Together, the SEC and Big Ten make it clear who will be in charge of higher education sports from now on.

Together, the SEC and Big Ten make it clear who will be in charge of higher education sports from now on.

If there was any doubt—and there shouldn’t have been—that college sports would be changing a lot, June 21, 2021, ought to put an end to those hopes.

In that case, United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a very harsh concurring opinion.

The NCAA had just lost the case 9-0. It was the NCAA v. Alston case that said student-athletes could get any kind of academic money they earned.

While the case itself wasn’t very complicated, Kavanaugh used it to advise College Sports Inc. it should work out its problems before going back to the Supreme Court to defend, well, pretty much anything.

“I’m adding this dissenting opinion to stress that the NCAA’s remaining pay rules also raise important antitrust law concerns,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Later, Kavanaugh said, “Price-fixing labor is price-fixing labor.” “And setting wages for workers is usually a classic antitrust issue.”

He said the NCAA’s argument about “amateurism” was “circular and unpersuasive” and just a clever way to control costs and labor, which he said would be illegal.

Or to put it another way, college sports have been fun over the years, but the old way didn’t work on this new court.

No matter if coaches, administrators, or fans desired it, liked it, or agreed with it, the status quo had been doomed.

As a result, athletes would be paid, schools would be able to give out contracts, and there might be fewer teams that can compete, at least in football.

The Big Ten and SEC said on Friday that they will work together to create a joint advisory group to deal with the “significant challenges” that college sports face.

The NCAA is having a hard time keeping track of intercollegiate sports because of all the changes that have put the long-standing amateur model at risk.

“We recognize the similarity of our circumstances, and we also understand the urgency of tackling the comparable obstacles we face.”

“The Big Ten as well as the SEC have a major stake with the NCAA while there is no question which the voices from these two conferences have been integral for governance as well as reform efforts,” Big Ten chief Tony Petitti said.

Presidents, chancellors, and athletic directors of universities will be on the advisory group. The announcement says that athletes as well as “other constituencies” are going to be included as needed.

It has not been decided who will be in the advisory group. There are a lot of problems that the leagues mentioned when they decided to work together, such as “recent court decisions, ongoing litigation, a patchwork of state legislation, and complex governance proposals.”

“There are similar cultural or social impacts on our athletes, our institutions, as well as our communities due to the new college sports environment,” SEC chief Greg Sankey said.

“We don’t know the answers to all the questions we have to answer.” We won’t always agree, but making it easier for people to talk to each other between conferences will help us focus on solutions that make sense.

In Friday’s announcement, it was made clear that the body “will not have the power to act on its own and will only be a consulting body.”

Still, this is the latest step by the two biggest conferences in the country to get involved in making decisions about the future of college sports.

During the 2024–25 school year, the Big Ten will have 18 schools and the SEC will have 16. At the same time that the future of athlete pay has become a central issue, both divisions are also signing huge new media rights deals worth thousands of millions of dollars per year.

The most interesting thing about Friday’s news is how it represents the two strongest college sports leagues working together as they add 34 of the strongest brands in the country. The group’s mission and schedule are still unknown, as are the specific problems it will try to solve.

But the news, even though it doesn’t give many details, will only make people think that the country’s most valuable departments of athletics will eventually break away.

Even Charlie Baker, the president of the NCAA, said in December that he wanted to create a new group of Division 1 schools to govern football.