In Part I, we laid out what could be a period of revolutionaly, evolutionary change in college football conference expansion, as market forces conspire to finally create what was the vision all along when conference leaders started talking expansion: The establishment of lucrative made-for-TV superconferences. We called it the Great Conference Fishing Expedition of 2010, and we laid out the ground rules.
Then we spelled out in Part II some factors to watch that might indicate just how far this boat ride might advance. We explained in Part III the means by which the Big Fish could be caught that would ultimately tip college sports in this direction. And in Part IV, we showed you potential winners of Radical Conference Realignment, and which entities might need to learn “Farewell and Adieu.”
For radical realignment to occur, of course, the dollars have to work. Expansion has to be financially viable for the conferences and the schools, although they can get very creative in the way they structure entrances and exits and can see a broader picture than simply what appears on paper today.
Now read on and we’ll show you some more reasons this whole idea could be blown to bits. Smile, you son of a …
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Like Chief Brody blowing up the shark, college football conference expansion could be blown up by money and 4 other key factors.
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1. Notre Dame just won’t comply.
As long as Notre Dame remains an independent, it’ll be hard for college football to move to the true superconference model. Not impossible, but difficult. Any of the major conferences would love to land Notre Dame, especially the Big Ten, which has stayed at 11 schools largely to save a spot for the Irish. Yet as long as they remain on the NBC gravy train (and they re-upped through at least 2015) and get to enjoy the benefits of Big East membership (home for other sports and bowl access) while having special BCS access rules, there is not much incentive for the Irish to change anything. Notre Dame’s independent status hasn’t stopped other conferences from making moves in the past and probably won’t in the future. But as long as Notre Dame remains a fruit to be plucked, the odds decrease for the conferences going all-in on radical realignment.
2. The non-BCS just won’t die.
They’ve had to fight for access. Been spent into debt. Had attendance rules thrown at them and had the market for guarantee games flooded by relaxed policies on scheduling I-AAs. And yet the non-BCS schools remain an irritant that just won’t go away. They had the gall to fight for access to the Big Bowl Games, and then — gasp — they actually showed up with some fans and won a few of them. They keep hanging around like a pesky little brother in the back seat of the car … and their presence gets in the way of some serious superconference panting. The uneasy relationship between college football’s upper class and its street urchins helps keep status quo in place.
3. Congress might not just stand by.
This goes back to No. 2. From the coalition of Tulane president Scott Cowen that opened up BCS bowl access to the most recent Congressional attacks from from the likes of Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, Congress has increasingly cast its eyes on the big business that is college sports. A move as brazen as consolidating two or more conferences and cutting some schools away from longstanding rivals and revenues streams is certain to met by a few well-placed howls. That said, the big schools have powerbrokers in high places too, and they have more fans (and more voters). If the money is large enough, it seems a bit of a stretch to think many politicians are going to stand up for the little guy at the expense of the power schools’ wishes.
4. The presidents don’t have the guts to try.
This is probably the key one. The superconference model has been discussed for decades, though mostly as conversation fodder for sports writers and cocktail-napkin fantasy for athletic directors and TV executives. It was quite amusing to recently find a 20-year-old article from the Washington Post that went in great detail of where the future of college sports is headed. You could put today’s date on it, change a few names, and pretty much run the article today. In fact, even some of the names would be the same!
In each previous round of realignment in the television era, you can rest assured that many of the scenarios discussed today were discussed in the back rooms then. For myriad reasons — be it the money wasn’t quite right, or the TV logistics weren’t there, or the threat of lawsuits loomed large — the benefits of the superconference model didn’t outweigh the fuss required to get there. I think there are many reasons — starting with the state of the economy and its impact on higher education — to think circumstances are different now. I think we have the most opportune circumstances yet for the presidents to go for it.
But let’s also not forget that these decisions ultimately will rest with college presidents, not athletic directors. And that there is still at least some pretense among them, we think, that college athletics are about more than money grabs. We’ll see. Either way, it’s probably a good idea to batten down the hatches. This little fishing expedition in headed into rough seas, and there are some big fins circling the boat.