The Big Ten and SEC already owned college football. Now, they're running roughshod on Capitol Hill

The last two weeks of college football’s “talkin’ season” have been framed by the highly charged debate over whether the Big Ten or SEC is now the nation’s preeminent conference.

There were excuses from the SEC, sassy one-liners from the Big Ten and ultimately three College Football Playoff trophies lined up on the stage in Chicago that spoke loudest of all about the current state of affairs.

But that’s how competition works. Things ebb and flow. The winners inspire the losers to up their game or get left behind. Yesterday’s realities do not dictate tomorrow’s results.

The more interesting element of the debate, however, requires a large step back from the smallness of that topic. As they volley back and forth about which league is better, the Big Ten and SEC are united on stacking the deck to make sure the argument includes nobody else.

As you may have heard over the weekend, the Protect College Sports Act has been raised from the dead in the halls of Congress. At the 11th hour on Friday night, presidents in the Big Ten and SEC signed on to support the bill that was co-sponsored by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex) and appeared to have no hope just 24 hours earlier.

With modifications approved by the two leagues — the public still hasn’t seen the full text — it now appears to have a decent chance of passing with more than the 60 required votes before the Senate goes into recess at the end of this week.

After that, the House of Representatives will get its say, which is a whole other matter. With the midterm elections looming in November (i.e., members of Congress will be campaigning rather than legislating), time is running short to turn the bill into a law.

There are still plenty of hurdles ahead. At this stage, nothing is certain. Even if it does pass, there will be legal challenges that might end up in front of the Supreme Court. The drama around college sports could go on for years to come.

But the approval of the Big Ten and SEC at this stage of the process is meaningful. Without it, the bill wouldn’t get enough votes because many of our elected representatives apparently believe they need the blessing of the industry they’re trying to regulate instead of the other way around. Welcome to the American political system, baby.

And why did the Big Ten and SEC withhold support until the very end? Because after strong-arming Cantwell and Cruz into concessions the leagues believe will be more favorable to their interests, the Protect College Sports Act does not really protect college sports as much as it protects the ability of two leagues to continue running roughshod over college sports. Their financial largesse and ability to strong-arm the rest of the NCAA into submission might soon not merely be a cultural quirk of college sports but enshrined in federal law.

What did they get? Not just a (supposedly) hard cap that saves them from their worst over-spending impulses, but one that sets the ceiling high enough that (supposedly) they won’t have to go looking for loopholes to exceed it. And this time they apparently mean it — unlike last time when the House settlement set a cap that got shredded almost instantly. Again, we’ll see.

But the key point is the cap figure: After the $21.3 million original figure in the House settlement, it would increase to $48.8 million.

They didn’t come up with that number out of thin air. It’s pretty much right in the sweet spot where all the SEC and Big Ten schools can afford it, but many others even in the ACC and Big 12 will struggle to get there while eliminating the threat of someone like Texas Tech mega-booster Cody Campbell funding an insurgency from outside the traditional power structure. Isn’t that convenient?

In other words, it could reset the pecking order to pretty much the way it was before unregulated NIL. Setting aside whether it’s ultimately legal to restrict the earnings of college athletes, winning that game for the long-term is a lot more important to the SEC and Big Ten than the momentary sugar high in September for the winner of Ohio State vs. Texas.

And it’s a play those two leagues have run over and over again with the NCAA and the College Football Playoff: Create a narrative about how bad and chaotic things are, manufacture urgency by threatening to leave and then satisfy others’ boutique interests in exchange for near total control.

Take the ACC, for instance. They have really no say over anything, but the majority of their league is terrified of Florida State, North Carolina and Clemson eventually leaving so they’ll gladly support a bill that caps the SEC and Big Ten at 19 teams with a five-year waiting period as an independent.

The Big Ten and SEC did the same thing with the CFP: Grant a little bit of access and money in exchange for full control over the future playoff structure. Given that they haven’t yet agreed on their next move — we all know it’ll eventually land at 24 over the objections of pretty much anyone whose job isn’t tied to making the playoff — the Big Ten and SEC are not the heroes we need.

It’s one thing to leverage their power on weaker conferences. It’s quite another to squeeze elected members of the Senate. The way this went down Friday, it might be hard to tell who’s really in charge here.

If you look at all the metrics, it is hard to make a case that college sports needs saving — and certainly not with a bloated bill full of special interest favors like capping agent fees and the so-called “Lane Kiffin Rule” that prevents coaches from leaving during the season. None of that should be the job of the federal government, but in America, very little can get done without greasing a few skids.

For the last two weeks of media days, the SEC and Big Ten drove the preseason conversation by flexing at each other. But muscling the Senate into submission means more than any run of trophies either league has ever had.