Over the past couple weeks, there has been great talk about a reshuffling among the major collegiate conferences in sports, mainly within the Big 10 (Michigan, Ohio State, Illinois, etc), Big 12 (Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Kansas, etc), and Pac-10 (Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, etc). What’s going on and what does it mean for the future of college sports?
All of this is happening because of three related issues: a football conference championship, television contracts, and unequal revenue sharing. It’s a domino effect that ultimately comes down to money.
Realignment because of football? Really? Yes. Football. While basketball and baseball are popular collegiate sports, nothing compares to the cash cow that is football. In the 2008-09 school year, athletic departments from the ACC, Pac-10, Big 12, Big 10 and SEC brought in a combined $3.9 billion. The football departments of these schools alone brought in $1.9 billion. Nearly half the revenue schools bring in comes from football alone. So yes football is king.
Let’s go through this domino effect of events.
1) The Big 10 wants a football conference championship
The NCAA says that a conference needs 12 teams to hold a conference championship. A conference would have two divisions of 6+ teams, and the winner of each division would play in a final championship game.
What’s so great about the conference championship? More money. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) brings in another $15 million for having one extra game.
Three out of the 6 major conferences host a conference championship game: the SEC, ACC, and Big 12. The ACC was previously a 9 team conference until 2004, when they poached Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College from the Big East to get to a 12 team conference.
The Big-10 needs one more team to reach 12, and they have famously gone after Notre Dame many times. However, Notre Dame still wants to stay as an Independent. Now, they’ve decided to go after Nebraska and Missouri, two very strong football programs, who are also very geographically close to the rest of the Big 10 teams.
2) Why would Nebraska or Missouri even want to leave the Big 12 for the Big 10?
Again. money. Nebraska and Missouri would get more money in the Big 10 than in the Big 12.
Why? The Big 10 has equal revenue sharing, while the Big 12 gives more money to the teams that bring in the most. In 2007, Texas and Oklahoma made $10 million each, while Missouri and Nebraska got $9 million. Every team in the Big 10 received over $22 million.
Also, the Big 10 famously has their own tv network/contract that generated $204 million in revenue last year that is split between all 11 teams. Neither the Big 12 or Pac 10 has their own tv network/contract.
3) If Missouri or Nebraska leaves, Texas, Oklahoma, and the rest of the Big 12 will leave
If Missouri or Nebraska leaves, the Big 12 will be down to either 10 or 11 teams, which means the league will not have a conference championship.
Therefore, teams like Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech will be stranded and left out to dry. They have to either
a) Try to convince Nebraska and Missouri to stay
b) Bring in teams to replace them
c) Find another conference
4) The Pac-10 wants exactly what the Big 12 wants/has: conference tournament and a tv network/contract
Like the Big 12, the Pac-10 wants a conference tournament. They currently have 10 teams and need two extra teams to reach 12. For the past year, there has been a lot of speculation about what the Pac-10 would do. One likely possibility was to target Utah and BYU (Pac-10 wants schools in geographic pairs: Stanford/Cal, USC/UCLA, and Arizona, Washington, and Oregon (university of and state).
However, the reason why the Pac-10 wants a conference tournament is to bring in more revenue and to use it as an attractive centerpiece in their desire to get a lucrative tv contract. A lot of people dismissed the Utah/BYU possibility because they didnt believe the Salt Lake City, Utah area was a large enough marketplace and that BYU/Utah weren’t attractive enough to get a lucrative contract.
Couple the Pac-10’s desire to expand with the uncertainty going on in the Big 12, and you got yourself a potentially explosive situation.
The Pac-10 knows that its highly likely that either Nebraska or Missouri will bolt for the Big 10, and they know that Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and either Baylor or Colorado or ripe for pickings. The Pac-10 presidents have told the Pac-10 commissioner, Larry Scott, that he can do whatever he wants for expansion, and rumors have it that he will soon send out invitations to all of these schools to create a Pac-16 mega-conference.
5) More domino effects…
a) What happens to the BCS? What will happens to the automatic bids? Who will get bids?
b) What happens to Kansas and Kansas State? They will be the only two teams left from the Big 12, and I can see them being taken in by the Big East…which will make the Big East the ultimate basketball power conference. Kansas, UConn, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Georgetown, Lousiville, Syracuse. Best basketball conference ever.
6) What do I think will happen?
The outcome of this is really hard to predict, because it seems that the Big-10 and Pac-10 are being very serious and aggressive in their pursuit of teams.
Honestly, I really cant see all 6 teams leaving the Big-12 and heading to the Pac-10 to form a megaconference. I think this is way too big of a move to be done in a short amount of time, and I believe the ramifications of this move are just too big to fathom. I just dont believe that this will be feasible.
We’ll find out soon what happens. It all depends on what Nebraska or Missouri want to do. If they stay, we keep our status quo. Else, we’re going to get a shakeup in college athletics.
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