Everyone Is to Blame for Slowly Killing College Sports

The NCAA is powerless to keep conference realignment from happening as more and more schools seek out larger paydays.

Don’t blame us, said the Texas Longhorns in 2021, upon the revealing of their plan to flee the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference. We’re just following the money.

Don’t blame us, said the Oklahoma Sooners. We’re just following Texas to follow the money.

Don’t blame us for kneecapping the Big 12, said the SEC. When Texas knocks, you answer.

Don’t blame us, said ESPN. Unconvincingly.

Don’t blame us, said the USC Trojans in 2022, upon the revealing of their plan to flee the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. We’re just following the money. And besides, Texas started it.

Don’t blame us, said the UCLA Bruins. We’re just following USC to follow the money. Because we’re broke.

Don’t blame us for kneecapping the Pac-12, said the Big Ten. Alliances are made to be broken.

Don’t blame us, said Fox. Unconvincingly.

Don’t blame us, said the Colorado Buffaloes in 2023, upon the revealing of their plan to flee the Pac-12 for the Big 12. It’s not our fault USC and UCLA left. And we never fit that well anyway.

Don’t blame us, said the Washington Huskies and Oregon Ducks, when they dealt the death blow to the Pac-12 by agreeing to join the Big Ten. And besides, USC started it.

Don’t blame us, said Fox. Again, unconvincingly.

Don’t blame us, said the Arizona Wildcats, Arizona State Sun Devils and Utah Utes, when they jumped aboard the Big 12 life raft. Washington and Oregon forced our hand.

Don’t blame us, said the Stanford Cardinal and California Golden Bears, when they took the last chopper out of a falling regime, headed to the Atlantic Coast Conference. We had nowhere else to go but clear across the country.

Don’t blame us, said the SMU Mustangs. We’re just trying to buy our way into the club.

Don’t blame us, said the ACC, for signing on to realignment madness. We’re just protecting ourselves in case our own unhappy member schools leave.

Don’t blame us, said unhappy ACC member school Florida State in December, upon suing to create a less expensive exit path from the league. If alliances are made to be broken, so are binding long-term contracts. We don’t have enough money and it’s not fair, and we’re going to use our College Football Playoff snub as an excuse to file suit now.

Don’t blame us, said the Clemson Tigers on Tuesday, after filing their own suit against the ACC. We’re just following Florida State and following the money, like a dozen schools before us.

Nobody is to blame. Which means everybody is to blame.

The ACC is facing multiple lawsuits from its member schools :: Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports

Something akin to the psychological concept of diffusion of responsibility is killing college athletics. When nobody is accountable for antisocial behavior—such as discreetly destroying and/or destabilizing conferences—bad things go unchecked. The entire industry is crying out for help, but nobody in the crowd is willing to act. Everyone is waiting for someone else to do the first right thing, and none of them are moving a muscle.

The NCAA is powerless to make its member conferences cooperate in a mutually beneficial way. President Charlie Baker said in a statement last year that he is concerned about realignment, but concern doesn’t equate to actual authority to do anything about it.

The conferences themselves are self-interested warlords engaged in turf battles. What’s bad for one league’s peers is good for that league. Anything to get that next dollar of advantage.

Nowhere is that more true than in the Big Ten and SEC, who could lead everyone toward a stable future but instead chose predation. They officially got their way this week in receiving unequal revenue shares of the future CFP contract. They’re going to preemptively take it instead of earning it. Because they can.

(That heavily tilted deal also provided cover for Clemson’s lawsuit to be filed. The timing of those two news events is not coincidental.)

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey can continue to point back at the disastrous “Alliance” between the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 as the decision that spoiled a fair CFP deal. He’s not wrong, but the statute of limitations is past due on using that 3-year-old mistake as a justification to use the nuclear option. Sankey is a lifelong product of the college athletic ecosystem that he’s napalming.

As for heavy-handed Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti: There’s no indication he cares about anything other than maximizing league revenue. He’s just the latest wheeler-dealer from outside the college sports sphere who was appointed to wheel and deal by university presidents who have abdicated any responsibility for the greater good.

This cannibalization is in part driven by the great revenue panic of what’s to come when athletes get more of the money. As the NCAA continues to get its ass kicked in courtrooms across the land, the financial reckoning is coming. Trev Alberts, who just left the Nebraska Cornhuskers athletic director job for the same position with the Texas A&M Aggies, said the added expense could be “$15 million to $20 million” annually.

A consideration for how to make those payments more affordable: lower administrative and coaching salaries. Alberts was making $1.7 million as AD at Nebraska and assuredly got a raise to go to A&M. (Terms of his new deal are not yet known.) There also was a $4 million buyout payment in his Nebraska contract.

At Alabama, Greg Byrne just got an extension to 2031 that reportedly will increase his pay to $2.31 million in ’24 and escalate from there. Byrne is at least the fifth AD at a public school making $2 million or more.

But instead of reining in salaries, College Sports Inc., will continue to seek out the next media revenue gusher. And then those spoils will be divided among an increasingly small pool of conferences.

They’re killing off the larger enterprise, one decision at a time. But don’t blame any of the people making those ruinous decisions. It’s never their fault.