I like the way you're thinking and believe it makes a lot of sense. a few musings of mine on this...
one of my first thoughts after reading this was "which NYC area schools will benefit?" "will the ACC and B1G see recruiting upticks from their exposure in that market. "maybe" is where I landed, for two main reasons below:
- The Pac is setup far better with two P5 schools actually in the city LA (essentially if not literally). The nearest P5 school to NYC is Rutgers.
- however, one thing that both the LA and the NYC markets share -- neither has a fan base that GAF about college sports. I think that's going to be a serious impediment for endorsement opportunities w/r/t Austin.
thinking about other large markets for endorsements that actually do GAF about college sports -- the Chicago market first comes to mind (back to the B1G). I don't think NW and UI are not about to become recruiting powerhouses, but given that Notre Dame, UM, MSU and UW have huge alumni bases in Chicago those schools could see significant benefit from this. Through Purdue and Iowa in there as well and the B1G could actually see a really big uptick in recruiting.
DC, Florida are the next largest markets we haven't discussed -- I never considered that the ACC could come out somewhat ahead on this previously, but looking at it from the perspective of "which markets could offer the most revenue potential to recruits" has me thinking a bit differently. The B1G's move to grab Maryland may benefit them here.
so then coming back to the SEC. they have A&M with a presence in Houston, they completely own Atlanta and they have some penetration of fans/alumni in the Miami area. But that's it. All the rest of the top 20 markets are in the West, the Northeast and the Midwest.
I think you're right, this could be a game changer. I also think
@TSchekler has a valid point that things could very well balance out to maintain status quo. The warchests at the SEC schools are so large compared to everyone else right now that they have time to position themselves for change.