DON'T stop reading! I didn't say what you think I just did. The SEC is in a solid position not only competitively but geographically. They have some of the nation's most elite and historic programs and the heart of the conference rests right in the middle of the southeastern United States. Flanking the SEC to East and somewhat overlapping it is the ACC and to the West is the Big 12. Both of these conferences have elite programs but from top to bottom they don't compare to the SEC's line up and both conferences are burdened with weaker members that don't add market value or do not have a history of sustained football success. With both of those conferences experiencing defections in recent years there's been talk of those two conferences working in tandem to keep up with the arms race that is college sports--a likely theory is that the Big 12, with a Grant of Rights in place (an agreement that keeps the football revenue from its members in the conference even if one or members leaves the conference), will be cherry picking the Atlantic Coast Conference's best programs.
I think the SEC could make a fortune and tip the balance of power in college sports if they decided to think outside of the box and make a radical expansion move--expand to 24 members and then split into two conferences each with two 6-team divisions.
From the ACC add: Miami, Florida St, Georgia Tech, Clemson, NC State, and Virginia Tech
and From the Big 12 add: Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, and Texas Tech
This is how it would look:
I am going to refer to the Eastern wing of this football confederation the SEC and the Western wing the SWC. I think the reasoning is self-explanatory.
The SEC will be divided as zipper. The 6 new members of the conference who came from the ACC should be familiar with this set up; they will make up the PRIDE DIVISION. The six members of the original SEC EAST will be the TRADITION DIVISION. Within the new SEC each team will have a crossdivisional rival that they will play on an annual basis while they will rotate playing the other members of the opposing division. The divisions and crossover pairs are as follows:
PRIDE TRADITION
Virginia Tech Kentucky
NC State Tennessee
Clemson South Carolina
Georgia Tech Georgia
Florida St Florida
Miami Vanderbilt
Meanwhile the SWC will consist of two geographical divisions, an East consisting of the original 6 members of the SEC West, and a West consisting of Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech. The SWC will not have permanent crossover rivalries.
WEST EAST
Missouri Auburn
Oklahoma Alabama
Oklahoma St Ole Miss
Texas Mississippi St
Texas A&M LSU
Texas Tech Arkansas
Why do this?
For starters it kills off two rival conferences, the ACC and Big 12, by depriving them of their strongest, and most financially lucrative members. It also concentrates the profit share that teams will earn by lessening the number of schools who can claim to be in an upper echelon conference. It also geographically hems in the Pacific 12 Conference--the Pac-12's expansion options become incredibly bleak with Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC/SWC Confederation. The other thing that it does is it forces the Big Ten to over expand. The Big Ten is currently at 14 members. It's expansion possibilities, aside from Notre Dame, are far less alluring than the programs that the SEC/SWC has picked up. At a minimum, the Big Ten will have to expand to 16 with Notre Dame and a companion school but Commissioner Jim Delany will likely become over ambitious and go to 18 or even 20 by adding programs like Virginia, North Carolina, and possibly Duke, Syracuse, Boston College, Pittsburgh, or Kansas. This expansion into new markets will no doubt dilute the Big Ten football product and unlike the SEC, with its abundance of strong programs and convenient lines by which they can divide geographically and still maintain meaningful historical rivalries, the Big Ten will have an impossible task of trying to create competively balanced, geographically harmonious divisions. There simply aren't 10 programs that you can add to the Big Ten's 14 to do what the SEC/SWC did so that option is likely off the table. There is no way that long time Big Ten members are going to agree to go into the sub-conference with the eastern newcomers and forsake decades of tradition.
There is also the profitability of the television contracts that the SEC and SWC will garner to consider. The 12 member and now the 14 member SEC was incredibly profitable and commanded a large inventory of meaningful games that people wanted to watch. The big match ups between nationally ranked teams is what made the SEC so valuable. Imagine its value when you add in every meaningful, high profile game that the Big 12 and ACC had into the pool? --the value of these new conferences increases exponentially. If the two new conferences collaborate with one another when negotiating deals with ESPN/ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC the SEC and SWC will be able to name their price for their Tier 1 and Tier 2 rights. I would imagine they would work with two or perhaps even three networks, offering each of them a combined bundle of Tier 1 and 2 games featuring a mix of games from both conferences in order to maximize profits by forcing Tier 2 games on the networks for inflated prices in order to secure the lucrative Tier 1 games. The SEC and SWC would also be free to create a conference owned network or networks to showcase their Tier 3 rights and with the shear size of the league their should be plenty of inventory to air. With the popularity of college football in the southern United States its no doubt that any network or networks created by these two conferences would be a must have in every Southern household and that they would be able to charge an even higher subscriber fee than the the Big Ten Network.
The SEC and SWC should also be able to secure a large number of bids to the playoffs and the other high profile bowl games that are going to be associated with the new system. And, as I said before, by leaving the ACC and Big 12 for dead the playoff and bowl money will be divided among fewer schools. The remnants of the ACC and Big 12, whether they merge or rebuild by raiding the Big East or Mountain West will be relegated to the ranks of those 5 conferences vying to land their champion into the guaranteed slot for an access bowl. The big checks will be split four ways--the SEC, the SWC, the Pac 12, and the Big Ten and the Big Ten schools will be dividing whatever checks they get 14, 16, or 18 ways while the checks the Pac 12, SEC, and SWC cash will only be split 12 ways.
Possible Tweaks
This is simply my best approximation of how to maximize value for the SWC and SEC with the influx of new members. There are a number of minor adjustments you could make:
If the combined SEC/SWC would rather have Louisville or West Virginia than Texas Tech (with the Longhorn and Aggies in the Red Raiders might not be necessary) Vanderbilt could easily move from the SEC TRADITION Division to the SWC EAST Division.
Kansas or Kansas St might make more sense to add to the SWC than Texas Tech too. For one, it would give Missouri a more natural rival.
Missouri might decide they'd rather join the Big Ten if the Big Ten offered them a spot. If they did I'd either swap them out for Kansas St (the more successful of the two Kansas schools), or move Vanderbilt to the SWC like I said above, and add Louisville or WVU to the SEC.
The SEC might rather have UNC over NC State but I think NC State is the right call for a couple of reasons. UNC is not likely to move without Duke and by leaving UNC and Duke both available for the Big Ten it only offers Jim Delany further temptation to over-expand and add schools who are not traditional football powers. I also think NC St fits better with the culture of the SEC whereas UNC is more snooty and academic.
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