What should the SEC do next? Administrators weigh in after latest Big Ten, Big 12 expansion

The latest round of conference realignment left one Division I athletic director curious more so than anything else about the next move now for one conference specifically.

“This puts all eyes on the SEC in my opinion,” he told On3 Friday. “Do they sit tight? Or do they feel the urge now to do more and be more proactive to try to still maintain their top position?”

Florida State has been tossed around a lot recently as a potential fit for the SEC. Clemson some too. But, for what it’s worth, none of the three SEC administrators that On3 has spoken with since Friday seem to be expecting any immediate action from Greg Sankey and the conference.

“Do I think that this is over and that the SEC will never add teams? No,” one administrator said. “But I don’t think the SEC needs to be in a rush just because other things are going on. You don’t need to add teams just to add teams.”

“I’m not sure that bigger is necessarily better,” another added.

“I think you have to do your due diligence in talking and seeing what’s out there and all that,” added another administrator. “But at the same time, I’m pretty pragmatic and I don’t know that I’d get caught up in the emotion of ‘the Big Ten’s got more than us’ or this or that. I think you have to focus and say, ‘Okay, any move that we make, what would be the ROI on that move?’ And short of a few schools that I don’t think are moving, I don’t know that there’s an ROI that justifies splitting the pie further.”

The case for and against Florida State, Clemson

Even if Florida State and Clemson were available, that third administrator isn’t sure at this point whether those schools make sense as additions.

“Florida State and Clemson have undeniably good brands, but I think the thing to analyze if you’re going to call them is: What do they bring from a revenue standpoint, especially TV?” the administrator said. “And I think that’s tricky because you already have Columbia, you have South Carolina and you have Florida. Do Florida State and Clemson move the needle TV-wise? Maybe from a national brand, but I think that’s the analysis. I think a lot of people think they’re a slam dunk, like, ‘Oh, include them?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’

“… What do they add revenue-wise? What’s their TV revenue value? Is ESPN willing to go back and give you an extra amount of money or are you just splitting the pot 18 ways instead of 16 ways now? It’s really just a revenue analysis.”

Nevertheless, what Florida State and Clemson would bring with football is why all three administrators view as it as fair to talk about them as two of the top potential fits for the SEC.

“I know the Big 12 is going down this rabbit hole that, ‘We’re going to be great at basketball.’ Well, that’s because they can’t get the football brands,” one said. “That’s their only play, right? Football drives all of this. So the strongest football brands that make sense geographically is what I would do.”

Current SEC teams have won 13 of the last 17 college football national championships. If Florida State and Clemson were part of the conference, that number would go up from 13 to 16.

“It’s tough without knowing what the ACC’s situation truly is,” the other administrator said. “But let’s just say for argument’s sake that schools were able to be brought over. I think Clemson and Florida State make a lot of sense, both geographically and with the emphasis that they put on football. I think there could be all kinds of problems there, especially in the Florida legislature where if you’re taking Florida State but you’re not taking Miami and you’ve already got Florida in there and all that. But I think both of those just much more fit the SEC mentality than the ACC.”

Other ACC options?

For at least some in the college sports administrator world, other ACC schools like North Carolina and Virginia also make sense as potential options for the SEC depending on availability.

However, one of the administrators sees one as a better fit for the conference than the other.

“Virginia probably aligns closer with the Big Ten,” the administrator said. “North Carolina, to me, could swing either way. And I know the Big Ten’s tried to lure North Carolina for a long time. But North Carolina is a valuable brand. I would say probably even more so than Miami. If you really think about the overall brand and the university and the infrastructure of what it takes to be successful, North Carolina’s a strong brand.”

Another of the administrators did mention a potential complication.

“The thing with North Carolina and Virginia, as with other ACC schools, they sponsor a lot more sports that the SEC doesn’t sponsor,” the administrator said. “So you do bring in some of the basketball piece to that, but football doesn’t really add anything and what do you do when they’ve all got lacrosse and field hockey and squash and all those sports that the SEC schools don’t have? How does that look? Are they going to have to now join multiple conferences to fit some of that stuff in? The Big Ten, they’ve got a little more variety of sports and have some of those. The ACC certainly has more sports. So I think it depends on what the end goal is and the direction the conference wants to take.”

However, one of the other administrators came back with a counterpoint.

“I would just say: Don’t lose sight of the fact that football is going to drive all of this,” the administrator said. “That question is a valid question. But I think the bigger question is: How are those sports even going to operate moving forward, right? Is it going to be the same model that it is today where football is paying for everything and we still have the illusion that we’re going to try to support everybody at the same level? 

“The players are going to get their money. And it’s getting more and more that way. And the more money the players get in the revenue sports, the less money that we’re going to be able to support the non-revenue teams. So the bigger question is: What happens to those sports in general? I think that’s just not a big enough issue to guide decision making.”