What the “Save College Sports Act” could mean for UNC

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When the SCORE ACT withered in Congressional committee over months, Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) and Washington Senator Maria Cantwell (D) put forward a “bipartisan” alternative this week. The rule changes making headlines would directly address some of the most frustrating dynamics in college sports today. Eligibility would be capped at 5 years. Transfers would be limited. A “salary cap” would be instituted and enforced. At a casual glance, the bill hits all the right notes.

The bill in its current form extends 110 pages. Do those three objectives require 110 pages of explanation and clarification? No, they do not. The Cruz-Cantwell legislation proposes a variety of other changes, some of which would profoundly affect UNC’s present and future. Let’s discuss the two most prominent.

As currently written, the act would effectively bar UNC from ever joining the SEC or the Big Ten.

Bluntly, the legislation prohibits the Big Ten and SEC from further expansion or from merging into a “super league.” Depending on how one interprets the language, these conferences could in theory drop one member to add UNC. However, that’s not a realistic scenario. Left unchanged, the net result would be a bill that locks UNC into the ACC. Why would this bill require such a thing?

Senator Cantwell: “Obviously, we’re trying to to make sure that nobody runs away with the eyeballs or a certain amount of revenue and hijacks the rest of the system, leaving it short-changed.”

To be clear, the disparity in revenue that the SEC and Big Ten enjoy over the ACC has little to do with unfair business practices on the part of the SEC and Big Ten. The ACC locked itself into a decades long contract with ESPN that made a very bad bet. The ACC bet that media rights would go down or remain static over the term of the deal. The ACC assumed that it was selling its media rights at a high price that would last more than two decades. If that bet and assumption look ridiculous in the rearview mirror, they should.

Similarly, the SEC and Big Ten expanded for a simple reason: poor conference management by their competitors. The Big 12 did a poor job of managing relationships with its top brands, which led to the departures of Missouri, Texas A&M, Texas, and Oklahoma. The Pac-12 under the ill-fated leadership of Larry Scott went in the opposite direction of the ACC, estimating media value growth to be high enough to become its own sports network in competition with ESPN and Fox. The Pac-12 invested hundreds of millions into the venture, and its failure presaged the collapse of the conference, with its members fleeing to the Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC.

The current anxiety in Washington DC over the ACC dissolving, with the SEC and Big Ten absorbing the best brands, has nothing to do with predatory business practices on their part. It has everything to do with poor management by the ACC, poor management that this bill would force UNC to live with in perpetuity.

The bill has an optional mechanism for pooling revenue among conferences, but the threshold for approval makes it highly unlikely.

While the bill prevents UNC from joining the SEC and Big Ten, the bill includes a mechanism for revenue sharing that would in theory mitigate somewhat the revenue disparity between conferences. The theory, which Texas Tech booster Cody Campbell has been pushing hard for months on Capital Hill, assumes that the conferences pooling their media rights into one big package would result in media rights value growing somewhere between 30% to 100%. In turn (and again in theory), that growth would be enough to get the SEC and Big Ten to agree to it.

That theory seems as absurd as the ACC’s bet that media rights wouldn’t grow over the term of its contract with ESPN or the P12’s bet that media rights would continue to grow exponentially forever. It fails miserably on two fronts. First, pooling media rights doesn’t create 30%-100% more viewers or increase advertising value. Second, there’s no way the current “haves” in college sports would voluntarily agree to share with the have-nots, not to that extent.

Finally, there’s no way Washington DC would force it. The major universities of the SEC and Big Ten represent states holding 272 electoral votes. That’s 272 votes in the two bodies of Congress. Ask any fan of an SEC or Big Ten school if they’d be willing to share revenue with the Big 12 or ACC “for the good of the game.” Survey says…?! ❌

Politicians associating themselves with revenue redistribution away from Longhorn, Aggie, Gator, Buckeye, Bulldog, or Wolverine sports would be signing a career suicide note. Those six programs in five states alone represent 20% of the votes in Congress. Any political party associated with forcing the SEC or Big Ten to share their spoils would be doing irreparable harm to their brand within those footprints.

Put it all together, and UNC might be the biggest loser if this bill passes.

UNC’s by far the biggest prize for any future expansion by the SEC and Big Ten. It’s the flagship institution in the 9th most populous state, with a rapidly growing population. It’s a premier research institution. Despite recent struggles, the athletics brand remains global. North Carolina remains the one big state that neither the Big Ten nor the SEC have a member. UNC will have a new conference home if it desires one, unless Washington DC forbids it.

Locking UNC into the ACC, with no realistic path to revenue sharing, would be among the worst possible outcomes for the university and Tar Heel fans. Seriously: write your Congresscritter and make sure they know you understand these issues.

But before you do, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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