It may be a little far-fetched, but Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel suggests the SEC's powers have been taking notes from the Big 12 and that they might one day try to orchestrate a similar maneuver to oust Mississippi and Mississippi State from the league and divide the pie two fewer ways.
As Bianchi points out, if the Big 12 could get a promise of more money from one TV partner (Fox Sports Net) and a promise not to renegotiate from another (ESPN/ABC) after losing Nebraska, why wouldn't CBS and ESPN do the same minus the Mississippi schools? We have to admit, it's a pretty sound argument.
At worse, Bianchi suggests the SEC's powers could try to move to a tiered revenue-sharing model like the Big 12's, one where Alabama and Florida get the most money; Arkansas, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, South Carolina and Tennessee are in a second tier; and the Mississippi schools, Kentucky and Vanderbilt make up a third. (You could bump some of the second-tier schools to the top.)
As Bianchi writes: "Don't think the big boys of the Big 12 haven't given the big boys of the SEC some bright ideas."
