Big 12, college corporatism are speeding up clock on NCAA's demise

If a deal is reached, it would provide the Big 12 with a massive additional stream of revenue on top of access to top-tier investment services, something the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences lack.

On top of that, the Big 12 is also in talks to sell naming rights for which a corporate sponsor would rebrand the conference. It's a commercial venture the smaller Group of Five conferences are also considering. Thamel also provided details about that on "The Pat McAfee Show."

In last year's chaotic media rights negotiations, the Big 12 locked up its own contract with ESPN and Fox before the Pac-12 could even organize. That resulted in the cannibalizing of Pac-12 teams by the Big 12, ACC and Big Ten and underscored that when one conference takes a step forward, the rest sprint to catch up.

Introducing private equity into college sports may secure Big 12 members' immediate future — and stave off additional poachings by the SEC and Big Ten for now — but they've only prolonged the inevitable consolidation into two major conferences.

Thamel also emphasized that point further on "The Pat McAfee Show."

The Big 12 has triggered a slow-moving avalanche that will eventually result in major athletic conferences seceding from the NCAA as they become more financially independent.

They'll also have the capabilities to create their own private governing body — a super league of sorts — in which the College Football Playoff or some form of it can be integrated. The already corporate-sponsored bowl games will follow suit, and the NCAA will become obsolete.

Once they're fully self-sustaining commercial entities, it's not farfetched to think the next hypothetical development in this corporate-led saga could be the SEC and Big Ten reaching deals with sportsbooks in which oddsmakers provide their technical assets and the conferences slap their names on the platform, akin to ESPN Bets and PENN Entertainment.

College sports are quickly evolving, but this out-of-control money train is leaving the game — and it really is just a game — farther in the rearview mirror.