Scrooster, I know it sounds insane, but I can see it being attempted at.

The money cycle is beginning to get imbalanced. TV payouts are going up, up, up; at the same time Disney (ESPN's parent company) is beginning to hemorrhage money everywhere. They're already putting some lesser sports on ESPN+, some of the SEC baseball teams have been on it. That's an additional sub outside of having ESPN and SEC Network, most of us LSU fans listened to the radio for our game.

I'm older and tend to resist change, so I still have cable- but I also have 4 different streaming apps on my firestick. I justify "cable" by saying it's also my internet provider, and I also want to keep ESPN and the SEC Network... but I find it's a waste of money, as I haven't watched a TV show on cable in over a year. Local news, and sporting events are all I really watch on cable. My location doesn't seem to get all the local OTA from the same antenna position (as of a decade ago, the last time I tried)... but I'm guessing it's better now.
Younger people are already dropping cable, and hitting Youtube or Hulu with ESPN for football season, then dropping it outside of that. You can see a number of people saying exactly that on the Tech Board.

When that becomes more common (and the way things go, that will happen within a decade, or 2 at the most), subscriptions will climb in price. They're going to have to, to keep up. Money drives everything.

As for Clemson and Fla State entering the SEC- the SEC is "regional", but it's also national. It's widely understood as the premier college football conference, the top tier. Adding Texas and Oklahoma was adding national brands, that happened to be within the footprint. Adding Clemson and FSU would be the same action; and as I said, I could see the target being 24. Those 2 would bring us to 18, still room for 6 more. That 6 could be TARGETING Virginia, UNC, Duke, NC State, maybe Miami, maybe Ga Tech or Va Tech. Those schools may be more inclined to come to the SEC (not the Big 10) if they maintain their traditional rivalries.

Doing that would set up perfectly for maintaining regional (perfectly aligned geographic) "subconferences", in groups of 8. The overall SEC becomes Top Tier College Football... the "East or Atlantic" group, the "Central" or core SEC teams, and the "West" group.
Basically the modern equivalent of having the SEC, ACC, and SWC conferences, but all under one flag.