Conference Realignment: Teams Will Find Their Way to Independence

The race is on, almost.

No, wait, the race is off.

Two starters, maybe. Nope. Yes. The Big East loses two, the ACC gains two—but not for 27 months.

Oklahoma and Oklahoma State join the race, the race is on again with two late entrants. Ready, set to go... but the bridegroom Pac-12 doesn't want them.

They turn to the ACC, but even they have the sense to know how to read a map and see that Oklahoma is a long way from the Atlantic Ocean.

Too bad the Big East can't read a map and recognize that. The Big East is facing facts, though not of geography. The facts are: they aren't big, and they can't hold the good teams.

The biggest loser in this may be West Virginia, which will soon play in Dallas against TCU, far from home, far from its fan base, against a school with a student population of 8,500 that won't even fill the stands of their new stadium, and they know it.

Two minor schools playing each other: what TV market is there for that?

The Big 12 wants to hang tough and stay together, the story goes, even though Texas wants its own network.

The NCAA can do nothing about alignment. Missouri is headed to the SEC, and there is no home for Kansas, Kansas State or Iowa State.

Woe is me, woe is me, what are we to do?

But the Pac-12 came to everyone's rescue and said, "no." They've been hanging around Nancy Reagan long enough to know when you've had enough crack—in this case deals and money—more is not better, just say no.

It suddenly dawned on the Pac-12 that the lure of more teams and more money doesn't make sense. The money, divided up 14 or 16 ways, is not increased to end up being more in their pockets, and the expenses of travel and loss of fans when playing strangers is a lose-lose situation.

For Pac-12 king USC to play Big 12 king Texas in a bowl game in Pasadena is one thing. To play them regularly is not interesting.

There can only be one king. The addition of Texas would make Texas (or USC) an also-ran prince, which is not a favorable situation to either the teams or fans.

And the money wasn't there to make up for it.

Joining a conference, or expanding it, is not only about football. The travel expenses and fan base for baseball, basketball, volleyball, etc., just isn't there for a USC-Texas shootout unless on the national championship stage. 

The lure of USC-Texas or UCLA-Oklahoma is that both matchups are winners in the running for a championship and vying for the national spotlight, not competing for the top spot in the Pac-12 South Division.

From the Texas viewpoint, they would still have to give up the Longhorn Network, which they have proven is not what they are going to do. They might split revenues, but they aren't giving it up. Exit the Pac-12 from interest in Texas.

Exit the interest in Oklahoma for the same reasons, and they don't even have a network to contend with.

The Big East is on the hunt for quality teams to replace the two they are loosing, and where do you think they are looking? In the west? Huh? Okay, Navy and maybe Army, which should have been in the Big East years ago—that makes sense. But Air Force? They would do better to pick up Hawaii and San Diego State and call themselves the Big Coast Conference. Wait, there's TCU, can't do that. So what are they?

The Big East is ruining its branding and regional interest with the addition of TCU. The exiting schools knew that and recognized it with the addition of TCU even though the commissioner of the Big East, John Marinatto, didn't know it when he courted and admitted TCU. TCU also doesn't seem to know that its jump from the Mountain West will ruin its branding as well.

For TCU to go to the Big East was more than stupid; it was taking a gun to your hip and firing it. Pittsburgh and Syracuse knew it and left while the leaving was good.

Now TCU is left with schools that barely average 40,000 in attendance per game. You can't build a national audience, fan base or prominence on that—just ask Notre Dame, Michigan and Ohio State.

Ask BYU, which often brought more fans to games than the home team had in both the WAC and Mountain West. Other teams in big conferences that have small draws have the same problem.

In the end, many other schools are going to turn around and look at themselves and their branding and their fan base and do what Notre Dame and BYU have done.

Add up the numbers. Dividing payouts from TV, bowl games and other income with 10, 12, or—god forbid—16 other teams just doesn't make sense for a national powerhouse like Texas or USC.

Some day, and probably sooner than later, schools will add it up and figure out they can do better on their own than they can dividing their success among yet more and more also-ran teams who can't pull their own weight.

Adding more teams doesn't make a conference better, it makes it worse. Just one year in a BCS bowl game makes up for 16 years of never going and trying to live off of other teams. USC could go to a BCS bowl game three to five times every 10 years. The numbers are there. 

And for that reason, the reason of money, which started the rush to bigger conferences, it will also kill the super conferences as the truly big boys go independent and keep all the money for themselves.

The Independent's Conference is about to be born, and thrive.

"When they say it's not about the money, it's about the money," Bill Clinton, former President of the United States.