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Before we hop into today’s story, I want to quickly tell you a bit about one of today’s sponsors.

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Last Friday, the Big Ten and SEC shook the college sports world with a colossal announcement. They’re talking to each other. 

Okay, I’m underselling that a little bit. Specifically, the two conferences announced they have formed “…a joint advisory group of university presidents, chancellors, and athletics directors to address the significant challenges facing college athletics and the opportunities for betterment of the student-athlete experience.”

So what does that really mean? Lord knows that if there’s one thing college athletics does not lack, it’s working groups between higher education administrators.

For one, it’s notable to point out what this group doesn’t include. It doesn’t include any authority to act independently of any conference stakeholders. It doesn’t (at the moment) include any leaders from any other conference. It also doesn’t, (at the moment) include any coaches, or even more importantly, athletes.

A group without athletes, coaches, academics, industry leaders or lawyers is functionally no different from the legions of other NCAA and conference subcommittees that have been unable to meaningfully address the NCAA’s problems. The only difference is that this group didn’t invite the ACC or Horizon League.

Leaders of both the Big Ten and SEC have also adamantly stated to the press that this group isn’t about an effort to break away from the NCAA…something I actually believe, although I understand why maybe some fans don’t.

So what do they want? Via ESPN:

For what it’s worth, I’ve also heard a strong desire to find a way to settle House before the case goes to trial from college sports industry professionals, including many who work at the mid and low-major level. While it’s the largest leagues that are named defendants, the Big Sky and ASUN would certainly prefer that the NCAA doesn’t go completely bankrupt from paying lawsuit damages.

Such a settlement would likely require not just a significant monetary payment to cover the damages, but a structure for athlete revenue-sharing that would protect the leagues from future antitrust lawsuits.

But even that isn’t completely in the hands of the Big Ten, SEC, and expensive NCAA lawyers. As the Dartmouth NLRB ruling from earlier this week showed, the court system is taking aim at the employment classification of athletes. A non-employment revenue-style system might protect the Big Ten and SEC in House, but future court rulings could still blow their system up by attacking it elsewhere.

There’s no advisory group among college sports administrators that can prevent the employment classification of athletes, short of one that decides, “okay, we’ll simply ask our athletes to do far less.” The only pathway to that goal lies in Congress…and we can see how well that’s going right now.

I don’t want to say this group is meaningless…but I am skeptical

It’s true, the Big Ten and SEC have more financial horsepower than anybody else in college athletics. They’re going to dominate the composition of the future College Football Playoff, they’re going to dominate conversations about the sharing of revenue, and if they’re working in concert on some issues, they’re going to have more industry influence than the Big South…or the Big 12.

Throughout college football history….hell, very recent college football history, these leagues have also been more antagonists than allies. The Alliance, a doomed conference call from the start, was formed partly out of a desire to form a cohesive institutional identity of we’re not the SEC. From the Sanity Code to Bowl Season, TV broadcast control to the definition of amateurism, the Big Ten and SEC have often been at loggerheads.

To put those historical, cultural, and political differences to the side for a moment to work on bigger problems…sure, that’s significant.

But I’ve also been burned by press releases about working groups before, especially ones that look very similar to other working groups. Or alliances, if you will.

Here’s the dirty little secret

The idea that the Cleveland States and Hofstras of the world are somehow holding the Big Ten and SEC back from meaningful reform is…not accurate in the autonomy era. There is very little that the major conferences actually really want to do that the NCAA legislative process is preventing them from doing. The NCAA governance process is Kafkaesque, and everything takes longer than it probably should, but that’s not the real barrier here.

The problem is that the Big Ten and SEC aren’t actually in charge. They can’t come up with a policy reform, by themselves, that will stand up to legal challenges. There are too many antitrust liabilities, too many labor law liabilities, and now, too much political benefit at stake for state AGs to take a whack at the NCAA piñata whenever good ol’ State U is inconvenienced.

The court system is now, fundamentally, in charge of college sports. Reform might make a pit stop at the Rosemont offices of the Big Ten, but its actual destination is in Congress and courtrooms. Those are the folks who will decide who is an employee and who is an employer, who needs to be at the bargaining table, and what the new rules of college sports will be.

It doesn’t look like those folks are invited to this working group. I’ll be ready to pay more attention when they are.

Here’s what else I wrote this week:

There are two other ways to catch me and my work this month outside the newsletter

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If you’d like to buy ads on Extra Points OR in ADS4000, good news! We have a few unsold slots left for March. Drop me a line at sales@extrapointsmb.com. If you have news tips or FOIAs you want to share, I’m at Compliance@ExtraPointsMB.com. Otherwise, I’m at Matt@Extrapointsmb.com, @MattBrownEP on Twitter, @ExtraPointsMB on Instagram, and @MattBrown on Bluesky