For Big Ten ADs, SEC meet-up offers a chance to hash out the issues that just mean more

When the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors hired Tony Petitti as commissioner in spring 2023, it mandated he work closely with Southeastern Conference counterpart Greg Sankey and thaw the icy relationship between the collegiate sports superpowers.

Two weeks into the job, Petitti visited Sankey.

Now, 18 months later, Petitti and Sankey have found enough common ground to encourage their schools to discuss mutual interests.

This week, league brass and athletic directors from every school will meet for a summit in Nashville, Tenn.

Among the topics up for discussion include the $2.78 billion House v.

NCAA settlement , the College Football Playoff and nonconference scheduling for football and basketball.

Advertisement There are just so many commonalities between the two conferences, said Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork, who previously served in the same role at Texas A&M and Ole Miss .

We have the biggest brands.

Obviously, our TV packages are comprehensive in nature.

Our stadiums are packed.

Given where we are with the overall landscape of college athletics, those who see things in a common way, to me we need to get together, and we need to discuss how we chart the course, while also understanding theres the legal landscape that we have to pay attention to and understanding what we can and cant talk about.

From television ratings to revenue, everything involving the Big Ten and SEC matches their mottos.

Theyre really big, and it just means more.

That holds true for this weeks summit.

Never before have the two most powerful entities met holistically to discuss how they can work together in an intentional way, as Bjork said.

The ADs are discouraged from talking collectively about money figures related to the House case, with rules established before the meetings, to avoid any appearance of violating antitrust laws or working in collusion.

But football, of course, will drive much of the conversation.

Big Ten and SEC teams make up 60 percent of the current AP Top 25 (nine from the SEC, six from the Big Ten), including eight of the top nine spots.

All four CFP contestants last year are current members of either conference.

Of the top 23 programs in attendance last year, 20 came from either the SEC (11) or Big Ten (nine).

Those numbers make them on-field rivals.

Their shared television ratings make them competitive partners.

Last season, 30 of the 34 games that generated at least 6 million television viewers involved teams from one or both leagues.

The Michigan -Alabama CFP semifinal was the most viewed game of the season.

Advertisement This year, two of the three highest-rated games so far have been SEC-Big Ten matchups: Texas-Michigan (9.19 million viewers) and USC LSU (8.62 million), according to Sports Media Watch.

Petitti and Big Ten athletic directors see more matchups with the SEC as positive toward generating interest in the sport and growing revenue.

I think we should be evaluating anything that can create greater visibility and competitiveness in college football, said Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman, who also serves as chair of the NCAA Division I Council.

The records of our schools kind of speak for themselves at this point.

Theres really good football being played in a lot of places across the country, but certainly in the Big Ten and the SEC.

So if there are opportunities for our schools to compete against each other on a more regular basis, I think that would be an interesting thing for college football fans.

Obviously, college football is the economic engine for all of our programs, and so we need to talk about just the state of college football, and theres a lot of subparts to that, Bjork said.

But I think just the game itself, we have to make sure we continue to have football drive value for our entire athletic programs.

The leagues already have regular-season matchups scheduled between their heavyweights.

Ohio State has series with Texas (2025 and 26), Alabama (2027 and 28) and Georgia (2029 and 30).

After hosting Texas this year, Michigan has a return trip to Austin in 2027 and faces Oklahoma in 2025 and 26.

Wisconsin and Alabama finish their home-and-home next year in Tuscaloosa, while Nebraska meets Tennessee in 2026 and 27 and former archrival Oklahoma in 2029 and 30.

Beyond the high-profile meetings, there are opportunities and challenges in creating more matchups.

Big Ten schools Iowa , Washington and Oregon and SEC counterparts South Carolina , Georgia, Kentucky and Florida all have in-state out-of-conference rivalry games that carry weight.

The nonconference schedule is more of an issue for the Big Ten, which already plays nine league games, while the SEC plays eight.

To add an SEC opponent, the three Big Ten schools would face a choice between playing 11 power-conference games or dropping their rival.

Advertisement For Iowa, which has a contract with Iowa State through 2027, theres a clause for either school to leave the series without penalty should their conference alter its schedule.

Youre still scheduling three (nonconference) games, and so whether or not one of those continued to be Iowa State is a conversation that we continue to have with our friends over there, as well as with Coach (Kirk Ferentz), Iowa athletic director Beth Goetz said.

I think a lot of that depends on what the implementation process looks like, not only in the regular season but theres some understanding of what is the future CFP going to look like.

The regular season is obviously critically important all the time, but you got to put that in the context of how you position yourself best to have a chance at the postseason.

The 12-team College Football Playoff debuts in December with the top five conference champions and seven highest-ranked at-large teams qualifying.

In 2026, the format can change, and both Petitti and Sankey have a desire for dedicated spots for their leagues based on strength of schedule.

We really have to work through our commissioners on that format, Bjork said.

I think it goes back to who are the best teams, and I believe that between the Big Ten and the SEC, we do play the best football, right? But I think as far as specifics, I really think we need to see how this plays out.

This is probably a perfect weekend to remind us that its hard to understand exactly what the plan is going to look like with all of the upsets that we saw, Goetz said.

GO DEEPER Why SEC, Big Ten are meeting to talk CFP access, scheduling arrangements Bjork brought up the leagues working together in other sports, such as mens and womens basketball, to perhaps replace exempt multi-team events.

A four-team classic scheduled by one of the leagues on a campus or neutral site could generate more revenue and limit expenses.

Often, those tournaments cost basketball programs $100,000 to participate and attendance is meager.

The MTEs are always controlled by a third party, Bjork said.

Should the Big Ten and the SEC have more ownership, which means we can drive more revenue for those type of events? I think its holistic around what kind of inventory, quote, unquote, is out there that right now is sort of subleased, if you will, to other parties that maybe should be under the umbrella of our conference or the SEC.

Advertisement Then theres the wonky but necessary topic of governance, which is wonky but necessary.

The NCAA Division I structure includes more than 350 institutions, but theres no resemblance between a university that plays in a low-major non-football league and members of the SEC and Big Ten.

From revenue generation to popularity, the Big Ten and SEC share many common traits that could lead to a modified existence within the NCAA or a structure outside of it.

The House settlement will allow athletic departments to pay athletes up to $22 million a year, something only the Big Ten, SEC and a few other schools in the autonomous conferences can afford.

The NCAA has many wonderful virtues, Whitman said, but large systemic change is not one of the things that the NCAA excels at.

Its an intense bureaucracy.

Its not built to make revolutionary change.

Its made to make incremental changes, and it feels like were at a moment where we need leadership across the industry.

If there is the opportunity for a conference or a group of conferences to come together and be a spearhead for needed change because we have a little more agility, we have a little more alignment around values, around resources, then Im hopeful that perhaps our conferences can sort of open the logjam and allow for the business of college athletics to begin to flow again.

The conferences wont solve every issue impacting college athletics, but Goetz expects the possibility of actionable items during the meetings such as scheduling agreements.

You certainly could come out of and would hope to come out of this meeting with some next steps, Goetz said.

Whether those are continued progress towards a particular outcome and or something you could decide on in the moment, generally, I just think its a really great opportunity.

(Top photo: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images).

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