Rece Davis details how changes in college football will impact other sports

Between conference realignment, NIL legislation and revenue sharing, college football is going through a metamorphosis. During an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” earlier this week, ESPN’s Rece Davis addressed if and how these changes will affect other college sports.

“It’s going to affect it some,” Davis said. “Where you’re ultimately going to see it affect things is I think you’ll see sort of a reconfiguration of some of the non-revenue sports, in terms of who they play against. Then, each school or each conference will have to decide how to divide the money or how to let schools participate in other sports in affiliation with other conferences.

“It just doesn’t make much sense for USC, for instance, in baseball to come play a Big Ten schedule when they probably have better competition by playing Fullerton and Irvine and Pepperdine, all right there in their backyard; not to mention, UCLA and Cal and Stanford and the Arizona schools.”

Conferences have already seen massive changes this past season. The Pac-12 dissipated, leaving only Washington State and Oregon State. The others schools joined either the Big 12 or Big Ten, hopeful to remain financially relevant in the changing NCAA landscape.

However, Davis believes those changes may not necessarily have the same indications they had in the past. While USC baseball will be listed as a Big Ten program next season, it may not be in the program’s best interest to follow the typical conference schedule.

Then again, will they have a choice? Davis seems to believes there will be more leniency for sports that aren’t traditionally high revenue earners. However, Davis has faith basketball will see far less changes than sports such as baseball or soccer.

“You might see some reconfiguration in the traditional non-revenue sports,” Davis said. “Basketball is still going to be a big-time entity largely because of the money that the NCAA Tournament generates through its media contract with CBS Entertainment.”

According to the “Washington Post,” the NCAA Tournament rakes in over $700 million in revenue every year. Other outlets report figures upwards of a billion dollars. The NCAA “urges,” but does not enforce conferences to share this money equally among their member schools.

This massive influx of money in March allows schools to have a bigger budget during the season. Unfortunately, not all sports enjoy such a luxury. If Rece Davis is correct, it seems most likely each sport will have its own set of financial guidelines that best fit. Only time will tell.