Your view is historically accurate, but I contend that the sports viewership landscape is changing rapidly. College football may still be the second most watched sport, but assuming that will always be the case is similar to how many businesses get blindsided by change. Just ask Sears. Besides, staying in second place isn't necessarily mutually exclusive to losing a huge number of viewers.

I used to be as rabid a college football fan as anyone - I lived and breathed it and would typically watch games from noon until midnight most Saturdays in the fall. But I eventually got pushed away, and I am NOT alone, as evidenced by comments here. I think college football is treading into dangerous territory...now is a precarious time to potentially alienate a huge portion of your viewers by creating an upper tier conference that essentially locks out the non-members from having a chance at a championship. Lots of people found other ways to spend their time during the pandemic, and many of them may not "come back" to sports. Coupled with some people being put off by the new NIL rules and the continual creep of politics into everything, and I believe there are a LOT of people that are already walking away from college football. This conference upheaval could be gasoline on an already raging inferno.