Sun Belt Conference Boss Sees Revenue Sharing as Potential Opt-Out Solution

The House vs. NCAA settlement hasn’t been approved yet, but one commissioner hopes it can solve a postseason football problem.

Keith Gill, the commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference, announces Pensacola will host the conference's Men's and Women's Basketball Championships staring in 2021 during a press conference on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. / Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com via Imagn Content Services, LLC

The Marshall Thundering Herd’s decision to skip the Independence Bowl last December didn’t just impact the football team.

It impacted the Sun Belt Conference, too.

The Thundering Herd, which are members of the SBC, opted out of the bowl game after their head coach, Charles Huff, took a job at Southern Miss right after the regular season ended. With that, his Marshall players got a 30-day window to opt into the transfer portal and many did. In fact, many of them followed Huff to the Golden Eagles.

Marshall didn’t have enough players for the game, so it opted out of the invitation. Louisiana Tech replaced the Thundering Herd. The decision cost Marshall a $100,000 fine from the SBC. But it cost the SBC $1 million in bowl payout money. That money is distributed to the league’s members and is part of the spoils of making a bowl game.

Keith Gill is the Sun Belt commissioner and, like his other colleagues, he’s preparing for the House vs. NCAA case to be settled. It’s not at the finish line yet, but it’s close. Once it’s approved, then schools will be able to share revenue with student-athletes, perhaps as high as $20.5 million for the 2025-26 academic year.

Gill manages a Group of 5 conference and has only two guaranteed bowl games, along with some back-ups. So, missing out on the Independence Bowl and its payout hurt the entire league. Per the Daily News Record, he’s working to line up for guaranteed bowl berths in the coming years.

But he’s also looking for a solution to the problem he encountered last season. He believes the idea of revenue-sharing might reduce the risk of player and, potentially, team opt-outs.

“I think, depending on how those agreements are structured, that is going to probably include some requirements in terms of games that you play or things that you do,” Gill said. “You time out the money in a way that incentivizes certain behavior.”

Gill’s logic appears to be tying the revenue-sharing to ensure that players finish out the season with their respective teams, including the bowl season.

There would be some hiccups to overcome, not the least of which are the transfer portal rules. Not only does a coaching change trigger a 30-day transfer window, but some players don’t even wait for the portal to open before declaring their intention. Any revenue-sharing agreement would require resolving those hurdles.

But it could be a good place to start for those that want more competitive bowl games — and commissioners that want to ensure their conferences get their payouts.  

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