College Football: Super Conferences Coming Soon!

First I would like to acknowledge that my prayers go out to the family members of the KHL team that died in a plane crash Wednesday.  Truly words will not bring their loved ones back, but it's nice to let them be aware we will always keep them in our minds and our hearts. 

The business that is College Football has completely taken a U-turn from what it used to be.  We've gone from the debate about whether the BCS is the right way to determine a true national champion, to the plucking of collegiate teams from their respective conferences with the promise of more revenue to come. 

We witnessed the beginning of this last year when the Big Ten & Pac 10, seeing the potential profitability of a conference championship game and bigger TV contracts, both decided to expand their rosters.  The Pac 10 added Utah from the Mountain West Conference and Colorado from the Big 12.  That resulted in 2 divisions being created and the renaming of the conference to the Pac 12.  The Big Ten added Nebraska from the Big 12 and thus created a 2 division conference.  Congratulations are obviously in order to both commissioners of those conferences for their work, however when looking at this more closely, this may signify the end of the Big 12 conference.

The University of Texas recently inked a long term contract with ESPN to create the Longhorn Network in order to expand the brand that is the Texas Longhorns to even more homes across the country.  This event didn't make the Texas A&M to happy as they immediately sought to leave the Big 12, siteing an unfair playing field with the University of Texas when it came to revenue and recruiting.  The Aggies of A&M recently got their wish as the SEC formally announced Texas A&M's invitation to join the conference.  The once stable Big 12 is now unofficially sitting at 9 teams.

It's amazing how the college football landscape has changed over this past summer.  Conference expansion is now a hot topic among any casual college fan.  Will the Pac 12 and Big Ten expand even more? Will the Big 12 fall apart completely? Will the ACC and Big East try to get in the expansion game as well?  Will an "independent" school be willing to join a larger conference worth more potential revenue?  No one knows exactly what's going to happen but if you ask this blogger, 2 things are for sure. 

1)  We haven't seen the end  of conference expansion.  Not by a long shot.

and 2)  Conferences are going to need at least 14-16 teams in order to stay afloat financially. 

May the era of the Super Conferences begin.  And what an era it will be. 


Thanks for reading. 
Gregory R. Malek