Conference expansion and other craziness

The University of Colorado is joining the Pac 10. Nebraska soon might join them. The Big 12 might dissolve. The SEC might sweep in and grab Oklahoma. Texas might flee to the Pac 10 or the SEC, or another conference could arise out of the ashes.

What does this mean for college football? Anyone who tells you that they know is a total liar. This could be fairly small (Colorado leaves the Big 12, Nebraska declines, Utah accepts, and BYU fills in the hole), or it could be so big that college football in 2011 looks nothing like it does now. As of today, we just don't know.

That being said, I wanted to tackle a couple of topics.

Will the Pac 10 become the Pac 16? And what does that mean?
One ESPN report has the Pac 10 becoming the Pac 16, dividing into two 8-team divisions, playing no championship, and asking for two automatic bids into the BCS. Say what?

First off, if this report is true, the arrogance of these people astounds me. Two automatic bids? This is a conference that has only one national power a year (USC)? And that team is likely going on a bowl ban? Please. The MWC has been as good of a conference in many ways (in football) over the past couple of years.

What is means to other sports is total chaos. I was a sports writer when BYU and many of the traditional WAC teams ditched the WAC and formed the MWC. It was great for football, pretty good for basketball, but not great for other sports. Maybe most fans don't care, but for many athletes, their level of competition changes, and their 'rivals' change.

The destruction of the Big 12
I don't really care about this. It's not like this is a historical conference, formed in 1994 out of the Big 8 and the Southwest. What it really means is destruction of some regional rivalries, both traditional and some relatively new.

For example, what if the Pac 10 takes Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Colorado. What about the UT rivalry with A&m? Will UT only go if A&M is included? And what about Nebraska's rivalries with Missouri and Kansas? Not as traditional or as deep, but they mean something.

Are fans going to have to pay more money to watch their teams play?
If you're still reading this (which is not likely), you should know that my friend Christy actually prompted this blog post. She's an OU grad who lives in Lincoln who is wondering if she's going to have to pay through the nose to watch her beloved Sooners play in whichever conference they end up in. The answer is: maybe.

This is all about money. College football is a greed sport. The Pac 10, SEC and others have seen the financial success of the Big Ten Network, and they want that. Even the lowly MWC has its own network.

And these conference channels have more benefits than major financial windfalls. The conferences build the conference and school brands, promoting other sports besides football and basketball, and better promoting the two premier sports. For example, do you want to watch a show about the best Big Ten basketball players of the 80s? In HD? You can, on the Big Ten Network at 8pm on Friday. I will not be tuning in.

As a BYU fan, the whole Mtn Network thing has been a pain, but it's pretty awesome now. I can sit in my house in Wisconsin and watch every BYU football and basketball game. But I do have to pay more. I have to purchase a premium DirectTV package, and then I have to pay more for the Sports Pack, which includes the Mtn Network.

That being said, it's worth it to me (though my wife may disagree). I get to watch the Cougars for heaven's sake! And I don't have to watch them at weird times or nights, but on Saturdays like they should be. But once most conferences switch to the network model, if you don't live in the geography of your team's conference, you may have to pay extra to see your team.

What does this mean for BYU?
The MWC and BYU are at a the mercy of the other conferences. If the Pac 10 only gets Colorado, then they probably come poach Utah or BYU (most likely the evil U 0f U). Then the Big 12 would need another team, likely BYU or TCU. BYU has some negatives against it, the biggest being not playing sports on Sundays. Being one of the big fishes in the MWC, the conference happily accommodates us. Would the Big 12? Do they honestly want a conservative Mormon school in the ranks? And if Utah and TCU leave, where does that leave the Cougars? No where good.

What does this mean for the BCS?
Again, chaos. If several super-conferences are created (the Pac 10 becomes the Pac 16, the Big Ten becomes the Big 14), they may demand multiple bids. This could squeeze out MWC and WAC teams that have wreaked havoc against the big boys recently. It may also create more a rallying cry for a playoff, but I wouldn't count on that.

How could they fix all this?
The NCAA could fix all this be disbanding all the conferences and going to a region system. Now I don't believe the NCAA has the power to do this, and even if they did, it would be extremely complicated. But imagine a world where small, nimble geographic regions were created. This would make non-revenue sports less expensive, as most schools would rarely travel more than several hundred miles for regional play. It would also make most playoffs clean and rational.

Of course this won't happen. Way too much money is at stake for big boy schools and conferences to let rational thought, small sports, and academics cloud their greed. In the next couple of weeks I will blog about what this would look like. Why? Because this is my blog, read by several.

Closing thoughts
The two big NCAA sports, football and basketball, are greedy enterprises, that cover themselves in a shroud of amateurism but rake in profits like professionals, at least at the enterprise level. The swirling rumors of the last few days clearly show that. I don't know how all of this will land, but I do know that the richer will likely get richer no matter were the various schools land.