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Monday, August 07, 2023

College Football is Ruining College Sports


[Graphic: Washington Post]

Another huge wave of conference consolidation just hit, as eight schools just departed the PAC-12. Oregon, USC, Washington, and UCLA are headed to the Big Ten, while Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah are moving to the Big 12 (the schools currently remaining in the rump PAC-12 are Stanford, Cal, Washington State, and Oregon State).

These conference realignments and consolidations are entirely being driven by college football. Even men's college basketball -- the other marquee moneymaker -- really doesn't play a role (we saw that when Maryland moved from the ACC to the Big Ten, a clear sacrifice of basketball rivalries for football dollars even though Maryland's outstanding basketball program is far more storied than its pedestrian football team). And all the other sports are complete afterthoughts -- there is no advantage whatsoever to UCLA's baseball team flying all the way across the country to play Rutgers.

The thing is, I don't know of anyone who's defending this on any basis other than the football cash grab.  And given the titanic sums in play, one can even understand that the schools in question feel like they've got no choice but to make the moves. I do feel a twinge -- just a twinge -- of sympathy for Florida State, which is missing out on massive payouts because it's stuck in the comparatively uneconomical ACC.

But the fact is that outside of football these conference realignments are just terrible for college sports. It makes me wonder whether there is a way to spin off the Big Ten and Big 12 as football-only conferences, so that in all other sports universities play in their traditional and more regional home bases. I can't imagine the Big Ten actually cares if they're still Oregon's home for gymnastics, so long as they're getting those big football games. If the NCAA or whomever could step in and basically broker a compromise where these conferences get whatever football teams they want but leave the other sports programs alone, you'd think something could be worked out. 

To be sure, I think even for football these realignments are doing real damage -- but with the money in question I'm dubious there's any way to put up resistance. It might be more feasible to just give up on college football being anything but a soulless cash grab and work to make it so that "what makes sense for football" doesn't end up dragging all the other sports down with it.

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