ones we did was with the ACC. One of the big moves made was when the ACC was in danger of losing its basketball prominence to the Big East and not seeing the same kind of increases the Big 10 and SEC were. They went and took Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Boston College, and Louisville to the ACC.”
“One of the most important factors is what state they are in. For the ACC, Big 10, and SEC, all of whom have their own well-distributed networks. Pittsburgh, Boston College, Louisville and Syracuse both created a diminution of competition in the Big East, but it also added Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and Kentucky to the footprint of the ACC. Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts represent quite a lot of population and those network deals are paid based on footprint and non-footprint. One price for the state and where the subscribers live within the footprint and the price if they don’t live in the footprint. I expect that to be the case with the Big10, who I believe just added the most populous state in the United States to their footprint, which I think has gone underrecognized in this move.”
So, what could be in the future for college sports? Skipper gave out the hypothetical that if he were running the ACC, for example, he would try to see if four super conferences were forming and what it could mean for both college football and basketball:
“I would be calling around to see if there are going to be four super conferences of 16 or so teams, which I think there will be. How about we create four super conferences and do our own basketball tournament? I also think if you created four, 16-team conferences, you have 32 bowls and every team in the conferences would go to a bowl and you might even use those bowls to play the First Round of a very expansive College Football Playoff. There’s plenty of ways to get more money in addition to trying to figure out what can be done with Amazon and Apple.”
