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Conference Realignment TIMELINE Just CHANGED & FSU + Miami ARE FIGHTING BACK! | ACC | B1G | SEC · College Football Addiction: A Show About All Things College Football

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There's a number buried within the Protect College Sports Act
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: that should worry fans a lot more than anything Rick
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Scott or Ashley Moody have said out loud this week.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: It's not the vote count. It's not the dollar figures
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: everybody's fixated on. It's a single word tucked into a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: section that a lot of people have skipped right past.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: It's the word expires. The length of that expiration is
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: six years. And once you actually line up that number
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: against the calendar, everybody in this sport is already working
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: off of. It stops looking like a compromise and it
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: starts looking like a plan. This is College Football Addiction.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I'm TJ Pittenger and we are presented by PrizePix, where
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: all new users who play a $ 5 lineup and win
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: get $ 150 in lineups instantly if they use code HMA. First,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the part everybody already knows because it's been all over
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: your timeline in your news feed for the last few days.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: On Tuesday, the Senate voted 74 to 24 to advance
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the Protect College Sports Act. I know that it's a
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Friday and we have games tonight and tomorrow. And I
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: said I wouldn't do a lot of realignment news, but
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I've gotten a lot of requests. And so I'll give
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you some thoughts on this bill. That's basically the procedural
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: step that clears the way for the actual debate and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: a final vote. Now, the bill needed 60 votes. It
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: got 74. It's not necessarily close. The bill has been
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: through committee. It's been through amendments. It's been through a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: near collapse back in August when it couldn't even get
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a floor vote before the summer recess. And now the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Protect College Sports Act is alive again. It's moving toward
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a real Senate vote with the House still waiting on
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the other side to see whatever happens next. Most of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the headlines this week have been about the money. Revenue
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: sharing cap goes up, a new retention fund for schools,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: agent fee limits, all real, all worth talking about on
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: their own. But if you care about conference realignment, and
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: if you're watching this video in my channel, then you
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: very likely do, the section that matters is the one
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: governing how schools move between conferences. And that section just
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: changed in a way that I don't think is getting
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: nearly enough attention. Here's what the original version of this
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: bill said. If a power conference school wanted to jump
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: from one conference to another, it had to spend five
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: years operating as an independent firsts. Five years in the wilderness,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: no conference affiliation, no conference schedule, no conference championship, just waiting.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: That number alone was basically designed to kill realignment outright.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Nobody's walking away from a media deal to go sit
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: in independence purgatory for half a decade. The whole idea
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: was to freeze the map in place. This week, though,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that number got negotiated. Five years became three. On the surface,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that does sound like a concession, a real concession, maybe
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: a meaningful walk back from a provision that a bunch
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: of ACC schools spent all summer lobbying against. But here's
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the part that got buried underneath the headline. The entire provision,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the whole conference movement restriction probation period expires after six years.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: It doesn't get revisited. It's not a look-in clause. It
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: doesn't get renewed. It expires, which means starting around 2032, 2033,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: if it takes a little time for this thing to pass,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the rule simply stops existing. Any school in any power
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: conference can move wherever it wants, whenever it wants, with
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: none of the waiting period that this bill just spent
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: 200 pages building. So think about what that actually means.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: For six years, the sport may be frozen. And then,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: all at once, the freeze just lifts. I'll go on
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in just a moment, but I do want to encourage
• 4:06
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• 4:10
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• 4:14
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• 4:16
  Speaker 1: will have quick reactions that I'm going to upload directly
• 4:19
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• 4:23
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• 4:25
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• 4:28
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• 4:29
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• 4:31
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• 4:33
  Speaker 1: College Football Addiction on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and hit the subscribe button. Whether you listen or not,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: it helps us tremendously. I will link both in the description.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Go check them out. We appreciate your support on the
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: channel and hope that you are subscribed there on audio
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: as well. Now, here's where I think that this stops
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: being a story about compromise and starts being a story
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: about timing. Because six years from now is not a
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: random number. It's not the number that Congress just landed
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: on because it felt fair. It's a number that lines
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: up almost perfectly with when the Big Ten's current media
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: rights situation and the Big 12's deal and the SEC's
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: deal all start to be renewed. Think about what that
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: buys the Big Ten specifically. For the entire life of
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: their current TV deal, every single one of their 18
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: members is locked in place. There's no poaching. There's no deflections.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: There's no uncertainty for the network partners that are writing
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the checks. You can sell a media package with a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: lot more confidence when you can guarantee the product is
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: not changing shape halfway through. Here's the actual timing. The
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Big 10's deal runs through 2030. The Big 12's runs
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: a year later. The six-year freeze doesn't lift until somewhere
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: around 2032. That means both of these conferences negotiate their
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: next TV contracts while the freeze is still fully in place,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: knowing what's about to expire just a year or two later.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Think about what that buys them. They walk into the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: biggest negotiation of the decade, able to tell every network
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: partner the same thing. This lineup isn't changing for the worse.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: There will be no surprise departures. You're buying a fixed
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: products guaranteed, and you're also buying the chance at us
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: adding somebody else. You can very easily write look-ins when
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: you know what's coming just a year or two down
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the road. It's a much easier sell than just trust us,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: nobody's leaving, or nobody's being added to another conference. which
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: is the sentence that every conference commissioner has had to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: say for the last five years without anything actually backing
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it up. And then once those new deals are signed,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: once the ink is dry and the money is locked in,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the restriction all of a sudden just disappears. Not before
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the negotiation, but right after it. Which means whatever expansion
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: happens next, it happens on the conference's terms using leverage
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: from a contract that they've already secured. not leverage that
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: they're bluffing with at the table. That is arguably a
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: better deal for the Big Ten and the Big 12
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and even the SEC, whose deal expires shortly after, than
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: getting the freedom right away. Stability when you need to
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: sell the deal. Freedom once you don't need to protect
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: it anymore. The SEC's deal runs slightly longer, out to 2034.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So the timeline actually works out fine for them too.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Think about when the SEC has announced new members. It's
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: always a year or two in advance. Florida State's expiration
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: and Miami's expiration of leaving the SEC or the ACC
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: might be around 2033, might be around 2034. It's going
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to be announced before. Hey, when their contract is up,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: when their deal is up, their buyout's reduced. The legal
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: limits are gone. Boom. We're taking them. They're covered through
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the entire freeze and then some. They're able to move
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: again well before their next negotiation. The ACC, on the
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: other hand, they're locked in through 2036, which means even
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: after this restriction disappears, ESPN's grip on the ACC outlasts
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: it by another four years. So whatever door this bill
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: opens around 2032, the ACC's biggest problem, the media deal itself,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: doesn't budge. And that's the part that I don't think
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: enough people are connecting. The realignment freeze and the TV
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: calendar aren't two separate storylines. They're the same story just
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: written by two different clocks. This isn't the first time
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: we've watched a conference use legal or contractual windows to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: buy itself exactly the amount of stability that it needed
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: and not a day more. Think back to the ACC's
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: own grant of rights fight with FSU and Clemson. That
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: settlement didn't just pick a random number for the exit fee.
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  Speaker 1: It built a sliding scale that dropped every single year,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I believe by $ 18 million, bottoming it out right at
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a point that the own conference's media deal situation made
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the most sense to defend. Conferences don't write these numbers
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: off the top of their head. They build them backward
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: from the calendar that they're already committed to. And I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: think the same logic applies here, just in a much
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: bigger scale. This isn't one conference negotiating with two of
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: its own members anymore. This is the two most powerful
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: conferences in the sport, effectively getting Congress to write their
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: preferred outcome into federal law. They've dressed it up as
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a compromise both sides can claim credit for. Cruz and
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Cantwell can say they protected schools from getting frozen forever.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: They've prevented a Super League. The Big Ten and the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: SEC get six years of guaranteed stability and then a
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: wide open window exactly when they want it. Everybody wins
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: except for the folks that are maybe stuck outside when
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: these doors reopen. Now, I want to talk about two
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: senators in my state who actually voted no on all
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: of this because their reasoning tells you everything about where
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the real fight stands. is. Rick Scott and Ashley Moody,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: both Republicans from Florida, voted against advancing this bill, not
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: because of money, not because of transfer portal language, but
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: because of exactly what we just talked about, the provision
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: governing how schools change conferences and what it means for
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  Speaker 1: two schools in particular. This is where I want to
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: spend a little time today. Florida State and Miami. Scott
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: put out a statement afterwards laying out his issues with
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the bill overall, but he specifically pointed to conference cap
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: disagreements as something he'd heard directly from the universities in
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: his state on. Moody's been even more aggressive about it.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Back in August, she filed an amendment that would have
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: created a 180-day window, a hard deadline after the bill's signing,
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  Speaker 1: where any power conference school could leave immediately. No probation
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: period at all if they moved fast enough. That amendment, admittedly,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: did not survive. What did survive, apparently, was enough pressure
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: to get the probation number from five years down to
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: three and to put an expiration date on the whole thing.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Now that's the minor victory version of this entire story.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Because let's be honest about what actually happened here. The
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: people pushing hardest for FSU and Miami wanted the door
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: open immediately. What they got instead was a shorter wait
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and a distant expiration date. That's not nothing, but it's
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: not the win that Florida State and Miami were originally
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: asking for either. And today, both of those schools made
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: it very clear that they know the difference. Florida State
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: put out a statement thanking Moody and Scott by name,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: saying the bill represents an important step toward restoring order
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: in college athletics and crediting the two senators for working
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to address the bill's provisions related to conference realignment. The
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: statement specifically frames their work as protecting the ability of
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: our Florida universities to compete and succeed in an increasingly
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: dynamic collegiate athletics landscape. Miami's statement almost hit exactly the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: same way. They called themselves especially grateful to Moody and
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Scott and said the Senators' work on realignment provisions is
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: critically important to ensuring that Florida institutions retain the flexibility
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and opportunity to compete at the highest level in a
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: rapidly evolving college athletics landscape. Read the two statements side
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: by side, and they're not just similar in tone. They're
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: using almost identical language. Flexibility, compete at the highest level,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: rapidly evolving or increasingly dynamic landscapes. It's not two athletic
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: departments or two universities that are independently arriving at the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: same talking points by accident. It reads like two schools
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: that have been coordinating messaging with the two senators that
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: we're talking about the entire time. And notice what neither
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: statement says. Neither one says we're satisfied. Neither one says
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: this resolves our concerns. Both frame this as an important step,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: but not nearly the finish line. Both spend their gratitude
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: specifically on the provision that governs how schools move between conferences.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Not revenue sharing, not agent fees, not anything else in
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: a 200-page bill. The one thing. And it's not a
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: small thing. Because for a while, the outside narrative around
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Florida State in particular has drifted toward maybe this cools
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: off eventually. These statements are a pretty direct answer to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: that ideology. It's not cooling off. If anything, this bill
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: just gave both programs a very specific date to start
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: planning around. and a public paper trail thanking the senators
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: who are still working on moving that date up even more.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: But here's the piece of this that I think matters
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: more than the actual timeline. It's what I haven't seen
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: enough people talking about. The probation period isn't the only
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: obstacle standing between Florida State and Miami and a new conference.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: There's a hard cap on power conference membership. 19 teams
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: total for any conference that wants to stay inside that
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: top tier. And when you actually look at where the,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: two biggest leagues sit at right now, that cap tells
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a very different story depending on which door FSU and
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Miami are trying to walk through. The Big Ten currently
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: sits at 18 members, which means under this bill, they
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: have exactly one seat left before hitting the ceiling. And
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who watch this stuff pretty closely
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: think that that seat has an obvious answer, and it's
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: not Florida State or Miami. It's Notre Dame. The 19-team
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: number lines up too perfectly with the Big Ten's current membership,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: plus one team to be a coincidence. If that's the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: intended landing spot for the league's last available seat, then
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: there's no room for anyone else. Not this decade, not
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: under this cap. The SEC is in a different spot,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: 16 members right now, which technically leaves enough room to
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: add three more schools without touching or going over the ceiling.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So mechanically, if FSU and Miami wanted to go to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the same conference, The SEC is the only one with
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: actual room on paper. But room on paper and willingness
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: are certainly two different things. Greg Sankey has said more
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: than once that he's comfortable with the SEC's current footprint,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: not hostile to expansion forever, just not necessarily chasing it
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: right now. And he's not interested in cutting the league's
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: revenue pie into more slices without a clear reason to
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: do so. So put it all together. If FSU and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Miami are hoping to end up in the same conference
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: down the road, the timeline problem might actually be the
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: easier one to solve. The cap and the appetite are
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the real obstacles. One league's basically out of the room already.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: The other one has room but hasn't shown the urgency
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: to use it. which means even with a friendlier probation
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: window and an expiration date on the horizon, the bigger
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: question was never really about how long FSU and Miami
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: had to wait. It was about whether or not there
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: was a door waiting on them once that wait is over.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: And here's where the alignment between FSU and Miami actually
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: gets complicated instead of just simple. Both schools won out
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: of the ACC. That's been obvious for years now. But
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: we both want out, and we both want to end
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: up in the same place are two different sentences. And
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think they get separated enough in this conversation.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: If the Big Ten does really have just one seat left,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and that seat is earmarked for Notre Dame the way
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of people around the sport believe, then Florida
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: State and Miami are not actually competing with each other
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: for anything. They're just both locked out of it. Which
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: pushes both of them toward the SEC, not by preference,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: but maybe by default. And once you're talking about two
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: schools angling for room inside the same conference at the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: same time, you're not just negotiating with Greg Sankey anymore.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: You're negotiating against each other, whether either school wants to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: publicly admit that or not. Miami's case will certainly lean
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: on the South Florida market as a market and a
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: national brand that's been trending up for the last couple
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of years. Florida State's case leans on football history, a
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: fan base that travels, and a program that's been a
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: fixture in national championship conversations for many decades. even though
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: its recent stretch is pretty tough. They've got different arguments.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: They've got different value propositions, but both are aimed at
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the same thing, getting out of the ACC and landing
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: in the power too. I've always thought Miami was a
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: little more destined for the Big Ten. I've always thought
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that Florida State was a little bit better fit in
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the SEC. Will the caps be removed? Will the house
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: maybe change this thing enough to where we won't have
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: that provision? All things to keep an eye on. When
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: people talk about FSU and Miami as a package deal,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're really so much of a package deal.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I think there are two different cases, and if the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: SEC was only to take one of them or take
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: them at different times, the entire framing of this story
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: may change pretty completely. Now, there's nothing saying that the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Big Ten couldn't use their last and final spot on Miami.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I feel confident enough to say
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: that they will with Notre Dame still out there, but
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: we'll see. It's not a reason to think that any
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: other program is losing ground. It is still just a
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: race to get out as fast as you can and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: get a landing spot. I want to tie all this together. One,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the reduction from five years to three years is real,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: but it is a minor concession in my opinion. It's
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: not a victory. The people pushing for immediate movement wanted
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: a 180-day window. They did not get that. What they
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: got was a shorter version of the same waiting period
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: with an expiration date that's now attached to it. That
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: date just happens to line up well with when a
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: lot of media contracts are expiring. Number two, FSU and
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Miami are clearly aligned, and they're not backing off. They're
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: two rival schools. They've got two senators that are fighting
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: on their behalf, and now two statements today with nearly
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: identical language, both of them thanking the senators by name
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and both making sure that nobody mistakes their silence for surrender.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: But alignment on wanting out doesn't automatically mean that alignment
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: on where they end up going is the same. getting
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: into the same conference together still runs straight into that
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: 19-team ceiling. And right now, one of those two conferences
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: most likely to take them doesn't have a whole lot
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: of room left to give. Number three, I think realignment
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: is still very much the goal here. Not a lawsuit
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: relic from a couple of years ago, not a resolved
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: issue that everybody's moved past. This week's votes, amendments, and
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: statements make it very clear, clear as it's ever been,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: that both of these programs are still actively working toward
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: a future outside the ACC. And this bill, even in
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: its current form, is being built with their situation specifically
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: in mind. The freeze is not gone. It's just got
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: an expiration sticker on it now. Time to win the
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: conferences that wrote the rules needed to expire. And until
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the House takes this up, none of it is law yet.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: This is still a Senate bill working through the Senate process.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: And the same fights over the cap, the probation window,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and who actually benefits are almost certainly going to resurface
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: once it lands in front of a different chamber. The
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: House fight is worth pausing on for a second because
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: it's not even a rubber stamp waiting to happen. The
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: states with the most to lose or gain here aren't
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: evenly distributed. in the Senate the way they are the House. Florida, California,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, South Carolina combined for well over 100 House seats.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Those are exactly the states home to Florida State, Miami, Clemson,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, Stanford, Cal, some of the most large programs
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: that will be impacted by this provision. A Senate vote
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: is 60 votes from 50 states. A House vote is
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: 218 votes from 435 districts, a lot of them sitting
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: in states with very direct, very local stake in how
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: this cap and probation period actually get written out, which
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: means the version of this bill that eventually reaches a
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: president's desk, if it ever does, might not look anything
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: like what just cleared the Senate this week. The three-year
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: number could move again. The 19-teen cap could move again.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: The six-year expiration could get pushed further out or pulled
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: closer in. depending on which coalition ends up with the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: leverage once it hits the House floor. So if you're
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out when conference realignment actually comes back
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: for real, I'd stop watching the news cycle around this
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: bill entirely. Watch three things instead. Watch whether or not
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: that 19-team cap ever moves. Watch what the Big 10
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: and the Big 12 actually do with their next media
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: deals once this window is up. And watch whether or
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: not Florida State and Miami keep making noise or whether
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: today's near identical statements end up being the last time
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that either school says anything publicly before it all quiets down.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Based on everything we've seen this year, I wouldn't bet
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: on it being quiet. I'd love to know your thoughts
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: down in the comments. I think we will continue to
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: cover this, hopefully less in season, but it certainly does
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: have a lot of people intrigued. Appreciate you guys for
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: tuning in. We appreciate prize picks. We're all new users
• 21:25
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• 21:27
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• 21:31
  Speaker 1: you guys on the next one here on College Football Addiction.