Who Is Really Running College Football: Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti or ESPN and FOX?
As Congress, conferences, and commissioners battle over the future of college sports, perhaps we're asking the wrong question. The real power may not be sitting in conference headquarters.
The SEC meetings were exactly what we thought they would be.
Eventful.
Then, just when we thought the conversations coming out of Destin would dominate the week, Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell dropped the 111-page Protect College Sports Act and sent the entire industry into another frenzy.
Suddenly, everybody had an opinion.
The SEC and Big Ten weren’t exactly thrilled with portions of the proposal. The bill would create national standards for NIL, provide antitrust protections, establish athlete protections, and potentially place guardrails around future actions by the most powerful conferences. Depending on who you ask, it’s either an attempt to save college sports or an attempt to restrain the people currently running it.
Either way, it caused a ruckus.
At the same time, the Big 12 held its meetings. Brett Yormark spoke confidently about the future of his league, and rightfully so. The Big 12 has survived challenges that would have buried most conferences.
But let’s be honest.
The financial gap between the Big 12 and the SEC and Big Ten is enormous.
Everyone knows it.
The SEC and Big Ten know it.
And if we’re being honest, the two power conferences would prefer it stay that way.
So now we’re left with the question that seems to hover over every conversation in college sports.
Who is right?
Will college sports survive?
Will the SEC and Big Ten eventually split from everyone else?
That possibility feels more realistic today than it did even a year ago.
The arguments are endless.
Commissioners versus commissioners.
The Big Two versus everybody else.
Congress versus the conferences.
Athletes versus administrators.
Lawyers versus everyone.
Chaos abounds.
But while everyone else is arguing over legislation, governance, revenue sharing, antitrust exemptions, NIL, transfer rules, and lawsuits, I find myself wondering about something much simpler.
Where exactly is everybody’s heart?
Because I know where mine is.
I fell in love with college football because of tradition.
I fell in love with it because of pageantry.
I fell in love with it because of the bands, the campuses, the rivalries, and the uniqueness of every school.
Yesterday I was walking around Bryant-Denny Stadium before participating in Alabama Boys State and speaking on a communications panel at Reese Phifer Hall.
Standing there, I wasn’t thinking about NIL collectives.
I wasn’t thinking about television contracts.
I wasn’t thinking about congressional legislation.
I was thinking about why people care in the first place.
That’s the part I worry we’re losing. I feel like I have to keep saying this over and over. Maybe at some point, someone important will read it and say what the hell have we done?
To put it plainly, the Protect College Sports Act threatens some of the power accumulated by the SEC and Big Ten over the last two decades.
They feel targeted.
They feel constrained.
They feel like they deserve more because they earn more.
Honestly, I understand the argument.
If you generate more revenue, why should you share it?
That’s a perfectly reasonable business position.
The problem is that college sports was never built solely on business principles.
The power accumulated by the SEC and Big Ten didn’t happen overnight.
The day Texas and Oklahoma announced they were joining the SEC, the wheels were set in motion.
For me, there are two moments that changed everything.
The first was the Supreme Court’s Alston decision in 2021.
The second was Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC.
The Alston case fundamentally changed the legal foundation of college athletics. NIL, athlete compensation, revenue sharing, lawsuits, transfer chaos, clearinghouse disputes, and much of the environment we live in today can be traced back to that ruling.
That is one issue.
Conference consolidation is another.
The two overlap, but they are not the same thing.
I think we sometimes get so distracted by NIL chaos that we forget what conference realignment actually did to college sports.
The moment Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC, and the moment the Big Ten added USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington, college sports crossed a line.
The balance of power fundamentally changed.
Greg Sankey himself acknowledged recently that the SEC is already a super league.
He’s right.
The problem is that many fans never wanted super leagues.
They wanted college football.
There’s a difference.
College football became popular because of regional rivalries.
It became popular because schools represented places.
It became popular because fans felt connected to universities, traditions, and communities.
The money came later.
Cable television made the sport bigger.
Streaming made it even more valuable.
Then everyone started chasing more.
More inventory.
More markets.
More subscribers.
More money.
And here we are.
Which brings me to a question I don’t think enough people are asking.
Who is really driving all of this?
Should we be mad at Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti?
Maybe.
They’re the commissioners. They’re the faces of the conferences. They’re the people standing at podiums and explaining where college sports is heading.
But are they actually the people driving the bus?
Or are they carrying out the wishes of the people writing the checks?
I think it’s time television executives receive more scrutiny than they currently do.
I’d love to hear more publicly from ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro and FOX Sports CEO Eric Shanks.
Not because I think they’re villains.
Not because I think they’re evil.
But because they may have as much influence over the future of college sports as any commissioner in America. Yet, where the heck are they?
Yet most fans couldn’t pick either one out of a lineup.
That seems odd, doesn’t it?
We know what Greg Sankey wants.
We know what Tony Petitti wants.
We know what Brett Yormark wants.
We know what Charlie Baker wants.
But do we know what Jimmy Pitaro wants for college football?
Do we know what Eric Shanks wants?
Do we know what their vision is for the sport twenty years from now?
I genuinely don’t know.
Years ago I worked at Yahoo when Jimmy Pitaro was there.
My interaction with him was limited. I wasn’t operating anywhere close to executive circles. That’s normal in a company that large.
What it reinforced for me, however, is how distant major executives can feel from the people creating content and the people consuming it.
That’s not unique to Jimmy. That’s true throughout media.
But it raises a legitimate question.
How connected are the people shaping college sports to the reasons fans fell in love with it in the first place?
I often worry about American collegiate business schools and what they are teaching students. Is the basis of the curriculum simply profit margins and survival at all costs, regardless of the cost to the soul of the business? I honestly wonder.
Do they see college football as a cultural institution?
Or do they see it as premium live inventory?
Those are two very different things.
One sees marching bands.
Rivalries.
Road trips.
Tailgates.
Traditions.
Campuses.
Lifelong memories.
The other sees ratings.
Advertising revenue.
Subscriber growth.
Inventory.
Quarterly earnings.
The challenge is that both matter.
College sports is absolutely a business.
I understand that. That is fine, but to a point. I am fine if the business is good enough to sustain itself and create opportunities for young people through athletics. I am in favor of that business model. This is not pro sports. We don’t have owners. These are mostly public institutions.
If the business is to exploit the collegiate model for grown people to get super wealthy, while not expanding opportunities for young people. Then, no. I do not support that business model in any way, and I would smack the hand of any leader in this realm who does. For shame!
The problem comes when the business starts consuming the very thing that made it valuable to begin with.
When I hear conversations about maximizing inventory, expanding playoffs, adding more inventory, and generating more revenue, I understand the logic.
What I don’t always hear is someone defending the soul of the sport. So here I am. The Show Pony, Chris Childers, simply begging anyone who will listen to me.
Who is standing up for regional rivalries?
Who is standing up for the traditions that made college football unique?
Who is standing up for the idea that not everything has to be optimized for maximum revenue?
Maybe Sankey and Petitti are the architects.
Maybe they’re the messengers.
Maybe they’re somewhere in between.
But I think we’ve spent years blaming commissioners for changes that may have been driven just as much by television economics as conference ambition.
And maybe that’s the conversation we should be having.
Because college football didn’t become valuable because television executives created it.
Television executives wanted it because fans loved it first.
That’s an important distinction.
The SEC became so powerful that Texas and Oklahoma eventually concluded they couldn’t remain Texas and Oklahoma unless they joined it.
Think about that for a second.
Two of the most powerful brands in the history of college athletics decided they had to move.
If that doesn’t tell you how dramatically the balance of power has shifted, nothing will.
The debate today is about legislation.
The debate tomorrow will be about governance.
The debate next year may be about a breakaway super league.
But beneath all of it lies a much simpler question.
Everybody involved seems to know what college football is worth.
I’m just not sure enough people remember why we loved it in the first place.
Want To Learn Broadcasting? Join The Next Show Pony University Cohort
Before I get out of here, a quick note.
The first-ever Show Pony University cohort wraped up this week, and honestly, the feedback has blown me away.
When I launched this thing, I had no idea what to expect. I knew I had 20-plus years in the industry. I knew I had stories, experiences, mistakes, successes, and lessons that might help aspiring broadcasters, podcasters, and content creators.
What I didn’t know was whether people would actually find value in it.
The answer has been a resounding yes.
The reviews from the first class have been incredible.
One student told me something that honestly stopped me in my tracks.
She said if she had taken this course back in 2018, she wouldn’t have gone to Medill at Northwestern.
Think about that for a second.
Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism is one of the most respected journalism programs in America.
Yet she told me she got more practical value from this four-week course than she did from her time there.
Can you imagine hearing something like that?
I certainly didn’t expect it.
The goal of Show Pony University isn’t theory.
It’s not textbooks.
It’s not lectures from people who haven’t worked in the industry for years.
It’s the real stuff.
Show preparation.
Interviewing.
Teases.
Audience retention.
Building a brand.
Developing a personality.
Understanding why some content connects and other content disappears into the void.
The nuance of broadcasting.
The stuff nobody teaches anymore.
And somehow, we’ve managed to pack it into a four-week course that costs just $399.
That’s less than what some people spend on a single college textbook.
The second cohort begins next week, and I’d love to have you join us.
If you’re serious about sports media, podcasting, radio, digital content, YouTube, or simply becoming a better communicator, I’d love to help.
Because the truth is, broadcasting is still an art form.
And somebody needs to teach it before it disappears.
More information and registration can be found here:
Show Pony University Information
Hope to see you in class.
— Chris
I agree with your two main events that put the wheels in motion. The NCAA was shortsighted and didn’t prepare at all for if they lost the Alston case! And now the NCAA seems to have zero power! I have never been a fan of the way that the NCAA has handled situations in the past , but structure is needed. The move by Texas and Oklahoma was the start of the power shift. Money is how the Pac12 was lost! I think you are right that ESPN, Fox , and every other TV network are really in control. Rick spoke yesterday about how crappy the Day One games are in the Big 10. I think that the networks will start demanding more competitive games which will affect scheduling. Then we will find out who is in charge!
Nice article. You have voiced the obvious concerns of most fans. Unfortunately, nothing "new" actually added to the conversation.