The College Conference Landscape

The collegiate sports landscape underwent yet another huge change with the announcement last week that the University of Maryland and Rutgers University would be leaving the ACC and Big East, respectively, to join the Big Ten.  Reports are surfacing that other schools in the Big East are being coveted by the ACC, while schools in the ACC are being coveted by the Big Ten.  

Where is this leading?  Well, I believe, and I am far from original in this thinking, that where we are eventually heading, probably before the end of this decade, is to a set up of four sixteen team "Super Conferences".  These conferences will be the descendants of what we now know as the Big Ten, Big Twelve, PAC 12, and SEC.  Sixty-four schools known primarily for football, and make no mistake, this is a football driven initiative because that, as Willie Sutton might put it, is where the money is.

Some questions:

What happens to the Big East and ACC?   As I postulated the other day, the Big East is done.  It needs to return to it's roots as a haven for non-football and primarily Catholic basketball playing colleges.  As for the ACC, haven't you always thought of the ACC as a basketball, and not a football conference?  I know that I have.  I fear that a school like Duke, which hasn't been relevant in big time football in my lifetime, is going to be left in the dust.

What happens to Pitt?   Pitt is committed to the ACC starting next year, but I fear that they, and schools like Syracuse, UConn, and, yes, even a kingpin like Duke, are going to be forced to settle for something else once the 64 super teams are settled upon.  What that "something else" will be is anybody's guess.  Conferences like the ACC and whatever might be left of the Big East will be second tier conferences.

Is it possible that the four Super Conferences thumb their noses at the NCAA, secede, and set up their own self-governing body?  Some in-the-know media people say that this is not beyond the realm of possibility.

What will Notre Dame do? A most interesting question.  Notre Dame has fiercely coveted its independent status where football is concerned, and one of the primary reasons, although not the only reason, for that is their unique football TV contract with NBC.  However, that contract reportedly pays ND $15 million a year.  That's a lot of money to me, but in a world where Maryland shrugs off a $50 million exit fee from the ACC, $15 million is relative peanuts.  AD Jack Swarbuck is already expressing concerns about the future of the ACC.  In the new world order of the Super Conferences, Notre Dame would be a perfect fit for the Big Ten (even though geography is becoming less and less of a factor), and their share of the loot from the Big Ten Network should easily eclipse what they are pulling in from NBC.  It may seem unimaginable to many for Notre Dame to be anything but an independent, but, as a great man once said, the times they are a-changin'.

Does it make sense for minor sports teams, like swimming, lacrosse, and golf, for example, to schedule meets, games or matches that involve such disparate locations as, say, Lincoln, Nebraska and Piscataway, New Jersey?   No, it doesn't, unless there is just so much money from football that the expenses involved in such scheduling just won't matter.  Perhaps a new paradigm involving such sports needs to be developed in this new world order, and just what that is, I don't know.

What becomes of basketball's March Madness?  Good question.  Will the sixty-four super conference schools set up their own hoops tournament at season's end, relegating schools such as Pitt, Syracuse, Duke, Connecticut (theoretically speaking) to play in a beefed up NIT-type event?  Don't forget, the NCAA hoops tourney is a major cash cow itself, but it seems that even this is dwarfed by whatever money the new football set-up will generate.  If the Super Sixty-Four do secede from the NCAA, will the NCAA swallow hard and say, "hey, it's OK if you guys want to still be with us for basketball"?  And will a basketball tournament involving only the four Super Conferences still have the cachet among the bracket-pool playing public as the current tournament set-up has?

While many of these thoughts and opinions are my own, I am also indebted for the input of opinions expressed by guests - such as Bob Ryan, Michael Wilbon, and Pat Forde -  on the Tony Kornheiser Radio show podcasts, as well as the opinions of friends such as Dan Bonk and Fred Shugars.