I would like anyone who still believes that college sports is this great and noble celebration of student-athletes competing in amateur competition to stand up and introduce themselves so that I can have them submitted for a CAT scan. Clearly, anyone who believes that may be missing a brain.
Certain power schools believe they are bigger than the NCAA and bigger than the games of college football and college basketball. You know who they are: Texas, Nebraska, Notre Dame, USC, Florida, just to name a few. The impending earthquake that is about to realign all the conferences in college football started with Texas, which was being wooed by the Pac-10 (a conference eager to expand and to implement a conference championship game to appease the gods of TV) and by Texas' unwillingness to give up any additional revenue or support a reapportionment of revenue within their current conference, the Big 12.
As briefly as possible, once Texas began to explore it's options and exercise it's leverage, other conferences began to consider ways to bolster their coffers and make themselves more appealing to the networks of college football. If Texas could go to the Pac-10, that would make the Big 12 a lot less appealing. The Big 10--the ultimate misnomer, since there are already 11 schools in that conference--has long coveted further expansion into the East Coast and Midwest and it's own conference championship game. Texas wouldn't make any sense...but what about Nebraska? Missouri? Rutgers? Notre Dame? It wasn't long before the rumblings grew louder and the dominoes started to fall.
Within a month we could see the number of conferences reduced to about nine or ten with three or four "megaconferences" dominating the landscape: a "Pac-16" or a "Great Midwest Conference" with as many as 16 or 18 teams; even mid-majors like the Mountain West and the Western Athletic could be forced into a significant realignment. And for what? More money for academic scholarships? Student housing? Capital improvements? Sure...some of it maybe. But most of it will be fed right back into the athletic programs of the schools in these new conferences. Bigger training centers. Nicer locker rooms. Cool uniforms. Education is our mission, right?
Sometimes a change will do you good. Sometimes change is done just for change sake. But all too often, change happens because rich and powerful men get greedy. There's not an unlimited amount of pie available and everybody raises their knives to cut themselves a bigger piece. Pity the stragglers to the table who can't grab their forks in time--or get invited to the table.
Finally, a lot of people love college football and basketball for the impassioned rivalries between long time adversarial schools. But athletic directors and regent boards don't care about the fans all that much more than they care about the students. No more Nebraska-Colorado? No big deal! Embrace the new rivalry between Wisconsin and Nebraska. Who needs Texas-Texas A & M when you can get Texas-Washington State every year? Uh huh...
I know even complaining about this makes me sound old, but I have to wonder if college sports will just one day wind up eating itself in it's own greed. Will the fans continue to watch just because it's on? Or will they miss the tradition, the rivalries, the recognizable stakes and bowl tie-ins and revolt? It will certainly be interesting to see.
One thing on a local note: if Colorado bolts the Big 12, and at this point they probably should, I hope they get into the Mountain West as opposed to the Pac-Whatever. It would be nice for them to have to play Colorado State and Air Force every year and both the Mountain West and Colorado will be better off with each other than without each other. Add Boise State to the mix and the Mountain West becomes a BCS conference almost automatically. No harm, no foul and less travel. But this being sports, that probably makes too much sense.
Peace...and less oil.
1 comment:
So now that Texas has decided to stay put, Nebraska bolts next year to the Big 11 (or are they the new Big 12?) and Colorado to the Pac-10 in 2012, what are your thoughts? It doesn't sound like there will be too much more movement for a while and college sports are saved!!
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