After years and decades of running the college football monopoly, the SEC and the Big Ten have finally been hit with an uppercut for the first time in a long while. And Texas Tech billionaire booster Cody Campbell is all for it. The West Texas oil tycoon is basically on a mission to stop college sports from turning into a two-team show by pushing for pooled media rights revenue.

Right now, the SEC and the Big Ten are the ‘superpowers’ because their TV deals are so massive that everyone else is getting left in the dust financially. Campbell’s big idea, through his nonprofit Saving College Sports (SCS), is to stop every conference from doing its own thing and instead shove all 136 FBS schools into one giant ‘media rights pool’. The TTU booster now has a reason to big reason to celebrate.

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WS) and Senator Eric Schmitt have tabled an amendment for the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. Campell’s demand is the crux of this amendment. Right now, that old law actually stops college conferences from pooling their rights because it’s seen as a monopoly (antitrust) issue. This new bill would give them a legal ‘hall pass’ to team up and bargain together.

By selling the rights to all college football and basketball games as one massive bundle, (kind of like how the NFL does it with its 32 teams) Campbell thinks they can squeeze an extra $6 billion to $7 billion a year out of TV networks and streamers like Apple or Amazon. The reason this is so contested is that a lot of schools badly need those funds.

Between paying athletes through NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) and the rising costs of travel, schools are starting to cut ‘non-revenue’ sports like track, swimming, and wrestling just to keep the lights on. This amendment would “unlock collective media deals to potentially generate billions in new revenue for college sports,” the Commerce, Science and Trade Committee – of which Cantwell and Schmitt are a part – said in a statement.

Of course, the SEC and Big Ten are absolutely hating on this plan. They just dropped a “white paper” (a fancy term for a report) calling the whole pooling idea “dangerously unworkable”. The two leagues argue that if you lump everyone together, it waters down their elite brands and might actually lose money in the long run. They also claim it’s a legal nightmare that would ruin the unique “soul” of college rivalries. After all, the SEC and the Big 10 spent decades becoming the top dogs. And they aren’t exactly stoked about sharing their lunch money with others.

To top it all off, Cody Campbell has the ear of the White House. He just met with Donald Trump at a college sports summit on 6th of March. Trump apparently told the room that the “whole educational system” could go out of business if they don’t fix this mess. And he’s planning to sign an executive order to speed things up. Campbell even asked to be part of the small group that actually writes that order.

So, while the big conferences are fighting to keep things the way they are, looks like the football forces are siding with Campbell’s ‘one big pool’ plan to keep the rest of college sports alive. The real question is, what happens if the bill gets passed?

The possibilities of events if things go according to Cody Campbell’s plan

Firstly, you’d probably see the end of those confusing Saturday mornings where you need different streaming apps just to find your team’s game. With the amendment, everything from the biggest SEC rivalry to a small-conference Tuesday night game would be under one roof. This could actually make it way easier (and maybe cheaper) for fans to actually watch.

Then, the money side would get a major “Robin Hood” makeover. This bill would essentially tear down the walls and redistribute the wealth. Smaller schools that are currently on the verge of bankruptcy would get a massive survival check from that extra $7 billion in pooled revenue. This means your local university wouldn’t have to axe the swim team or the golf program just because the football team had a bad year. It goes opposite to the saying “every man for himself” to a “we’re all in this together” business model.

Finally, the athletes themselves would finally step into the “pro” world for real. This legislation would likely clear the path for schools to stop dancing around the rules and just pay the players a direct cut of the TV profits.