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Iowa State’s Jamie Pollard says college sports’ power players are ‘going to eat their own’

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Iowa State’s Jamie Pollard says college sports’ power players are ‘going to eat their own’

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One of the potential have-nots from the potential future of college athletics had a warning Thursday for the current and future haves of college football. 

Iowa State athletics director Jamie Pollard had strong words directed toward the Big Ten and SEC, whom, with their disproportionate lucrative television contracts and bigger slice of the expanded College Football Playoff, are pulling further away financially from the rest of the sport while also shaping its on-field future with that financial leverage. 

“The CFP is just another example of our industry running amok,” Pollard said at the Cyclone Tailgate Tour kickoff event Thursday in West Des Moines, “and they’re trying to swallow the ACC and the Big 12.  

“I wish them all the best because they’re going to eat their own.” 

Which might mean what, exactly? 

“You just have to look at the evolution,” Pollard said. “It isn’t the SEC and Big Ten. It’s those who have all the gold make all the rules. So If I was a member of the Big Ten or SEC, I’d start looking over my shoulder and wondering when is the day going to come when the top of the SEC is not going to want the bottom of the SEC.

“Go back and look at times. When the AFL and NFL merged, they only needed one commissioner. And when the NBA and ABA merged, they only needed one commissioner. There’s going to come a day they don’t need two $6 million a year commissioners, and they’re going to eat their own. And if we think that’s not going to happen, you’re a fool because we didn’t think Pac-12 would get eaten and it did.” 

More: Iowa State’s wrestling facility ‘on hold’ as college landscape shifts

It’s certainly a thinly-veiled prediction (Assertion? Hypothesis?) that the Big Ten and SEC may not exist as separate entities as they continue to pursue more and more of college football’s dollars and on-field success via aggressive realignment and the hugely changing legislative landscape that could include some form of revenue sharing.

Those holding the “gold” are also the television partners, who are paying exorbitant amounts of money and could benefit from further consolidation given Ohio State and Michigan get the same money from the Big Ten’s TV deal as Rutgers and Maryland.

Former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby famously accused ESPN of meddling in the league and trying to disrupt it when Texas and Oklahoma announced their departures from the Big 12.

More: Big 12’s Bob Bowlsby sends ESPN a cease-and-desist order for SEC movement: ‘A tortious interference in our business’

“I’m saying from an evolution standpoint, if you asked me two years ago is the Pac-12 going to be existent in 2025, I think all of us would have said yes,” Pollard said. “You don’t have to look back very far to see what’s happened, and you can see what’s happening.” 

The Pac-12 crumbled last year, with its members scattering to the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC, and Oregon State and Washington State left to enter a scheduling alliance with the far less prestigious Mountain West. 

So when Pollard draws a line from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten and SEC, it, presumably, is a warning to the non-elite schools in those conferences that their positions may not be as secure in the future as college football continues to stratify along financial lines. 

Both the Big Ten and SEC are approaching $1 billion in yearly payments to membership while they each secured 29 percent of the new College Football Playoff revenue. Conversely, the Big 12 is set to disperse closer to $700 million and will get 15 percent of the CFP money. 

In Pollard’s telling, that money has come in no small part due to the consolidation of both financials and power in the Big Ten and SEC. And it could continue from within those leagues. 

“It’s reasonable to project into the future and say, why wouldn’t you think that will just continue?” Pollard said. “That those with the gold will make the rules.”

What Jamie Pollard said about the Big Ten and SEC

Question: Is the alliance of the Big Ten and SEC or them pulling away financially, is that foreboding or at least on the horizon as disruptive as anything, including (revenue sharing)? 

Pollard: You just have to look at the evolution. It isn’t the SEC and Big Ten. It’s those who have all the gold make all the rules. So If I was a member of the Big Ten or SEC, I’d start looking over my shoulder and wondering when is the day going to come when the top of the SEC is not going to want the bottom of the SEC. Go back and look at times. When the AFL and NFL merged, they only needed one commissioner. And when the NBA and ABA merged, they only needed one commissioner. There’s going to come a day they don’t need two $6 million a year commissioners, and they’re going to eat their own. And if we think that’s not going to happen, you’re a fool because we didn’t think Pac-12 would get eaten and it did. The CFP is just another example of our industry running amok, and they’re trying to swallow the ACC and the Big 12. I wish them all the best because they’re going to eat their own. 

Question: So you think the SEC and Big Ten do not exist separately at some point? Is that what you’re saying? 

Pollard: I’m saying from an evolution standpoint, if you asked me two years ago is the Pac-12 going to be existent in 2025, I think all of us would have said yes. You don’t have to look back very far to see what’s happened, and you can see what’s happening. It’s reasonable to project into the future and say why wouldn’t you think that will just continue? That those with the gold will make the rules. 

 Travis Hines covers Iowa State University sports for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or  (515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.

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