With the advent of the internet, and the access to information it brings, College sports have seen their fanbase grow massively, and with this viewership growth, revenues have also increased. To gain a larger piece of this earnings pie, colleges across the country have been moving conferences to gain an advantage. This article will list some specific examples of this trend, as well as outlining some pros and cons to each move, specifically focusing on football.
Written by: Joseph Rothner
April 3, 2023
The first upcoming move is also the one that kicked off this recent wave of realignment: Texas and Oklahoma’s dramatic move from the Big 12 to the SEC. This move is one made primarily for fiduciary reasons, as well as for cultural ones. Texas and Oklahoma are both football powerhouses, and have two of the strongest fanbases in college football (Crawford, 2020). Additionally, both schools also have sizable followings for their basketball and baseball programs. This strong fanbase has led to Texas and Oklahoma boasting the highest, and eighth highest revenues for university athletics, respectively. The size of both school’s fanbases dwarf any of the other Big 12 schools, and a recent study confirmed that Texas and Oklahoma combine for almost 50% of the conference’s fans (Altmore, 2022). The large fanbase and revenue that both schools maintain mean that they bring in a disproportionate amount of the income, while receiving a smaller share of the league’s overall earnings from lucrative TV contracts (Harper, 2022). By moving to the SEC, Texas and Oklahoma are availing themselves of the opportunity to gain a much larger revenue from television contracts, while also being able to face more prestigious SEC teams that have similarly large fanbases, such as Alabama and Georgia, in marquee matchups that will surely further boost both universities revenues even further. The downside of this potential move is that Texas and Oklahoma will have a harder time competing against leading SEC teams such as Alabama and Georgia than they would have with Big 12 teams such as Baylor and Kansas.
In response to this SEC expansion, the Big 12 did damage control, not just replacing the 2 departing teams, but growing overall by 2 teams as well. The four schools being added (Houston, BYU, Cincinnati and UCF) all came from weaker conferences, and each school has an athletics department that has seen increased levels of success in recent years, such as Cincinnati in football, and Houston in basketball. Moving to the Big 12 allows these schools to garner increased national attention, which they have struggled with, as well as giving them an opportunity for higher revenues. The Big 12 gains four competitive teams, as well as the fan bases they bring with them. In particular, BYU has the benefit of having strong support from the roughly 6 million Mormons that live in the US alone (Call, 2022). The potential downside of this move is the fact that besides Houston and perhaps BYU, the locations of the new schools being added are outside of the Big 12’s generally Southwestern focus, possibly diluting the conference’s regional identity while also increasing potential travel times for both teams and their fans.
The final, and possibly the most dramatic conference move that will be examined in this article is the departure of USC and UCLA from the PAC-12 for the Big Ten. This move parallels the general example of Texas and Oklahoma’s move to the SEC, and is indicative of a general shift towards the SEC and Big 10 becoming the two dominant conferences in college sports. Both USC and UCLA are programs that have a national following, nearing the top in both the fan base rankings (Molski, 2022), as well as in overall athletic stature (Forde, 2022). UCLA and USC also receive a disproportionately small share of league revenue compared to what they bring in, just as Texas and Oklahoma do. By moving to the Big Ten, USC and UCLA will gain a much larger revenue from the extremely lucrative television deal the Big 10 has (Rittenberg, 2022). They also will have the opportunity to prove themselves against top teams outside of the playoffs by having regular season matchups with Big Ten juggernauts such as Michigan and Ohio State. These matchups also open up the opportunity for new rivalries to form, which would further drive up interest in the two schools joining. The downside of the move is the loss of identity for the Big Ten, which has maintained a strong cultural link with the Midwestern region where, until recently, all of its members were based. By adding two teams from California, the Big Ten has to contend with the clash between the traditional Midwestern culture of most of its members, and the Pacific identity of the new teams. The addition of West Coast-based teams also creates challenges for schools because of travel issues. Teams will have to contend with the time difference between the Midwest and Pacific regions, which becomes especially problematic in sports such as basketball, which necessitate traveling often between home and away game sites. The time difference will make this difficult, as players will need to adjust to the time, further complicating scheduling.
The trend of conference realignment has several unique subtrends visible within itself. These trends include the emergence of the two premier conferences in the Big Ten and SEC, a greater shift towards a conference made up of similar schools in terms of fanbase and competition, and finally, a de-emphasis on regional concentration within conferences. While it remains to be seen whether these changes will have a positive or negative effect on collegiate athletics overall, one thing is certain: Conference realignment has completely changed the landscape of college sports
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