The Big 10 has 12 teams and the Big XII has 10. Should those schools close their math departments?
The appeal is that there really aren’t many East Coast teams who are viable additions. There’s UCF, East Carolina, and that’s pretty much it. The MAC schools are all pretty big (20,000+ students), but none have the money to expand their football programs and particularly their stadia. Florida International is big enough, but has only been competitive in the Sun Belt for a season and a half. The Missouri Valley schools are all too small (sub-10k enrollment). The Horizon League is just basketball schools. So it’s basically C-USA, half of which is in or near Texas; the WAC, or the WCC.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers used to play in the NFC Central; the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers played in the NFC West; the Dallas Cowboys still play in the NFC East.
ETA: More importantly, to maintain Division 1/FBS eligibility, the conference has to have at least 8 football teams.
There will eventually be 4 sixteen team divisions like the NCAA basketball. Then a national playoff. They are dancing around now trying to pick teams that are good fits.
PAC 12, Big 10, SEC. Add one more conference and you have the makings of a four-team playoff. At that point, the four conferences can tell everybody else – including Notre Dame and the NCAA itself if need be – to go pound sand. The Big East and the Big 12 are fighting to be that fourth conference. Once one of those clearly pulls ahead, nobody that matters is left.
As I put in another thread, the best solution IMO is for the Big 12 and Big East to form a football-only superconference.
I’m starting to doubt the eventuality of this. While TV revenue is ultimately driving conferences to expand, I think the networks, especially ESPN, will work hard undermine too much consolidation. They don’t want their cartel, I mean conference partners being so powerful that they can dictate all the terms of the contracts.
While the sixth big conference (big East) has to be sacrificed, they will work very hard to keep a fifth conference (Big 12) profitable enough for Texas and Oklahoma to want to keep it together. Part of me thinks this is a big driver for the Longhorn Network. Oklahoma will probably get a very generous payout for their third tier rights soon too.
Here’s what I wonder: will the established conferences try to streamline to get rid of “dead weight”?
Do schools like Indiana, Vandy, Wake Forest, Iowa State, and Washington State really belong in the big BCS football conferences? Will they be “switched out”?
I don’t know the bylaws, but I doubt the conferences have the authority to kick anyone out. Besides, every conference wants cupcakes to make for easy wins for the big schools.
Yeah, the ACC is moving into that #4 slot. Which makes it all the more urgent for the Big 12/Big East to try to salvage a place at the table.
What matters a hell of a lot more than wins is TV market share. The ACC brings a lot of eyeballs to the table; the Pac-12 does too, lack of championships be damned.
Yeah, I get that you were “kidding” although your 2nd item tends to cast doubt on your lack of seriousness. Anyway, the ACC is at least as relevant as the PAC-10 and probably as relevant as the Big1G in terms of the National Championship picture. Frankly, until somebody beats them, everyone is fighting for 2nd place to the SEC.
Well, yeah. I’m agreeing with you; I’m saying the conferences are taking a huge risk by shutting others out, because in the end the SEC is the only one that matters.
Temple was kicked out of the Big East in 2004 for…wait for it…not attracting enough fan support, i.e. not making enough money for the conference. I’m sure the Big 10, SEC, and Pac-12 will have little trouble telling the little guys to take a hike if the dollars aren’t there.
