{"id":678763,"date":"2026-06-01T23:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/678763\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T23:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:45:09","slug":"mac-commissioner-jon-steinbrecher-torches-power-four-warns-karmas-a-bh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/678763\/","title":{"rendered":"MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher torches Power Four, warns \u2018karma’s a b***h\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

College athletics has been in a transformative period for the past several years as the advent of NIL and the introduction of the transfer portal<\/a> has changed the landscape. In college football, and for the Power Four in particular, the changes have often felt drastic.<\/p>\n

Talks remain ongoing about potentially extending the College Football Playoff<\/a>, which was a four-team affair for about a decade, past the 12-team format it has had for the past two years. And often the powers driving such change seem rather monolithic.<\/p>\n

[ $19.99 gets you a FULL year of On3 | Rivals national coverage ]<\/a><\/p>\n

At least, that seems to be the feeling of MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher. He offered a scathing criticism of the Power Four in an address about the state of his conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been observing the continuing evolution of the intercollegiate athletics landscape over the past few years. In particular, the persistent and consistent power grab by the autonomy conferences,\u201d Steinbrecher said. \u201cI am tired of listening to the complaints of the autonomy conferences who believe they know the best way to run the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many have criticized the power conferences of looking out for only their own interests. The good of the sport as a whole may well encompass other leagues, like the MAC.<\/p>\n

To that end, Steinbrecher was blunt. He doesn\u2019t necessarily know the right answer, but he fears the potential outcomes if momentum for the Power Four continues unchecked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure if the right response to all of this is \u2018be careful for what you ask for because you may get it\u2019 or, B, \u2018karma\u2019s a b***h\u2019 because we\u2019re now living with what happens when the autonomy conferences make the rules,\u201d Steinbrecher said.<\/p>\n

The SEC\u2019s 16 presidents and chancellors pushed back on the idea of pooling of media rights<\/a> included in the Senate\u2019s bipartisan \u201cProtect College Sports Act\u201d<\/a> in a joint statement. The \u201cProtect College Sports Act\u201d establishes the opportunity for FBS conferences to collectively pool their media rights if 75% of the 138 FBS schools agree to do so.<\/p>\n

As one of the most prominent Power Four conferences, the statement is likely to put significant pressure on the bill. The statement read:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Southeastern Conference recognizes and appreciated the many ongoing discussions regarding potential system-wide improvements to ensure the future success of college athletics,\u201d the SEC statement began<\/a>. \u201cThe SEC has been intentional, through years of thoughtful planning and decision-making, in strategically positioning itself for future media negotiations. The conference must retain the ability to act in the best interests of its membership. A such, the SEC does not support assigning its media rights to a third party and remains firmly committed to independently conducting its media negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n

On3\u2019s Alex Byington also contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"College athletics has been in a transformative period for the past several years as the advent of NIL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-678763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}