SEC is FAR better pound for pound and it’s not really close. The Big Ten has a lot of fat that will eventually need to be trimmed. Viewership aligns pretty closely to stadium size (excluding those with oversized off campus stadiums like Miami, UCLA, Temple, Pitt, UTSA, USF, Memphis, UNLV).
Below is the rank of on campus stadiums with more than 50k seats, BOLD= >75k
By capacity the SEC has 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18, 20, 25, 28, 31, 33 (NR: Vanderbilt)
Big Ten has 1, 2, 3, 13, 15, 19, 21, 22, 23, 35, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50 (off campus: UCLA)(NR: Northwestern)
ACC has 14, 16, 24, 29, 32, 38, 43, 49 (off campus: Miami, Pitt)(NR: Syracuse, BC, Duke, Wake)
ND is 17
B12 has 26, 30, 34, 36, 37, 40, 42, 48, 52, 53, 54 (NR: Baylor, TCU, UCF, UH, Cincy)
PAC4: 27, 51 (NR: OSU, WSU)
If you assume we’re moving to 3 Power conferences, outside of Vandy, every SEC school would be in the top 3rd. FSU/Clemson clearly make the cut and even UVA would make the top 3rd as well. Only UNC at 49 would fall outside the top 3rd.
If you look at realignment through this lens, it seems most likely that the bloated Big Ten would be more likely to split than the SEC which seems far more aligned.