At the SEC’s spring meetings, the league’s core response to college sports’ worsening chaos was simple: don’t share its television deal. Behind that stance is a wait for Congress to move the Protect College Sports Act through the House and Senate and have Pres
At the SEC’s spring meetings, the league’s decision landed like a shrug dressed as a warning. No new deal changes. No immediate concessions. Just a message that the conference likes how its media rights money works—and isn’t eager to rewrite it while lawmakers are still sorting out the problem.
The sticking point is Congress. The Protect College Sports Act—described as the revised SCORE Act—could create guardrails for college sports’ most volatile issues. but it has not yet cleared the legislative process. The bill would allow the SEC and Big Ten to opt out of pooling media rights with the other eight FBS conferences. while still receiving the bill’s structure for what commissioners and schools have described as an unstable product.
For Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz, the dysfunction is constant and exhausting. “We are constantly changing,” Drinkwitz said. “We are not allowing anything to stick or get into a rhythm in college football. It feels like we’re always chasing the next.”
That mood—fatigue mixed with a demand for rules that stop sprinting ahead of the game—is why the SEC’s spring response reads less like a crackdown and more like restraint. “Don’t do anything rash or counterproductive, don’t panic with reaction,” the report of the meetings argued. “And as important, don’t try to be proactive for the first time in five years of the NIL era. Just wait. Wait and see if the revised SCORE Act … gets through the House and Senate and is passed into law by President Trump.”.
If the law doesn’t land, the leagues could revert to the same uncertainty that has been shaping college sports’ business decisions—plus, potentially, a new scramble for power.
The most immediate tension from the meetings was the SEC’s reaction to days of what the report called “consequential crazy.” When the conference outlined its stance as “we’re not sharing our television deal. ” it offered a blunt clue about where the sport is headed: toward a future where the biggest brands take control themselves rather than wait for a national fix.
The wait-and-see approach is not purely strategic. It is also about what the bill is expected to influence. The legislation is framed as providing guardrails for “skyrocketing player and coach salaries. free player movement. player eligibility and judge shopping.” And the SEC’s calculated message is that if those guardrails arrive. it can still keep its existing media rights deal.
The report connects those dots to a broader belief within the SEC and the Big Ten: the sport’s brand is strong enough to withstand whatever other conferences try to offer.
But the same spring meetings also surfaced what happens if Congress fails to act. The report describes a crossroads: if the Protect College Sports Act doesn’t pass. then the SEC and Big Ten could move toward breaking away and forming their own structure—an idea that would effectively create a “money-making satellite version of college sports.”.
That stakes-driven logic is paired with a warning about what could already be taking shape if the bill collapses. The report argues that there is a reason “the elimination of further conference expansion. and no SEC/Big Ten super league” is one of the bill’s major statements. If the bill does not pass. the report says. this is where college sports is headed: a super league involving the SEC and Big Ten.
The pressure is not abstract. The report points to the Big Ten’s push for a 24-team College Football Playoff, presenting it as the conference’s spearhead move tied to its preference for competition and a different kind of structure.
The SEC’s concerns are also rooted in enforcement—and the failure to slow down the off-field chaos. The report notes that six weeks earlier. Big Ten presidents asked the NCAA for a moratorium on tampering enforcement because the rules for tampering were passed years ago. before the NIL era’s explosion. “It barely moved the needle,” the report says.
While enforcement has struggled. the report says one coach has become the symbol of what the SEC believes is out of control. Ole Miss coach Pete Golding is described as the “boogeyman of tampering.” The SEC. meanwhile. is characterized as the conference of pushback. with coaches “overly public this offseason” about their displeasure with the lack of rules and enforcement.
Commissioner Greg Sankey is placed at the center of the standoff. Sankey “prefers a 16-team CFP” but is portrayed as thinking “nearly exactly the same way as the other Power conference commissioners on the structure and enforcement of college sports’ biggest off-field issues.” In the report’s framing. that overlap is part of why the SEC is being described as obstructionist in terms of its willingness to share or change.
“Academic answer: College sports isn’t broken — it’s ungoverned,” the report states, tying the mess to governance rather than the product itself.
In that logic, the SEC’s spring meetings were less about declaring war than about waiting for Congress to finally make the sport’s rules steadier—so that schools, coaches, and players can plan instead of constantly adjusting.
There’s a simple sequence implied by the facts the report lays out: the SEC’s refusal to share its television deal comes while a federal fix is still moving through Congress. and the same uncertainty that has left the NCAA’s enforcement response weak is what feeds the leagues’ breakaway plans if the bill doesn’t pass. The sport’s boardroom decisions are being paced not by what the conferences want right now. but by what they expect to win later.
Whether the “wonder of wonders” happens—meaning the bill passes both the House and Senate and is signed by President Trump—the SEC’s position is that it can keep its media rights deal if guardrails arrive. If it doesn’t, the report argues there is a far more dramatic fallback: a super league of 40 teams.
For now, the most consequential spring meeting decision is also the least glamorous—hold the line, stay in place, and let Congress decide whether college football’s future is reshaped by federal guardrails or by the power conferences building their own map from scratch.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network, and he can be followed on X at @MattHayesCFB.
SEC college sports media rights Protect College Sports Act SCORE Act NIL era Greg Sankey College Football Playoff player eligibility player movement judge shopping Big Ten