Mailbag: The SEC and Big Ten breakaway (bluff?), CFP committee distrust, Pac-12 media rights, Memphis and UNLV and loads more

The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly Send questions to wilnerhotline bayareanewsgroup com and include mailbag in the subject line Or hit me on the social media platform X WilnerHotline A few questions have been edited for clarity and brevity If the Big Ten and SEC break off and form their own football league why would the NCAA continue to allow them to compete in the non-revenue college sports Couldn t they just say You have to run all the championships for all your sports not just football MistUncle Yes absolutely And it s worth pointing out that despite much-deserved criticism and legal defeats on so a great number of fronts the NCAA does a first-class job staging national championships It s what the organization does best certainly The two conferences leveraged the threat of creating their own postseason into control of the College Football Playoff format in and beyond because the other leagues didn t call their bluff The championship-event element was just one reason the Hotline never concluded a breakaway threat was rooted in reality Two others Commissioners Tony Petitti of the Big Ten and Greg Sankey of the SEC would have been vilified for eternity like no figures in the history of college sports and like sparse in the history of American sports The process of emerging away was bound to draw immense scrutiny in the political arena Lawmakers from states with one school in the Big Ten or SEC and one school in the ACC or Big think Kentucky Iowa and South Carolina would have been under heavy pressure to intervene Having reported that the NCAA is headed toward a division of governance and authority unlike anything in its history The Power Four conferences are gaining leverage by the month and will perhaps before the decade ends carve their own mini-division within major college sports What does that look like They would have the freedom to set their own rules for football and crucially their own calendar while remaining under the NCAA competitive umbrella for all other sports Other conferences could opt in for football if desired And that structure would be perfectly acceptable The top tier of college football is different from everything else and should be treated as such But the breakaway threat The SEC and Big Ten did not possess the guts to go through with it in our view Can you blame the SEC for its strong resistance to a nine-game conference schedule which could easily add a loss to the record of a playoff contender when schedule strength mattered so little in See Indiana SMU and Arizona State James V The SEC s wariness is thoroughly justified after the disappointing performance by the CFP selection committee last fall There were numerous examples of the committee paying too little attention to schedule strength over-emphasizing the number of losses making hypocritical decisions and talking out of both sides of its mouth That talking is a big part of the concern by the way The weekly rankings show forces the committee chair to answer questions he or she should not be answering if credibility were the goal But credibility isn t the goal Entertainment is the goal at least for ESPN Ideally there would be two rankings shows one in early November the other in the middle of the month Under no circumstances should the committee release rankings on the Tuesday before championship weekend All that does is box the committee into decisions that could be problematic after the games The SEC should be skeptical of adding a ninth conference tournament that will product in additional losses and could be held against its teams by the committee At the same time the Big Ten is justified in wanting automatic qualifiers to shield itself from the impact of a crossover series with the SEC That too would add to the loss total and could be held against the conference There are a great number of legitimate concerns and insufficient easy answers And preponderance of the angst can be traced to a deep distrust of the committee Your fresh article valued the Pac- at approximately million per year in media rights Are all of those fan bases really only roughly equal to one of the Big Ten programs That s about what a full share there is worth BillyBobV For those unfamiliar the Hotline s forecast published on Wednesday predicted a million media deal for the Pac- or million per school per year And yes that s approximately the amount each Big Ten school receives from that conference s media deal over the subject of the contract cycle But remember those are averages Boise State s media rights are allegedly worth more than million annually Same with Washington State and Oregon State based on their TV ratings media markets and success Meanwhile there are plenty of schools in the Big Ten whose media rights are worth less than million annually hello Purdue Minnesota UCLA Illinois etc But on the other end of the valuation range Ohio State and Michigan in particular are worth vastly more than million annually How can UNLV afford to stay put in the Mountain West and wait for an offer from the Big when the Rebels may not even get the money that was promised by their current conference CelestialMosh We don t know the outcome of the mediation between the Mountain West and Pac- over the poaching penalty and exit fee lawsuits The Rebels might get every dollar promised by commissioner Gloria Nevarez last fall or not Until the Pac- completes its expansion strategy conclusions are risky But it s clear UNLV s administration believes the Mountain West provides a pathway into the Big If the Rebels stay put and dominate the depleted conference their value will in theory soar by the time the Big expands again in the early s We re skeptical The Hotline believes the increased emphasis on strength-of-schedule in the new CFP format starting in will make UNLV s task that much more hard if the school remains in the Mountain West In our view playing the best competition in the majority reputable conference practicable offers the best chance for advancement If no school increases the value of the media rights deal why should the Pac- expand beyond Texas State Why have any discussions about adding Memphis as a football-only member if it reduces the shares for everyone else NateJones That s part of the calculation for sure Once the conference reaches the certification requirement with an eighth all-sports member it must assess the value proposition of additional expansion Our sense is that Memphis would not devalue the revenue shares The Tigers would generate enough in media value annually for the conference to keep everyone else whole In other words a media deal that hypothetically spins off million per school would remain at million not drop to million or less with the Tigers on board They might even add incremental dollars But they aren t a game-changer in any way shape or form There are no competition changers available for the Pac- not even the combination of Memphis and Tulane One last point We are not convinced the Pac- s media deal will generate enough annually to make the move worthwhile for Memphis even in a football-only fashion Football may run the world but Oregon State just had a power conference-type of run chasing the College World Series Will the Beavers stay Independent in baseball or compete in the Pac- in Moneyline Ray We should start by reminding fans that the rebuilt Pac- is in the process of determining which sports it plans to sponsor and which schools will be members of the conference in various sports If we assume baseball makes the sport-sponsorship cut there s every reason to believe the Beavers will be involved And it could be a solid conference San Diego State has a rich baseball history obviously and so does Fresno State Competing as an Independent this season didn t undermine OSU s success The Beavers went - - hosted two rounds of NCAA Tournament games and made it to Omaha But unless you re Notre Dame football life as an Independent is challenging and costly especially from a scheduling standpoint Even for the Irish that s partially true hence their partnership with the ACC for five games per year We now have antitrust lawyers against Title IX lawyers This confrontation was inevitable with the amount of money in the House v NCAA settlement Will the prevailing side inform the universities how to allocate future payments to athletes sfw That s the multi-billion-dollar question at this point The House lawsuit settlement does not address Title IX It allows schools to share revenue in the manner they see fit which likely means million roughly will be spent on football and men s basketball and only million on Olympic sports That s not exactly a Title IX-level degree of equality but there s a catch Attorneys for the plaintiffs and defense designed the settlement to protect it from Title IX litigation by basing the revenue-sharing piece on domain forces The amount shared first year maximum million per school is based on a percentage of the average revenue generated by schools from ticket sales media rights and licensing the dollars that could be traced to their name image and likeness There are no institutional or federal dollars involved in the calculation thus insulating the revenue-sharing piece from Title IX litigation Or so they hope Clearly there is specific danger The courts could determine that revenue sharing in a manner that allocates percent to football and men s basketball does in fact violate Title IX Will the Big Sky invite Southern Utah and Utah Tech to backfill for losing Sacramento State cougsguy Our hunch is that one of them but perhaps not both will receive an invitation Without Sacramento State the Big Sky is down to schools and even numbers generally work best for scheduling Remember Southern Utah left the Big Sky after the season to join the WAC Have the ill feelings lingered Apparently Does that give Utah Tech an advantage if the Big Sky only wants one new member Perhaps That explained the conference must account for its membership in a slew of Olympic sports We won t dive into that aspect here but it s assuredly part of the planning And let s not forget The Big Sky has been aware of Sacramento State s ambitions for months The Hornets departure reported Wednesday wasn t a surprise We suspect the Big Sky will wait for the next realignment move likely in the Pac- before executing its membership strategy As commissioner Tom Wistrcill advised Canzano and Wilner The Podcast earlier this month We do have plans together It s kind of a decision-making tree If this happens then we look at these three options if this happens it s these two options We have a good plan together if one of the eight things we think could happen happen If Nos and happen then we ll have to adjust How does the College Sports Commission CSC generate revenue jimmy This question was posed last week and we did not have an answer FGS Global the firm handling communications for the CSC hadn t responded to our inquiry prior to publication on June An answer came a meager days later so let s return to the topic Related Articles House lawsuit ASU Arizona offer test event for success in rev-share era Pac- media rights deal prediction million annually with The CW ESPN WBD Big MBB Houston Texas Tech top post-NBA Draft deadline power rankings Cal athletic director Jim Knowlton to retire What s next for the Bears with a void at the top and competitive challenges mounting CFB recruiting UCLA stays hot UW goes national and a Ryder Lyons update According to an FGS Global spokesperson the defendant conferences in the House v NCAA lawsuit paid the expenses to create the CSC For those unaware the defendants are the ACC Big Big Ten Pac- and SEC along with the NCAA Exactly how much each conference shelled out to create the CSC we cannot say But the outlay was likely minimal relative to annual revenues Moving forward the spokesperson reported the costs of running the CSC are expected to be shared among those participating in it Given the importance of the NIL Go platform and the desire to end pay-for-play all the Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and preponderance if not all Division I basketball conferences likely will be involved What does your candidate dartboard look like for the athletic director vacancies at Cal and Stanford Pat S There is no dartboard for Cal Upon announcing Jim Knowlton s retirement the Bears indicated deputies Jay Larson and Jenny Simon-O Neill would serve as co-athletic directors while chancellor Rich Lyons evaluates the situation Their terms run through the - school year so the Bears don t need a traditional replacement for Knowlton for at least months and perhaps much longer Lyons might determine that the unique structure is a workable long-haul explanation After all Ron Rivera is effectively the athletic director for football officially he s the campaign s general manager with a direct reporting line to Lyons so Larson and Simon-O Neill are in charge of everything else Stanford should be approaching the end of its search to replace Bernard Muir who stepped down in February under circumstances similar to those Knowlton faced Muir was marginalized when Andrew Luck became general manager of the football activity just as Knowlton was rendered somewhat irrelevant when Rivera took over Unless a snafu surfaces we expect Stanford to have an athletic director in place in July or August Kevin Blue a former Stanford golfer and administrator who now leads Canada Soccer is a name to watch And we would not be surprised if the Cardinal makes an unconventional hire opting for someone with no ties to the school and no background in college sports That would be a mistake but Stanford has made its fair share in latest years President Jonathan Levin was smart enough to hire Luck and orchestrate Muir s departure Maybe he will save the Cardinal from overthinking the situation Send suggestions comments and tips confidentiality guaranteed to wilnerhotline bayareanewsgroup 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