Conference Realignment

Published Jun. 23, 2010 6:00 p.m. ET

foxsports

The Pac-16? Wait, are there now two Big-10s with the departure of Colorado and Nebraska from the Big 12? Actually the Big-10 is now the Big-12 with Nebraska joining right? Conference realignment can be confusing to fans of college sports, and there are some teams that benefit and others that don’t from the process. Nevertheless, the negatives of this realignment greatly outweigh the positives and takes away from the spirit of college athletics.
College sports is supposed to be about student athletes enjoying a college experience while also participating in athletics and allowing fans and alumni alike to connect with the athletes against other schools. Instead, it has turned into a business, using the athletes as means to making a greater profit. When one looks at the respective sports revenues of universities across the nation, it becomes obvious why Texas had the most leverage in whether the Big-12 would remain a conference or whether the Pac-10 would acquire Texas as well as 6 other teams.
Typically, men’s football programs are the largest source of revenue for these universities. For instance, in the 2007-2008 season, Texas earned the most revenue of any football program at $72.95 million.

They were also the top earner for sports programs overall with $120.28 million, meaning that men’s football generated about 60% of total revenue. Seven of the top ten teams in total revenue were also in the top ten for football revenue.

The Pac-10 was pushing hard for Texas because it knew that it would help the conference immensely from a money-making standpoint, and that the addition of the Longhorns would bring in several other Big-12 teams to ultimately make it a super conference on par with a conference like the Big East. Texas decided to stay in the Big-12 and now stands to earn between $20 million and $25 million annually in television revenue in the reworked deal, including money from its own television network (an estimated $3-5 million), according to Orangebloods.com.

This, not the tradition of being in the Big-12 or the compelling Red River rivalry with Oklahoma, is the reason they elected to stay in the conference, which recently lost Colorado to the Pac-10 and Nebraska to the Big-10. Continuing to (potentially) lose rivalries like this due to conference realignment now and in the future is a shame for fans of college sports, not only in football but other sports as well.

Completely ignored within the discussion of realignment within conferences in college sports has been that of the men’s basketball teams at these respective universities. Men’s basketball is the second most profitable sport for most schools. Had the Big 12 dissolved, as rumored several times, something that went almost ignored was what conference Kansas, a basketball power, would join.

One source had the Jayhawks joining the Mountain West, which would have been fine for their football team from a competitive standpoint, but would put their basketball team in a much weaker conference than they normally endure in the Big 12. This would be detrimental to the basketball program, and it is possible other schools would endure similar setbacks in future potential realignment. In the grand scheme of things, the only thing that matters with the sports programs at these respective schools is how much revenue they generate and football is dominant in that regard.

On the other hand, not every school is a negative representation of conference realignment. For example, the University of Utah was recently added to the Pac-10, a huge step for the competitiveness of their athletics program, and especially for their football team. In both 2004 and 2008, Utah finished the year undefeated but was never really considered a national title contender due to being in the Mountain West Conference.

Now, by being in the Pac-10, they will be considered a BCS program and won’t have to worry about that happening again. The Utes are also a solid basketball program and figure to be competitive in the conference. However, the Mountain West Conference is one that appeared to be strengthened to a BCS type conference when Boise State left the WAC to join, but now it is back at ground zero with the departure of Utah.

College sports rivalries and traditions in all sports should not be compromised for the sake of making more money, but this is the world we live in today. The creation of super conferences (such as the SEC or what the Pac-10 would have become) would be beneficial to college football in moving towards a playoff system, but it would also throw off a system that works superbly in college basketball that leads to the most compelling tournament in all of sports in March Madness.

. All in all, conference realignment is a symbol of corporate greed and takes away the spirit of college sports, which is supposed to be about fierce competition between student athletes and their respective universities. The rivalries that the traditional conferences produce are worth much more than any television deal.