Via Broc Romanek's blog at TheCorporateCounsel.net, I see that no less an authority than The New York Times Magazine has undertaken a rigorous comparison between the S.E.C. (college sports conference) and the S.E.C. (federal agency). Here is the Magazine's analysis, which declares the sports conference the winner:

Frankly, I believe that the categories selected above were slanted in favor of the sports conference. Let's try this again with some other categories and see how this plays out:

Winner: Federal agency