There Are No Good Guys in the Conference Realignment Wars
There Are No Good Guys in the Conference Realignment Wars
Nobody is innocent in the death of traditional collegiate athletics.
I’ve been working on a season preview of Virginia Tech’s opponents for the 2023 season, but I’ve decided to table that for now.
When an entire conference is on the verge of extinction, that should probably take precedence.
What USC and UCLA started last summer is finished approximately one year later. Within the span of a couple weeks, six more teams from the PAC-12 have defected to other conferences. That number could grow as the ACC reportedly considers adding Stanford and Cal, which would leave only Washington State and Oregon State remaining in the “Conference of Champions”.
As fun as the games are on the field, each round of realignment eats away at what makes college football special. The days of regional rivalries dating back decades fade further into the sunset each and every year, only to be replaced by bitter concoctions like UCLA and Rutgers.
The good news is that more and more in the media seem to notice that in search of increased ad dollars and exorbitant media rights fees, the fabric of the sport is being slowly ripped apart. Even some within the sport are speaking out.
“I’m saying as a collective group, have we asked ourselves what it’s going to cost the student-athletes?” Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz said in a recent press conference. “They chose a local school so that they could be regionally associated so their parents could watch them play and not have to travel. Did we ask them if they wanted to travel from the east coast to the west coast?”
While I can appreciate Drinkwitz’s sentiment, he’s currently collecting a paycheck from an institution playing schools well outside its geographical footprint. Missouri abandoned the Big 12 in 2012 in search of the very same dollars that the schools he is criticizing are searching for. Perhaps Drinkwitz should aim some of his criticism at his own university.
Maybe that’s my biggest takeaway from all this — we’re all complicit in the fundamental reorganization of college athletics. Fans, including myself, continuing buying merchandise and attending games, hosting watch parties and subscribing to whatever streaming service necessary so we can watch the product. We must not be that upset with what’s going on, right?
College football is the most exciting sport in America, and I’m sure that the 2023 season will live up to the lofty expectations we all hold. But for how much longer will that be the case? How jazzed will we be about seeing a Virginia Tech vs. Cal matchup every other year? When will the excitement turn into apathy?
Fans can complain all they want, but we clearly haven’t had our “I’ve had it!” moment just yet. And until we do, and until ratings decline, television executives and university presidents will continue doing everything possible to add revenue. Even if it means poisoning the foundation upon which they stand.