Much Ado About Nothing?

Over the last few weeks there has been a ton of conversation about the possible musical chairs that may take place with college athletic conferences. Much of the conversation was sparked by the Big Ten’s December 2009 announcement that they are looking to expand their Conference in 12-18 months, followed by their subsequent April 2010 announcement that they intend to accelerate that timetable. This news has set off a fire storm of speculation as to how the landscape of college athletics will be affected, college football in particular. This speculation has led to lots of theorizing on what the ultimate layout of the conferences will look like, and the theories range from a massive overhaul resulting in four super-conferences to a simple one team expansion of the Big Ten conference. As with the conversation of the possible expansion of the NCAA tournament, the truth likely lies somewhere in between.

The conversation on this topic became intense a month ago when the presidents of the 11 Big Ten institutions met with Jim Delany the Big Ten Conference Commissioner. At this meeting the Commissioner was thought to be attempting to come away with a mandate to expand the conference. If the commissioner could secure that mandate, he could move forward attempting to notify the commissioners of the conferences he intended to take schools from and negotiating with these target schools. The Big Ten’s major target here is thought to be Notre Dame, However insiders are claiming that the conference will likely expand the conference to 14 or 16 teams. This leads to the obvious question…where will these teams come from???

There is a great deal of speculation that the Big Ten is targeting at least three Big East schools, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and Rutgers. Add Notre Dame to this equation and the Big Ten would have fourteen schools and expand their reach far beyond the Midwest. If the conference expands to 16 teams it is thought that the conference will add the Universities of Connecticut and Missouri to the equation. Nebraska is another name that is in the mix for expansion given that Notre Dame is such a wild card in all of these conversations. All of this speculation of growth within the Big Ten conference has created speculation about how the other conferences will respond. Will the Big East be forced to fold? How will the SEC, ACC, Big 12, and PAC-10 respond?

Those questions have created a jockeying of position of sorts amongst the other conferences and teams that are hoping to capitalize off of all of the shifting by either making their conference stronger or in the team example, moving the team to a bigger conference. Steve Spurrier has speculated that Arkansas would go back to the Big 12 if there is a major shake-up. Former East Carolina coach and current University of South Florida coach stated that he would love to see East Carolina make the move to the Big East. There have been discussions about the possibility of TCU, BYU and possibly Boise State to the Big 12, maybe Utah to the Pac-10. The possibilities are endless.

In looking at all of this possible movement, one has to ask what do all of these conferences and schools stand to gain, especially the Big East schools which currently run the College Basketball landscape. The answer is REVENUE. College Football is the cash cow of college athletics, so most college athletic departments make decisions based on how much revenue will be created from it’s football program. The Big Ten is king of the hill when you evaluate football from this perspective. The Big Ten is home to the schools with some of the largest stadiums and largest television markets and strongest academics. If the Big Ten is able to secure schools like Notre Dame, Syracuse, Rutgers and Pittsburgh, it will add the largest television markets in the United States to its list of covetable assets. It will also allow the Big Ten to host a conference Championship game which the ACC, Big 12, and SEC are already doing. I for one am excited to see how all of this will play out. It would be great to a non-SEC team win a BCS title. But again, I think the ultimately while there be some movement, much like in college basketball, the movement will not be as dramatic as some predict.