Big Ten Shadows SEC Media Days With 3 Straight Titles and $1.74 Billion Haul
Updated
Updated · CNN · Jul 20
Big Ten Shadows SEC Media Days With 3 Straight Titles and $1.74 Billion Haul
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Jul 20
Summary
Tampa opened SEC media days under an unusual cloud: the league arrived with a three-year football title drought while the Big Ten has captured the last three national championships.
Greg Sankey highlighted the SEC’s scale — 80,000 average football attendance and 13 championships across all sports — but did not erase the fact that football, the league’s flagship, has not won it all since 2022.
The gap now extends beyond trophies. The SEC topped $1 billion in revenue last year, yet the Big Ten generated $1.74 billion and is 4-0 against SEC teams over the past three seasons.
Brent Venables and other coaches also face a league in transition, with six new head coaches and traditional powers such as Auburn and Florida still trying to recover from years of decline.
Sankey still projected influence on NIL, federal legislation and even talk of breaking from the NCAA model, but the broader question hanging over Tampa was whether the SEC’s slippage is temporary or structural.