We careen toward the fall of 2024 with college football in a state of epic transition. Thanks to conference realignment — and a total lack of centralized leadership — most of the sport's big brands now reside in just two conferences, the Big Ten and SEC.
They threw their weight around to assure a dramatic share of future College Football Playoff money, and they convinced smaller conferences to take on a disproportionate share of settlement-related back payments, assuring they will hog an even larger percentage of money moving forward (when they already had the most).
Two other power conferences, the ACC and Big 12, are in an odd state, clearly ahead of the rest of the pack but far behind the Power 2 from a revenue standpoint.
The «rich get richer» vibes are hard to ignore. Here's a dirty little secret, though: A large portion of SEC and Big Ten fan bases are going to be absolutely miserable moving forward.