Massive Ten, SEC type advisory group as conferences’ bond tightens

The Massive Ten and SEC have shaped a joint advisory group of college presidents, chancellors and athletic administrators to “deal with the numerous challenges going through faculty athletics” and the way to enhance the student-athlete expertise, the conferences introduced Friday.

The transfer is important as a result of it displays a rising relationship between the 2 largest and wealthiest conferences and their respective commissioners because the stability of energy continues to tilt of their favor within the evolving collegiate panorama.

Sources have informed ESPN that Massive Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey have been working intently collectively — greater than their predecessors had — at a time when convention enlargement has additional separated their leagues from the opposite FBS conferences. The SEC will welcome Oklahoma and Texas this summer season, whereas the Massive Ten will add Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA from a Pac-12 that’s on the verge of extinction.

The advisory group was shaped in response to “current court docket choices, pending litigation, a patchwork of state legal guidelines and complicated governance proposals,” in response to the Massive Ten’s information launch.

“The Massive Ten and the SEC have substantial funding within the NCAA and there’s no query that the voices of our two conferences are integral to governance and different reform efforts,” Petitti mentioned in a press release. “We acknowledge the similarity in our circumstances, in addition to the urgency to handle the widespread challenges we face.”

The Massive Ten-SEC advisory group will act as a guide to the leagues however will not have authority to implement adjustments. Its composition and timetable and the particular points it can sort out are nonetheless unclear. What it has finished, although, is additional bind the 2 behemoths collectively.

“There are related cultural and social impacts on our student-athletes, our establishments, and our communities due to the brand new collegiate athletics atmosphere,” Sankey mentioned in a press release. “We do not need predetermined solutions to the myriad questions going through us. We don’t anticipate to agree on all the things however enhancing interplay between our conferences will assist to focus efforts on widespread sense options.”