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January 4, 2025
Oakland, California – Court records from the Northern District Court of California released on Friday indicate that the Big Ten Conference (also referred to as the B1G) is bringing a false and deceptive advertising lawsuit against the Southeastern Conference (also known as the SEC) over its use of the conference tagline “It just means more.”
“We consider the outcome of this college football postseason to be conclusive: it just doesn’t mean more,” said Anil Gollahalli, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel for the Big Ten Conference via Slack Huddle late on Thursday night.
“The amount of handwringing and ballyhooing about Alabama and South Carolina being left out of the playoff only to see those teams defeated on national television by ‘inferior’ B1G opponents is, frankly, shameful,” the lawyer said.
“Now Georgia has been exposed by Big Ten-adjacent Notre Dame, and all that’s left for the conference is Texas, who not everyone even agrees is an SEC team. And don’t even get me started on what Ohio State did to Tennessee,” Gollahalli went on.
“Isn’t this a victimless crime?” CFB News Now asked. Gollahalli doesn’t think so.
“Players, coaches, and spectators have had this idea hammered into them year, after year, after year,” the B1G lawyer said. “We believe the effect of that constant and deceptive piece of communication is significant and quantifiable, and we aim to use the court system to have it addressed,” Gollahalli said.
So what does victory look like for the B1G in this legal tussle? Gollahalli has a couple of ideas.
“First, we’d like a handwritten apology from the SEC, that’s the first order of business. Beyond that, we want the conference to adopt a modified tagline, something more fitting and accurate, like ‘It just means more (in basketball),’ or ‘It means exactly as much as any other conference, or perhaps even less now that Saban has retired.’ Something simple, catchy, but also factually accurate,” Gollahalli conclude.
