On Jan. 18, 1919, leaders from the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan gathered in Paris held the first of a series of meetings to organize and divide the world following World War I. The results of what would later become the Paris Peace Conference changed the world forever, in ways good and catastrophic.
Next week ADs from the Big Ten and SEC, having effectively conquered the Big 12 and the Pac-12, will gather in Nashville to decide how they can organize college football's future to best benefit their 34 respective universities.
With the College Football Playoff contract set to expire after the 2025-26 season, ESPN reported Monday that a centerpiece of the meeting will be the leagues' joint push to form a new CFP contract that would call for 14 bids, with four apiece reserved for both the Big Ten and the SEC -- eight in total.
ESPN has already purchased the rights to televise an event that, technically, does not exist yet. The network will pay $1.3 billion per season over a 6-year contract to televise the CFP from the 2026-27 through 2031-32 seasons. Crucially, the $1.3 billion is set whether the CFP remains a 12-team event or grows to 14, meaning the CFP could play two extra games for zero additional TV revenue.
If the Super Two get their way, a 14-team Playoff would break down as follows: four bids for the B1G, four bids for the SEC, and the remaining six divided among the ACC, the Big 12, the Group of 5, Notre Dame (if it qualifies), as well as potential at-large bids for the fifth and sixth place teams for the B1G and SEC.
While it's not spelled out in the piece, a 14-team bracket would presumably reserve the top two seeds -- and, thus, the only first-round byes -- to the champions of the Big Ten and SEC.
"I'm for anything that gives us the maximum number of postseason opportunities," one SEC source told ESPN. "I don't count bowl games as postseason opportunities."
Another item on the agenda is a possible scheduling alliance. This item, no doubt profitable for their respective television partners, likely hinges on oldest, most tired argument in college football: the SEC's scheduling policy. The Big Ten, the piece states, isn't interested in a formal scheduling agreement between the leagues unless the SEC moves to nine conference games, and the SEC... well, we don't need to get into that here.
Even if the SEC moves from eight to nine games, a formal scheduling agreement still feels unlikely. Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and South Carolina already play annual de facto conference games against their respective in-state ACC rivals, so moving to 11 annual Power 4 opponents (nine SEC games + in-state rival + pre-arranged Big Ten opponent) feels unlikely.
The 2025 campaign already promises an informal scheduling alliance between the two conferences: Texas at Ohio State on Aug. 30, Michigan at Oklahoma on Sept. 6, and Wisconsin at Alabama on Sept. 13.
The Big Ten previously tried a scheduling alliance with the Pac-12, announced in 2011 to begin in 2017, but killed in 2012. Of course, the two conferences and the ACC formed "The Alliance" in the summer of 2021 following the SEC's acquisition of Texas and Oklahoma, a move that ultimately led to the Big Ten's homicide of the Pac-12 As We Knew It.
So maybe the SEC should think twice about getting into bed with the Big Ten.
The Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I ultimately set the stage for World War II. Here's hoping the Nashville Peace Conference leads to a better result for all.
Then again, if the rest of college football goes to war with the Super 2, do the 100 other FBS schools have enough collective power to stand against them?
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.