Conference Realignment: ESPN's Suspected Meddling Could One Day Lead to Playoffs

I think we can all agree that ESPN has played a huge part in sports' culture since the company was created some 30 plus year ago. As a TV rights holder, ESPN is a business partner to almost every college football conference and averages nearly $700 million dollars annually.  

“We’re doing business with an entertainment company whose only way of surviving involves the number of eyeballs watching the screen,” Andy Geiger, a former athletics director of Ohio State said. “That is the driving force in what I see as all the decisions being made.”

With all of the college football realignment news going on lately, and teams switching conferences, one can only help to think that ESPN has something to do with it.

Look at the Big 12, for example, which has lost three teams in the last year and is currently in the process of losing more and adding a few new ones. ESPN has their hand heavy in the Big 12 cookie jar, as they recently signed Texas to a 20-year $300 million contract to contract to create the Longhorn Network.

ESPN vice president, Dave Brown had previously talked about the possibility of being able to broadcast Texas high school games and put Texas recruits in the spotlight.

The contract ruffled the feathers of Texas A&M, which made them leave for the SEC.

“Are (conference) commissioners talking to ESPN? All the time,” says Louis Caldera, president at the University of New Mexico from 2003-06. “If I’m a president, I want the commissioner to be having that conversation.

“You want to hit the bull’s eye if you’re going to fire that arrow (toward expansion or realignment). ‘If we’re looking at Louisville and you really like Cincinnati, tell me which one. Don’t make it a mystery. Tell me which combination (is best). What are the trade-offs if we have a (conference) championship game or we don’t have it?’”

Maybe ESPN had something to do with the Big East as well, considering that conference is currently falling apart. Earlier this year the conference rejected ESPN's nine-year $1.4 billion offer. It's not too far-fetched to believe that played a part in both Pittsburgh and Syracuse leaving for the ACC.

Teams want to play where the money is and the money is in the major conferences that have huge ESPN contracts.

Could this all be a coincidence, or could ESPN really be changing the college football landscape and paving the way for a college football playoff?

Only time will tell.