📡 The SEC can dominate football or basketball, but in an NIL world, it can't do both | Estes - Tennessean

[SEC Sports]

The SEC can dominate football or basketball, but in an NIL world, it can't do both | Estes

It's no coincidence that the SEC's football dominance ended at the same time the league is distancing itself atop men’s basketball and baseball.

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The Southeastern Conference has never been better at men’s basketball than it is right now.

It’s ridiculous. Four of the top six teams – and seven of the top 16 – in the USA TODAY coaches poll are from the SEC. They’re all beating each other, and yet, the bracketologists keep projecting a dozen or more SEC teams into the NCAA Tournament.

Such superiority is beginning to resemble what the league has in baseball. Of the top five spots in this season’s preseason baseball poll, four were SEC teams. The last five national champs in baseball were all from the SEC – and all different schools, no less.

So I’m wondering why this isn’t being mentioned more in relation to a very popular topic of late:

In this era of NIL and the transfer portal, it shouldn't be viewed as coincidence that the SEC has been shoved from its throne atop college football at the same time it has been distancing itself from everyone in other sports, most notably men’s basketball and baseball.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported during a recent appearance on the network’s “College Gameday” that SEC’s schools spent an average of $4-5 million in NIL funding for men’s basketball rosters this season.

“Top to bottom, nobody has invested more than the SEC (in men’s basketball),” Thamel said. “And that's why, as our friend Joe Lunardi said, nobody is going to get more teams in the NCAA Tournament than the SEC.”

Meanwhile, fresh off winning a national title in baseball, Tennessee coach Tony Vitello recently said that this past year solidified for him how much “advisors and agents have figured out the rules of the game, and they are heavily involved now” when it comes to NIL and college baseball.

“I don't know that it's like basketball and football, overall, but I do think it falls into the same basket,” Vitello said. “What's going on right now is not sustainable.”

He’s right. It’s not.

Because the NIL demand appears endless, and the supply is not. Donor fatigue is real. The wealthy didn’t get that way by throwing away enormous sums of money year after year with zero return on investment, no matter how much they adore a university's sports teams.


And as wells dry up, universities are going to have to prioritize spending and decide how seriously they wish to compete in one sport versus another.

To a degree, that’s already happening.

SEC schools, obviously, are investing millions and trying hard in football. But there’s a difference between trying hard and spending the $20 million in NIL that national champion Ohio State did (per Yahoo Sports) to compile the sport’s most formidable collection of talent in years.

That difference couldn’t have been more apparent than the night of Dec. 21, when Ohio State humbled a 10-win Tennessee team that showed up thinking it was pretty good. For a program as well-supported as UT football and a fanbase as starved for success as the Vols, that shouldn’t happen to such an extent.

But it did.

Those who’d explain it as Tennessee simply not offering enough NIL-wise, that’s shortsighted. Look at Vitello’s championship in baseball. Or a stellar men’s basketball program under Rick Barnes that has been ranked in the AP Top 25 for 73 polls in a row.

Ask yourself, Tennessee fans: Which of those two boasting points would you have been willing to trade to give Josh Heupel a better chance in Columbus?

Elsewhere in the College Football Playoff, Georgia was outplayed by Notre Dame, Texas lost to Ohio State, too, and the SEC failed to make the title game for a second year in a row, given that it only had three qualifiers in the playoff’s first 12-team bracket.

Ole Miss probably would've gotten in had it not lost to Kentucky. The Rebels that day were 1-of-10 on third down and scored one touchdown in three red zone trips. Maybe that's different if they still had star running back Quinshon Judkins. He'd transferred to Ohio State.

Alabama probably would've gotten in if it hadn't lost to Vanderbilt. Maybe the Commodores don't find a fourth-down touchdown heave or a pivotal strip-sack fumble if the Crimson Tide had safety Caleb Downs or center Seth McLaughlin. They'd transferred to Ohio State.

No one is ever going to accuse Alabama fans of not caring enough about football. But this past December, Crimson Tide AD Greg Byrne sent out an urgent call to arms for “Bama Nation to fight back.”

“It’s impossible to ignore what is taking place in college athletics,” Byrne wrote. “Hungry fan bases are acting decisively to give their respective programs competitive advantages. We must respond.”

Note: Alabama made the Final Four in men’s basketball last season and is No. 3 nationally right now.

That’s two spots behind in-state rival Auburn, which beat Ohio State by 38 points in December. It was the Tigers' largest margin of victory ever against a high-major, nonconference opponent.

The best college basketball in America right now is in the football-zany state of Alabama, which didn't have either Alabama or Auburn in the CFP. It's difficult to chalk that up to just coaching.

Seems like it has something to do with NIL money.

And, perhaps, how there’s only so much of it to go around.