Are We Headed for a Premier League of College Football?
How Game Theory Explains the Fall of the Pac-12 and the Rise of Super-Conferences
By Clinton Shrout
I’ll be honest — when USC and UCLA announced they were heading to the Big Ten, my first thought wasn’t “tradition is dying.” It was:
“This is textbook game theory.”
College football has become a boardroom game. Universities are the players. The stakes? Media money, NIL power, and long-term survival.
We’re not just watching schools change conferences. We’re watching them make calculated, strategic moves in a system that now rewards consolidation over culture. And now that the Pac-12 has disbanded, it’s clear: the game isn’t regional anymore — it’s national, and it's ruthless.
Strategic Realignment: The Game Theory Playbook
Game theory teaches us that every player makes a decision based on what they think everyone else is going to do. That’s exactly what we’re seeing in college football.
USC and UCLA left first — not for geography, but for a $7 billion Big Ten media deal. Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and Colorado followed. The message?
Don’t wait to get picked off. Move now, or risk irrelevance.
These weren’t random moves. They were reactions to the changing rules of the game — and to the SEC’s and Big Ten’s new gravitational pull.
Why Teams Are Flocking to Super-Conferences
Let’s put the financials side by side:
Conference Projected Annual Media Payout per School
Big Ten ~$70 million
SEC ~$60 million
Pac-12 ~$23 million (offered via Apple)
Source: [ESPN, Front Office Sports]
This isn’t just about money. It’s about survival, exposure, and staying in the national conversation.
If you’re a university president or AD, how do you justify staying behind?
“Be with the winners — or get left out of the game.”
NIL and National Exposure: The Talent Magnet
In the NIL era, eyeballs equal income.
A recruit isn’t just choosing a football program. He’s choosing where his personal brand will thrive. He’s thinking about:
National TV exposure
Social media engagement
Local sponsorships
Long-term draft visibility
Let’s be honest:
If you're a recruit, do you choose the school with tradition — or the one with TikTok followers and six-figure exposure?
This is why the Big Ten and SEC are cleaning up in recruiting. They're not just offering facilities and coaches — they’re offering platforms.
What We’re Really Watching
This isn’t realignment anymore. This is consolidation.
The Big Ten and SEC are on track to become semi-pro leagues, backed by billion-dollar media machines. Everyone else? Fighting for scraps or looking for creative ways to survive.
Regional rivalries, geographic logic, and traditional schedules are being replaced by coast-to-coast matchups and maximum revenue per broadcast window.
“What looks like strategy today could feel like a mistake in five years — if it strips away what made college football unique.”
So What Happens Now?
Here’s my honest prediction:
The Power 2 break off and form their own structure — maybe even their own postseason
Smaller conferences regroup, innovate, or vanish entirely
Players gain more power than ever
Fans… get conflicted
Because yes, the matchups are exciting. But something feels off.
The more we treat college football like a product, the more we risk losing the community it built.
Final Thought
We’re not watching realignment.
We’re watching the creation of a new league.
The question now isn’t “Who’s moving where?”
It’s: Is this the future we really want for college football?