According to a report from Matt Hayes of the USA TODAY NETWORK, the Big Ten Conference and SEC are considering a potential scheduling agreement that would once again significantly change the landscape of college football.
Hayes reports that the two “super conferences” are discussing a potential scheduling agreement that would see the conference’s 32 combined teams face off in up to 16 regular-season non-conference games a season, though the exact number of games has yet to be decided.
The potential landscape-changing discussions came shortly after a federal judge ruled in favor of current and former athletes in a $2.8 billion antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA and Power Five conferences.
According to Hayes, a potential scheduling agreement would likely increase media rights revenue “significantly.”
Any scheduling agreement, of course, would also play a major role in the future of non-conference scheduling for both Big Ten and SEC programs, affecting the rest of the FBS landscape, especially schools that are members of Group of Five conferences.
Group of Five conference members often receive significant compensation to face Power Five opponents. Non-conference “buy games” often help fund Group of Five athletic departments.
Notably, “conference challenges” have often been a feature of men’s and women’s basketball. From 1999 through 2022, the Big Ten and ACC took part in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. Since 2023, following the Big Ten’s new media rights deal with CBS, Fox, and NBC, it has become the ACC-SEC Challenge.
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