College football is increasingly becoming a 365-day-a-year sport — and conference spring meetings are proof of as much.
What used to be informal gatherings by the beach have become almost media day-adjacent events for reporters and administrators alike. So much for getting to enjoy the sunshine, right?
These are a couple headlines I’m keeping tabs on heading into the heat of the summer:
Do the conference offices really want to self-govern?
There’s a real conversation being had in SEC circles — and, in a less structured way, in the Big Ten — about what self-governing outside the NCAA might look like.
Those murmurs stirred in Amelia Island, Fla., early last month when ACC administrators gathered. By the time the SEC’s crew got together on the Florida Panhandle last week, it was a topic in virtually every conversation I had.
Given the lack of enforcement and effectiveness of the $20.5 million cap spelled out in the House settlement, some are ready to blow up the system entirely — Georgia President Jere Morehead and football coach Kirby Smart among them. Others are more tempered.
The question I keep coming back to is for all the groaning about the College Sports Commission, NCAA and lack of rules, why would a conference office want to get into the enforcement business?
The NCAA — and more recently, the CSC — are almost always the first to receive blame when something in college sports goes wrong. They also provide a convenient litigation shield for the schools.
Is the SEC really ready for that?
I asked SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey about it Thursday.
“We’ve had that role. Conference policies, conference governance, the ability to say no, the ability to deny waiver requests, the ability sometimes to approve waiver requests, the ability to adapt our own rules that are more restrictive than the NCAA rule — that’s been going on, in my experience, for decades,” Sankey said. “Can there be more of that, and do we accept that responsibility? We can. What are the limits? I’ll answer that then. Not now.
“But there’s kind of this notion, because there’s talk and because we’re at a time of change, that the Southeastern Conference having policies that govern the Southeastern Conference that may be different than policies that govern the Atlantic Coast Conference or the Big 12 Conference is something novel. That is not novel. We probably, in some of the areas, didn’t get enough credit for it trying to manage through things in the proper way. And we’ve shown that we can do that. How far that goes, we’ll see.”
We’ll see, indeed.
What to make of the rules and whether anyone wants them
It’s no secret the Big Ten and SEC are among those leading the roughshod spending and creative accounting that have rendered the House settlement revenue sharing cap effectively dead.
Schools in both conferences are anecdotally among the biggest spenders in the sport. Remember all the crowing over Ohio State’s $20 million football roster that won the national title in 2025? These days, that’d be a hell of a discount for that kind of talent.
Jokes aside, the question here is whether college sports want a cap at all.
As I reported last month, Power Four commissioners have kicked around a one-year amnesty of sorts — basically, a chance for schools to clean up their books after over-promising on deals now being held up by the CSC.
ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark aren’t in favor of such a deal. After all, the SEC and Big Ten effectively spent themselves to this point. Why give them a free pass?
Speaking with folks over the last few weeks, there’s a sentiment from some corners of the ecosystem there ought to just be no cap at all. Let schools spend what they want to spend. Some will keep up. Others won’t.
MLB is in the middle of a similar fight. Is it fun for opposing fans watching the Dodgers spend themselves into oblivion every year and win titles because they can? Not exactly. But as a lifelong Yankees fan (my dad is from Manhattan, blame him), I’ve watched enough seasons to know money doesn’t always win.
Perhaps no rules is what will actually bring stability after all.
More Capitol Hill drama is coming
College sports have struck out in about every conceivable way in getting a bill through Congress so far. And yet, the lobbying checks still keep clearing.
We might finally be in a spot to see if the millions the leagues have spent in trying to push legislation is actually worth it thanks to the introduction of the Protect College Sports Act from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
I’ll keep this brief (keep reading and you’ll see why), but there’s at least some optimism that this all-encompassing bill might get through the Senate. The House? Yeah, we’ll see.
The biggest problem is timing. Congress goes on recess in August. The midterms loom upon return. That gives everyone about four months (June-July and September-October) to get this across the line. In congressional time, that’s approximately the speed of light.
Stay tuned for Wednesday’s hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee. Consider it a first test to see whether this bill has real legs.