Author : college football/basketball writer @MattZemek, Editor at @TrojansWire .
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Are you going crazy from trying to keep track of every possible realignment scenario? It is genuinely overwhelming right now to comprehend the chaos and disorder in the college sports landscape.
We have finally arrived at a point where a 16-team superconference is about to become a reality. This has been speculated on for a decade, and now that it’s here, the situation is not what many people predicted… or at least, it could become something very different from initial expectations.
When the topic of superconferences was first raised, the conventional wisdom was that if one conference reached 16 teams (the superconference threshold), there would soon be four 16-team superconferences. I’m not dunking on or criticizing anyone who suggested as much; that was and still is a logical conclusion.
What needs to be pointed out, though, is that the four 16-team superconference framework might not come into being.
The Big 12, at its leadership call last week, reportedly discussed a possible merger with the Pac-12 to create a 20-team conference. That’s a real indication of how unstable the current situation is, and how far outside the box some administrators are thinking at this point. Instead of four 16-team superconferences, some people in the college sports industry think that the SEC might try to simply claim as much real estate — in media markets and ESPN/Disney inventory — as humanly possible, expanding to 24 or even 32 teams.
I have no good feel for this. I have no strong sense of where all of this is headed. However, this is a talking point right now. It can’t be written off as a possibility. The notion that other conferences need to band together and create a 32-school bloc to combat the SEC is something which needs to be taken seriously.
The question raised in this piece: SHOULD the other conferences do this?
This isn’t a prediction on whether they WILL, but whether they SHOULD.
My answer: It depends what the endgame is… and this is where the familiar discussion about four 16-team superconferences reenters the conversation.
The prevailing thought attached to four 16-team superconferences was that such an arrangement among 64 Power Five schools was that it would facilitate a breakaway from the NCAA. The move by Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC would enable the SEC to call its own shots and play by its own rules, given its economic and political clout. The SEC would have a stronger power base from which it could become more autonomous and muscular in pursuing what it wants, when it wants, how it wants.
The idea of other conferences forming a bloc separate from the SEC shouldn’t be done for the sake of “opposing the SEC.” It should be done if there is a creative vision for operating outside the NCAA, tearing down the amateur athletic model, and doing things which help athletes across all sports to get more economic opportunities and enjoy various other benefits and protections.
One non-football idea to bring up here: The Women’s NCAA Tournament currently has a TV deal which is attached to Olympic sports. Ostensibly, a breakaway from the NCAA would allow women’s basketball and the Olympic sports themselves to negotiate new stand-alone (or at least, redesigned) deals which carry fewer constraints and can allow athletes in each of those sports to earn something much closer to market value than they currently do. These sports could generate a lot more TV money and see where they stand in the college sports marketplace.
If a 32-team “bloc” to oppose the SEC would be formed with these goals in mind, by all means do so.
If this is just SEC resentment with no larger endgame, it’s a waste of time and energy and a panic move.
Let’s see a larger thought process and a plan with a bigger purpose. That’s the main point to keep in mind here.
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