Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
Commissioner Greg Sankey was asked repeatedly about additional SEC expansion during his opening remarks Monday at the conference's football media extravaganza in Dallas.
"Sixteen is our today, and 16 is our tomorrow," Sankey explained, referring to the membership total now that Texas and Oklahoma have officially joined the conference.
When the topic resurfaced a few minutes later, Sankey noted: "We're focused on our 16."
Asked again, he offered: "We're focused on our 16, period."
And finally: "Our focus is on our 16 members."
During his 52-minute turn at the podium, which included a state-of-the-conference address and questions from the media, Sankey mentioned that number — 16 — a total of 15 times.
We'd prefer to focus on a word Sankey uttered just once: litigation.
It followed a question about how closely Sankey is following the ACC's legal chaos, with Clemson and Florida State attempting to break the conference's grant-of-rights contract and join other leagues with little or no financial penalty.
"I'm not involved in recruitment," Sankey said. "Our presidents have been clear that I am not going to entangle us in litigation around expansion. So I pay attention, but I'm not engaged in those conversations."
In other words: tortious interference, the process by which an entity can be sued for interfering with business contracts.
Why won't SEC and Big Ten executives address additional expansion?
Why aren't they showing interest in the ACC's top brands?
Because any hint of interest could lead to the ACC taking legal action — to the SEC and/or Big Ten becoming entangled in litigation.
Officially, the heavyweight leagues have zero interest in expansion.
Unofficially, they have zero interest in expansion until schools are available and the threat of tortious interference has subsided.
If Clemson and Florida State are successful in extricating themselves from the ACC's grant-of-rights and become free agents — with North Carolina joining the exodus — the schools will have options. And those options will be based on media rights valuations.
ESPN and Fox don't proactively direct the conferences to add certain schools, but they provide the financial modeling and the funding that drives realignment. They are the financiers. As such, they effectively control the marketplace.
When the dollars offered by ESPN and/or Fox make sense for a conference and the desired schools make themselves available, expansion follows.
Yes, the votes belong to the university presidents, but they follow the money. (It's the best way to remain employed, after all.)
Which brings us back to Sankey's remarks, the SEC's focus on 16, tortious interference and the next wave of realignment.
The equation reads something like this: FLA + FOX + BTN = $$$.
On the chessboard that is major college football, with ESPN and Fox serving as grandmasters, there is one obvious void and clear motivation: Fox is not affiliated with any of the three major programs in Florida.
ESPN claims Florida through its deal with the SEC and Florida State and Miami via its contract with the ACC.
Meanwhile, the Fox cash machine known as the Big Ten Network has home markets across the heavily populated Midwest, in the big cities of the Eastern Seaboard (thanks to Maryland and Rutgers) and, starting this fall, in the massive Los Angeles market.
That leaves Florida, with its (roughly) 7 million TV homes.
Those homes currently pay out-of-market subscriber fees for the Big Ten Network because the conference doesn't have a campus in the Sunshine State.
If they were charged in-market monthly rates, which are typically double or triple the out-of-market fees, well … jackpot!
Naturally, there are obstacles to planting the Big Ten Network flag in Florida, over and above the ACC's contractual situation. One seemingly stands above the others: Florida State is not a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities.
This is all speculation on our part, a humble attempt to lend context to the issue that surfaced repeatedly Monday in Dallas and holds a prominent position in the college football ecosystem.
But after watching multiple rounds of realignment play out over the past 12 years, the Hotline's default position is to view all strategic decisions from the perspective of the networks bankrolling the sport.
If Fox's financial modeling supports acquiring terrain in Florida for the Big Ten Network, would ESPN attempt to block the move and fund the Seminoles' entry into the SEC?
And there's more.
Both conferences — and their network partners — covet North Carolina, an elite school with a needle-moving basketball program and millions of TV homes for the taking. Do the Seminoles and Tar Heels become a package deal?
Where does Clemson fit?
And what about the school nobody talks about, Georgia Tech?
The first-rate academics, combined with Atlanta's media market and bottomless well of blue-chip recruits, would seem to make Georgia Tech an attractive option for both Fox and the Big Ten.
(The Yellow Jackets don't meet Big Ten's competitive standards, but they have won a national championship in football more recently than Rutgers or Maryland.)
Again, we aren't suggesting any moves are imminent or any decisions have been made.
Maybe the dollars don't line up as cleanly for the Big Ten Network as our back-of-the-envelope math suggests.
Perhaps Fox has other strategic priorities within college football. Perhaps its modeling indicates maximum value has already been extracted.
We also don't take issue with Sankey's public position. He is focused on the SEC's 16 schools, just as Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti undoubtedly is focused on his 18.
But the chessboard cannot be accurately assessed without accounting for the strategic aims of the sport's two financiers. They didn't get rich by being dumb.
Our advice once the possibility of legal entanglement evaporates: Ignore all else and follow the money.
The networks have it, and the schools need it.
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Jon Wilner has been covering college sports for decades and is an AP Top 25 football and basketball voter as well as a Heisman Trophy voter. He was named Beat Writer of the Year in 2013 by the Football Writers Association of America for his coverage of the Pac-12, won first place for feature writing in 2016 in the Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest and is a five-time APSE honoree. You can follow him on Twitter @WilnerHotline or send an email at jwilner@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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