The once-mighty Big 12 appears to be crumbling amid the seismic shift in the college football landscape. The NCAA, as we know it today, could be the next to go.
With Nebraska set to bolt for the Big Ten, Colorado already on its way to the Pac-10, and five other member schools - Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State - also on the verge of a mass exodus for the Pac-10, it's clear the Big 12 is just about done.
And when the dust finally settles on the new world order of college athletics, there will likely be a seismic change in the landscape that could produce four 16-team super conferences - the Big Ten, Pac-10, SEC and ACC. Those four conferences have the potential to dictate the future of college athletics with their own lucrative television contracts and postseason championships, and can marginalize the importance of the BCS and other Division I programs, which will be left on the outside looking in.
Is a four-conference national championship playoff that far off?
The NCAA most likely will operate at the behest of these entitled 64 universities that can regulate and share their revenue at their own discretion. The NCAA essentially will soon realize it is only a service provider to the power players in college athletics, taking a page from Notre Dame football, which has maintained its independent status because it has become must-see TV.
Just imagine how much clout the four potential power conferences would have if the Irish ever joined the Big Ten.
These latest changes could eventually even create a secession movement. Though Abraham Lincoln was able to preserve the union, it is in doubt whether new NCAA president Mark Emmert can preserve this organization in its current form.
The NCAA may have dropped a bomb on USC's football program on Thursday, putting the Trojans on four years' probation, banning them from postseason play for two years, taking away 30scholarships and forcing them to forfeit all their wins from the 2004 national championship season and from 2005, when they played for another one. But it also may have been USC's BCS brethren, enforcing checks and balances to keep the king under control.
There were no voices raised in protest from Indianapolis this week when college athletics plunged into a sea of chaos, with the more influential programs finding a new way of increasing their assets.
By the same token, none of the university presidents has publicly commented on the new changes that will affect all of them. It's become more evident who the ruling class in college athletics really is and it has little to do with institutional values or university missions and more to do with financial balance sheets.
Many academics have changed their view of college athletics when they see the benefits of informercials at halftime of Saturday prime-time football and throughout the three weeks of March Madness.
This isn't about creating better competition or bringing together like institutions in similar regions, it's all about the ability to build war chests to sustain universities through tough economic times.
These new geographic affiliations are a far cry from the early 1990s, when university presidents from the Big Ten offered their opinions about whether Penn State - which was considered an outpost - was too far for their teams to travel to when the Lions applied for membership. Likewise, don't expect to hear these same university presidents speaking out about TV time slots like they did when 9 p.m. West Coast games were slotted to assure additional programming for cable networks.
It's hard to rationalize a megaconference that spans half a continent, stretching from State College, Pa., to Lincoln, Neb., or College Station, Tex., to Pullman, Wash. Even professional sports are set up with geographical considerations. It is hard to imagine what logic there is when East Coast teams in Major League Baseball have two West Coast swings a season while college athletes in the new Pac-16 will be doing it on a biweekly basis.
But with all the money set to come in the front door, logic is out the window.
With Nebraska set to bolt for the Big Ten, Colorado already on its way to the Pac-10, and five other member schools - Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State - also on the verge of a mass exodus for the Pac-10, it's clear the Big 12 is just about done.
And when the dust finally settles on the new world order of college athletics, there will likely be a seismic change in the landscape that could produce four 16-team super conferences - the Big Ten, Pac-10, SEC and ACC. Those four conferences have the potential to dictate the future of college athletics with their own lucrative television contracts and postseason championships, and can marginalize the importance of the BCS and other Division I programs, which will be left on the outside looking in.
Is a four-conference national championship playoff that far off?
The NCAA most likely will operate at the behest of these entitled 64 universities that can regulate and share their revenue at their own discretion. The NCAA essentially will soon realize it is only a service provider to the power players in college athletics, taking a page from Notre Dame football, which has maintained its independent status because it has become must-see TV.
Just imagine how much clout the four potential power conferences would have if the Irish ever joined the Big Ten.
These latest changes could eventually even create a secession movement. Though Abraham Lincoln was able to preserve the union, it is in doubt whether new NCAA president Mark Emmert can preserve this organization in its current form.
The NCAA may have dropped a bomb on USC's football program on Thursday, putting the Trojans on four years' probation, banning them from postseason play for two years, taking away 30scholarships and forcing them to forfeit all their wins from the 2004 national championship season and from 2005, when they played for another one. But it also may have been USC's BCS brethren, enforcing checks and balances to keep the king under control.
There were no voices raised in protest from Indianapolis this week when college athletics plunged into a sea of chaos, with the more influential programs finding a new way of increasing their assets.
By the same token, none of the university presidents has publicly commented on the new changes that will affect all of them. It's become more evident who the ruling class in college athletics really is and it has little to do with institutional values or university missions and more to do with financial balance sheets.
Many academics have changed their view of college athletics when they see the benefits of informercials at halftime of Saturday prime-time football and throughout the three weeks of March Madness.
This isn't about creating better competition or bringing together like institutions in similar regions, it's all about the ability to build war chests to sustain universities through tough economic times.
These new geographic affiliations are a far cry from the early 1990s, when university presidents from the Big Ten offered their opinions about whether Penn State - which was considered an outpost - was too far for their teams to travel to when the Lions applied for membership. Likewise, don't expect to hear these same university presidents speaking out about TV time slots like they did when 9 p.m. West Coast games were slotted to assure additional programming for cable networks.
It's hard to rationalize a megaconference that spans half a continent, stretching from State College, Pa., to Lincoln, Neb., or College Station, Tex., to Pullman, Wash. Even professional sports are set up with geographical considerations. It is hard to imagine what logic there is when East Coast teams in Major League Baseball have two West Coast swings a season while college athletes in the new Pac-16 will be doing it on a biweekly basis.
But with all the money set to come in the front door, logic is out the window.
