The Big Ten may be bigger in size than the SEC and have every champion in the 12-team CFP era, but Tony Pettiti is no Greg Sankey when it comes to the business side of things.
Otherwise, Pettiti wouldn't have dragged down the collective value of the Big Ten by adding several brands with minimal regional interest, like the Washington Huskies (when they're bad) and the UCLA Bruins, and a former juggernaut that's lost its sway, like the USC Trojans, then proceed to give out an insulting talking point to defend his conference against declining interest in it as an overall entity.
“To simply measure the success of our conference’s expansion by television ratings is to ignore academics and research as the primary purpose of institutions of higher learning,” a Big Ten spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal. That was in response to former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson claiming that, “Right now, based on the differential in viewers, the SEC arguably is the more valuable property."
Yes, conference value ties to money, not being AAU-accredited, or having a more rigorous curriculum. To say otherwise requires shamelessness not often seen outside of political offices, major news networks, and Think Tanks.
By adding several schools without much staying power in the NIL/rev-share era, the spotlight apparently needs to be on anything but athletics. Talk about subverting the conversation.
I would want to remain anonymous when giving out that hollow statement about "institutions of higher learning," too. No one being honest with themselves mentions academics in the same breath as collegiate athletic conferences. The person who shared that quote had better be able to afford top-shelf stuff to drown out the emptiness that comes with partaking in that kind of gaslighting. They probably can, being that they've been described as a Big Ten "spokesperson."
The B1G can enjoy its three consecutive titles and celebrate its academic standards. It's only a matter of time before the SEC's much-superior foundation catches up and gives the "It Just Means More" conference the advantage in literally every category, besides alumni spending.
Even with the latter, the SEC is about to catch up.
Texas and Oklahoma are more valuable than B1G's 4 additions combined
Sankey won big-time in the great conference realignment musical chairs of 2024 with the additions of the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners. The Associated Press's Eric Olson and Ralph D. Russo declared that before any of the new additions even played a game in their new conference.
Now two seasons into the conference realignment that turned the Power 5 into a Power 4, and it's clear the Oregon Ducks were the only program truly worth the squeeze for the Big Ten. And yet the Ducks still didn't come close to what the Longhorns and Sooners generated from a business perspective. In fact, Oregon generated less than half of the revenue Texas did in 2025.
UT Austin and OU were in the top-five most-watched teams in the country this season, the former being No. 2 and the latter being No. 5, right behind the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Big Ten's most-watched team.
That interest will translate into dollars. If enough fans from a certain fanbase revolt and put their richest boosters on trial in the court of public opinion for not supporting their team enough, substantial change will happen.
That's where "It Just Means More" could become more than a slogan. The Longhorns and Sooners could become emboldened to spend on a football team, and even use state bylaws to circumvent taxes and regulations, in Texas and Oklahoma, in a way the Ducks can't without facing serious heat about it in Oregon. The Huskies, Trojans, and Bruins are in the Ducks' boat too, in Washington and California, respectively.
The SEC doesn't seem like winners of conference realignment now, but in the long-run, they will be. Remember, the Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State, and Indiana were already in the Big Ten. It'll take one Longhorns or Sooners title to swing this entire conversation in the opposite direction.