The Future of College Football, circa 1998

[leopold]

Some very interesting reading from an article from five years ago. This gentleman has been about as right as he could have hoped to have been to this point and, I would say, was right more than he was wrong.

First Printed in Athlon Sports College Football 1998 Preview
by Tony Barnhart, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

As we peek over the horizon towards the 1998 football season, college football is not unlike the California coast. It is beautiful. It is calm. It is peaceful. All is well.
But just when we've finally become comfortable with the fact that it's okay for the Big Ten to have 11 teams, or that, logistically, it's easier for Miami to play a home-and-home with Cuba than with any of their comrades in the Big East, there are signs that yet another significant shift is on the way. It is no longer a question of if, but of when this monumental change to the layout of college football's landscape will take place.
"I've said for a while now that I think there will be another reorganization among conferences but when it will happen is anyone's guess," says SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer, who is also the boss of the College Bowl Alliance. "My sense is that people are just biding their time, trying to get prepared to make a move when things start happening."
If the conferences learned only one thing in teh last mad scramble of the early '90's, it is this: You snooze, you lose.

DRIVING THE BUISINESS
From this core philosophy there have emerged two undeniable truths which have driven the business of college football in the 1990's:
- There are a finite number of television dollars out there and, like it or not, the majority of them will go to those conferences that can deliver the largest numbers of viewers on any given Saturday. So when your compitition for those dollars - i.e., another conference - expands to strengthen those numbers, you stand pat at your own peril.
- Conferences expand not only to improve televsion numbers, but alos to increasse their power base. That power can be used to impact NCAA legislation pertaining not only to football, but to other sports and even the ultimate structure of college athletics. It's the athletic equivalent to the Cold War as conferences feel they must continually build up their arsenals to assure their survival.
"Sometimes expansion make more sense politically than it does economically," says Jim Delaney, commissioner of the Big Ten. "You have to be aware of those things and take the appropriate action."
No one knows exactly when the next round of athletic arms buildups will occur. But rest assured, the conferences will be ready to jump into action at the first rumble.
"My wish is that the structure of college football could remain stable a while longer," says Mike Tranghese, the Commissioner of the imperiled Big East. "But I'm not naive enough to believe that it will. There are some powerful forces at work here."
To understand what is about to transpire, it is beneficial to go back to Dec. 1989, when the entire landscape of college football was changed forever with only one move.
The Big Ten, for so long the big boy on the block when it came to TV, took a bold step by extending an invititation to Penn State, second only to Notre Dame as a sucessful football independent. Penn State accepted, and six months later it became official. The Big Ten had added an 11th member in a development that would make the rest of the college football world sit up and take notice.
Suddenly, the Big Ten not only had the large Midwestern television markets of Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, but it could also now deliver markets like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Penn State would not begin Big Ten play until the 1993 season, but the reaction to the move was immediate and ramifications could be felt from coast to coast.
"The was the first domino to fall," says Kramer. "There was no stopping what was about to happen next."

FIRST WAVE
The other major players in college football, afraid that the Big Ten had now become too powerful, quickly scrambled to improve their own positions:
- Penn State's decision to seek shelter of a conference was a sobering signal to a number of Eastern Independents. Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia, Rutgers, Temple, Va Tech, and BC all banded together - and convinced Miami to join them - to form the Big East. They couldn't play conference schedule in 1991, but Miami won the championship because it had the highest national ranking.
- By 1992, the SEC had added two teams (South Carolina and Arkansas) to form the first 12-team league that would be split in two divisions. Then, to the derision of many skeptics, the SEC launched the idea of a conference championship game. Those skeptics quickly changed their tune upon learning that the conference championship game generated an extra $4.5 million each year for the SEC.
- That same year, the ACC, over the protests from the traditionalists in its ranks, added FSU and immediately improved its television clout.
That was the first wave of change. Then came another watershed event in Feb. 1994. The CFA television package with ABC and ESPN, which included all the major conferences except the Big Ten and Pac-10, fell apart when the SEC bolted and signed its own five-year $125 million deal that would begin in 1996.
After that, it became every man for himself s the conferences scrambled for thier share of the pie.

SECOND WAVE
-The Southwest Conference, which was formed in 1914,had to face reality. With eight schools all in the same state, it just didn't have the muscle to compete in this brave new world. So it's four most powerful members (Texas, A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor) joined with the Big Eight to form the Big 12.
-Three other SWC members (SMU, Rice, and TCU) joined the WAC, which took the expansion idea to another level. Along with the SWC teams, it added independents Tulsa and Big West defectors San Jose State and UNLV. Beginning in 1996, the WAC was a 16-team league which convered nine states and four time zones.
Since all this shuffling, each of the conferences has cut its own television deals. The conferences banded together to form the Bowl Coalition, which begat the Bowl Alliance, which this season begat the Super Alliance.
For the first time this season, all the major conferences will work together in the post season to put together a 1 vs. 2 game for the national championship. Each season, it seems, both the product and the process become more refined.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Conference commissioners and others directly involved in the college football business are reluctant to discuss that issue in great detail. They don't want to tip their hands on what their potential moves might be once the changes begin. But here, based on a number of interviews with the movers and shakers of college football, is a reasonably clear picture of what the next set of major shakeups in the sport will probably be.
On this point they agree: The first move will again be made by the Big Ten.
When Penn State became the 11th member back in 1993, everyone knoew it was just a matter of time before the Big Ten added a 12th school and, like the SEC and Big XII, went to a divisional play and a lucrative conference championship game.
And there is no secret about which school the Big Ten would like to tap as its 12th member. It is, of course, the mother lode of college football properties: Notre Dame.
Conventional wisdom says that Notre Dame will never give up its independent status as long as it has the lucrative and exclusive television contract with NBC. Chances are that will remain true. While the other independents were finding safe shelter among the conferences, Notre Dame still has the clout to do it alone.
A key here: In order to remain an independent, Notre Dame has to eventually come to some understanding with the Bowl Alliance so that in the down year

[Charleston Pony]

You've got to love the fact this writer recognized SMU over TCU, but that was before Fran took over and helped turned TCU's fortunes. Cavan was also a Georgia guy, so there was a little bit of "love fest" going on there.

The Big XII really is in trouble if the PAC 10 was able to lure Colorado. My guess is that they's make a play for Iowa, in hopes of returning the Big 10 to it's proper number of members. Neither SMU nor TCU (or Baylor for that matter) is a good fit in the Big XII. Not that we wouldn't jump at the opportunity. If it came down to SMU or TCU, I smell a bidding war on the horizon.