These are high times in the SEC.
There are new revenue streams, highlighted by the SEC Network and its 10-figure potential. There are reasons to be looking for the next big thing and wondering if your team is looking to build a new super-duper scoreboard with a quadrophonic Blaupunkt or a high-falutin', super-secret indoor practice facility with a five-star restaurant, two barber shops, three coaches offices, four team-specific meeting rooms and five golden rings.
There has never been a better time for one conference in the history of college sports.
And the success goes beyond the bottom line. The seven-year dominance of football supremacy ended, but the current Nos. 1 in men's and women's hoops are from the league, and the rest of the sports continue to progress. Heck, Auburn and Alabama competed in gymnastics last weekend in front of a sold-out crowd.
(And if you want to know the fundamental definition of the most spirited rivalry in sports, well, if you are selling out gymnastic meets, that's a great place to start.)
The future, too, appears to be ever bright, especially in football, where the league placed 12 of its 14 teams among the top 25 recruiting hauls in the country. Yes, it appears that the reports of the league's demise because Ohio State completed two perfect throws in the Sugar Bowl seem to be a touch overstated.
Heck, the league continues to surge toward unforeseen high-water marks that seem staggering on the surface and downright fictional a generation ago.
Take the news over the weekend that Arkansas gave head coach Bret Bielema a monster extension and raise. Bielema's contract now runs through 2020 and he'll make an average $4.25 million per year. Now remember that Bielema is all of 10-15 in his two years in the SEC, so sweet buckets of cash spigots, if dude actually won 10 games in a season, are they going to give him his own Wal-Mart?
It's an arms race that certainly is not sustainable over the long haul. Sure, the SEC and its network and various TV deals are printing money right now, and that's great. In truth, athletic programs across the SEC other than Kentucky and Vanderbilt can't afford to be irrelevant in football. You have to spend to win, and without success and interest and fan connection, the entire athletic model across the SEC struggles.
But too many Bielema contracts -- or take the failed Will Muschamp experiment in Florida and how the Gators will pay Muschamp more not to coach in Gainesville than Auburn will pay Muschamp to coordinate its defense -- and the bottom to this endless pit becomes eerily close.
Too many Bielema contracts punch the accelerator toward that glass ceiling at an alarming rate, not unlike Charlie and Willy Wonka in that creepy elevator. Hey, maybe they can get one of those in the next SEC indoor practice facility? Or maybe not.
The economic reality hit close to home last month when UTC was forced to fold men's indoor and outdoor track because of Title IX participation compliance and the lack of funds to start and sustain a new female sport.
And know this -- UTC will not be alone among the comparable have-nots across the college sports landscape. This will happen again, sooner rather than later. And while we hurt for those affected, we know that signing petitions rather than checks means little when you're dealing with a sum zero game. The score is stacked against UTC in this endeavor, and barring an Appalachian State over Michigan-type upset, that is not going to change, no matter how many rallies and support meetings are organized.
But could it happen at the next level? Could the big boys be looking around and wonder how they got to a point where the model is infected to the point that amputation is the only cure?
Certainly it can, but those images seem impossible right now, when a 10-15 record earns high-fives and higher raises.
Still, it's a staggering and sobering fact that Alabama can't afford not to pay Nick Saban more than $7 million and Arkanas is falling all over itself to make its coach among the top-20 highest paid in the profession.
More directly, the average salary per year of Saban and Bielema is comparable to the entirity of UTC's athletic budget.
So enjoy the good times, SEC, but know this: You may want to think about squirreling away an extra million or 10 for the bleak reality that you are one bad football season to being way off track.
Or even, goodness forbid, potentially killing off track.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com.