Big Ten, SEC forming advisory group focused on future landscape of college sports

The two kings of college sports are now working together.

The Big Ten and SEC, the two wealthiest conferences in college athletics that helped usher in widespread change with new TV deals and conference realignment, announced the formation of a joint advisory group comprised of university presidents, chancellors, and athletics directors "to address the significant challenges facing college athletics and the opportunities for betterment of the student-athlete experience," according to a Big Ten press release published Friday.

The Big Ten says the advisory group will work together to address challenges such as recent court decisions, pending litigation in relation to name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules and transfer guidelines, laws governing athletes at the state level, and "complex governance proposals".

The goal, the Big Ten says, is to find solutions for a "sustainable" future for college athletics.

“The Big Ten and the SEC have substantial investment in the NCAA and there is no question that the voices of our two conferences are integral to governance and other reform efforts,” said Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti. “We recognize the similarity in our circumstances, as well as the urgency to address the common challenges we face.”

According to a Yahoo Sports exclusive interview with Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, the issues they want to address are "ongoing antitrust lawsuits, most notably the multi-billion dollar House case; disagreements over the NCAA’s new governance proposal, Project DI; and the unsettled landscape of athlete transfer movement, tampering charges and name, image and likeness (NIL) inducements."

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In the press release, Sankey said, "There are similar cultural and social impacts on our student-athletes, our institutions, and our communities because of the new collegiate athletics environment. We do not have predetermined answers to the myriad questions facing us. We do not expect to agree on everything but enhancing interaction between our conferences will help to focus efforts on common sense solutions."

Project DI, which would permit schools to strike NIL deals directly with athletes while also creating a separate subdivision in FBS for high-revenue producing schools, is expected to be one of the first things the advisory group to address, according to Yahoo. They will also address antitrust lawsuits that focus on athlete compensation and organization as well as retroactive NIL payments and the transfer and NIL rules put in place by the NCAA, according to the conference commissioners.

The Big Ten and SEC stand as the two giants of the college football world and have had a hand in shaping the new landscape entering the 2024 year. The SEC kicked off the most recent wave of conference realignment in 2021 by adding Oklahoma and Texas to the conference at the start of the 2024 season, which had a cascading domino effect.

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In response, the Big Ten announced a pact with the Pac-12 and ACC which would be known as "The Alliance", which served as a handshake agreement between the three conferences to stick it out and work together to provide answers for the future of college sports. The Alliance went out the window when the Big Ten announced they would be adding USC and UCLA to the conference, later followed by Oregon and Washington, which meant the death of the Pac-12 by the end of 2023.

According to the release, the advisory committee will not have the authority to act independently and will only serve in a consulting role. The specifics, such as who will be on the committee and when they'll meet, are yet to be announced. The commissioners told Yahoo the two mega conferences, which now have 34 teams combined (18 in Big Ten, 16 in SEC) have no plans on seceding from the NCAA.

“You can see the pace that others are getting involved in college athletics is increasing," Petitti told Yahoo. "So the pace of solutions to the problems being identified has to increase.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Big Ten, SEC forming advisory group focused on college sports laws