Cause for concern?

ORLANDO — Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney would like to believe that the Southeastern Conference's new television contracts with ESPN and CBS — worth a combined $3 billion during the next 15 years — won't make for a competitive disadvantage in college sports.

"The players play the game," Swinney said recently during the Atlantic Coast Conference's annual spring meetings at Amelia Island, Fla.

Yet the more he attempted to downplay the significance of the SEC's TV deal, the most lucrative in history for a college athletics conference, the more Swinney realized that maybe there was something to fear. Clemson's primary rival is South Carolina, an SEC school.

The power struggle between the Gamecocks and the Tigers was difficult enough before the SEC's monumental agreement with ESPN, which alone will pay the league approximately $2.2 billion during the next 15 years. And now, Swinney thinks, maybe it's about to become more challenging than ever before to compete against an in-state rival that will now annually earn millions in extra revenue.

"I guess money's money," Swinney said. "And money drives facilities and facilities can affect recruiting and things like that, and can affect expansion of stadiums and ticket sales. All those things. So I guess there could be an argument for that.

"But I don't know how measurable it is."

Here's a start: Each of the SEC's 12 schools received approximately $5.3 million from TV revenue during the 2007-08 academic year. When the conference's new contracts go into effect for the upcoming fall sports season, each school could eventually receive approximately $15 million in TV revenue.

For the sake of comparison, according to the SportsBusiness Journal, the ACC's TV contracts with ABC, ESPN, Fox Sports Net and Raycom Sports will have paid the league approximately $560 million over 10 years when they expire at the end of 2011 sports season. The Big East is in the midst of a six-year, $200 million deal with ESPN.

The only league that comes remotely close to matching the SEC's deal is the Big Ten, which is in a 10-year, $1 billion agreement with ESPN and a 25-year, $2.8 billion deal with the Big Ten Network.

Across the country, college athletic programs and conferences are attempting to cut expenses amid the economic crisis. Swinney and his fellow coaches at Clemson recently were forced to go on a furlough. Florida State will likely be forced to cut approximately 7 percent to 10 percent of its athletic department budget, which was projected to be more than $50 million this fiscal year.

FSU has also been forced to put on hold its plan to build an indoor practice facility for football and other sports — a structure will likely cost more than $20 million, according to a construction company estimation.

In the SEC the financial straits might be less dire. The long-term effects of the SEC's TV deal aren't likely to be known for years and the short-term effects might not be understood until schools set their athletic department budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. But that didn't stop the University of Georgia from recently approving a $40 million plan to renovate and expand its football and athletic department facilities.

Despite the expected economic windfall from its new TV contracts, SEC commissioner Mike Slive recently said that his conference is not recession proof.

"There's no safe harbor," Slive said. "Everybody standing in this circle has felt the impact of the economy. Our institutions felt the impact of recession based on legislative funding. Athletic folks are very sensitive to that. On the positive side, we do have resources in next 15 years that are significant.

"Some of those will help (the) academic side, a lot of it will go to support 5,000 student-athletes, men and women, (and) many sports that don't generate revenue."

It's in the one sport that does generate the most revenue for athletic departments across the country — football — where the SEC's TV deals might have their greatest impact. Every one of the league's games during the next 15 years, all conference games and all non-conference home games, will be televised either on CBS or by one of the ESPN networks.

Further, because of their increased athletic department budgets, SEC schools might be able to lure up-and-coming coaches from other conferences.

Tennessee is one SEC school that in recent months has found no shortage of money to pay its new assistant football coaches. Volunteers defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, father of new Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin, will earn $1.2 million per season. Ed Orgeron will receive $650,000 — for coaching the defensive line and serving as a recruiting coordinator.

The most recent data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education shows that SEC schools weren't hurting for money even before the TV contracts. Of the top 15 revenue-producing athletic departments in the nation during 2007, six were SEC schools, according to the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis database. The Big Ten and Big 12 each had four schools in the top 15, and Notre Dame was the other.

No ACC school was represented in the top 15 and only Duke was in the top 25. Connecticut and West Virginia were the only Big East schools in the top 40 of revenue-producing schools, and they ranked No. 39 and No. 40, respectively.

Not surprisingly, the higher revenues have led to higher coaching salaries. Half of the SEC's head football coaches will earn at least $2.5 million during the next year, according to a database recently compiled by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The highest paid coach in the ACC, meanwhile, is FSU's Bobby Bowden, who will earn a little less than $2.5 million.

But like Clemson's Swinney, most of those willing to speculate about the affect of the SEC's TV deal attempted to downplay it.

Both Britton Banowsky, the commissioner of Conference USA, and Nick Carperelli, the associate commissioner for football for the Big East Conference, argued that the SEC's new TV deal is a good thing for college sports. Neither said they expected their conferences to be adversely affected.

"They've clearly set the bar at this point," Carperelli said of the SEC. "I think it probably bodes well for all the conferences that have TV contracts that are about to enter negotiations. Every TV contract gets bigger and bigger . . . I would think that the conferences who are up next for renegotiation are excited about the possibility to get a bump themselves."

If the conference suits aren't worried, there are certainly some who are. Count N.C. State's Tom O'Brien among them.

"It's an advantage right now," O'Brien said of the SEC's TV contracts, "because it gives them the ability to have more resources . . . I think it's certainly something (ACC commissioner John Swofford) is concerned about."

If Swofford is concerned, he didn't show it recently at the ACC's annual spring meetings. Asked how much the SEC's television contracts could change the landscape of college athletics, Swofford said it was common for the conference that most recently negotiated its TV contracts to be in the best financial position.

He pointed to the Big Ten Conference's decision to launch the Big Ten Network, which will pay the league an estimated $2.8 billion over the duration of the 25-year agreement, according to the SportsBusiness Journal. Swofford said the SEC's contracts are simply the latest in a trend of more and more lucrative agreements between broadcasting partners and college athletics conferences.

"It's created a situation," he said, "where all of us step back and look at the distribution opportunities and the modeling and you take a look at whether what we're doing now — it's worked very, very well for us, for a number of years, and currently works very well for us in a lot of ways.

"But does it work in the future?"

The SEC's contracts won't just help the league's football teams. There will now be more SEC basketball games on TV than ever before, and all of the league's championship games — with the exception of football — will be broadcast on one ESPN outlet or another.

How the contract affects the balance of power in college football is the question that won't be definitively answered for a while. But it's clear that as other athletic departments around the country shrink amid the economic crisis, those in the SEC will be made healthier thanks to the TV money.

Bowden, who has seen a thing or two in a career that has spanned more than a half century, said the SEC's TV contract is the latest sign that the sport is beholden to the power of the networks.

"You can see why when they tell you when to play, that's when you play, don't you?" Bowden asked.