You guys probably think that I love this conference realignment stuff, don’t you?
I gotta be honest with you. I am not a fan of it. I am fascinated by it. There’s a difference.
The mix of sports, politics and the media business is right in my wheelhouse – everything that I love rolled into one. It is something I enjoy following. But overall, I have always been consistent that television executives making decisions that impact millions of student-athletes, fans and economies across America is a very bad thing.
I prefer the Big 8 to all of these modern super-conferences. Hell, in college during Iowa State’s Big 12 North days, my friends and I could drive to the overwhelming majority of Cyclone football road games. You know, back when every game wasn’t on television. It was listen to John and Eric call it on the radio or drive to the damn game and make a weekend of it!
Old school.
But suits who work for the big boy TV companies started to ruin our sport dating all the way back to 1984, when the Board of Regents for the University of Oklahoma defeated the NCAA in a Supreme Court case that allowed open season on television really getting into the sport. You can read more about it here, if it interests you.
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Thursday night – after news began to surface that Arizona is going to be the 14th member of the new-look Big 12 Conference – Twitter (I refuse to call it ‘X’) exploded.
Ah yes. The same bloviating hypocrites who cheered on the demise of the Big 12 in the past were on their feet shouting about the sadness regarding the possible end of the precious Pac-12.
I saw a lot of “These TV executives are ruining college football” crap flying around.
Where in the hell have you people been for the last 20 years?
Were you blind when college football lost the epic Nebraska vs. Oklahoma rivalry? What about Texas vs. Texas A&M? My god, we are about to lose Bedlam.
When Oklahoma and Texas went to the SEC, it was deemed “good business.”
“That Greg Sankey is a genius,” they said.
Why wouldn’t the SEC want those massive brands? Why wouldn’t those brands want to up their revenue and join the best conference in college football? The perfect match.
Out of nowhere, the Big Ten’s decision to poach UCLA and USC in dead of the night was brilliant, don’t you know? Ah yes. The exceptional Big Ten planting its flag in the country’s second largest media market. The national college football media made Kevin Warren (who was later pushed out by his conference’s presidents) out to be the next Steve Jobs.
And here comes Brett Yormark, the Big 12’s brash, confident, outlaw new commissioner. Let me spell it out for you.
BRETT. YORMARK. DOES. NOT. GIVE. A. SHIT. WHO. YOU. ARE. OR. WHAT. YOU. THINK.
This is a new Big 12.
It’s a collection of 14 schools that are pissed off and tired of being told that they have no value to the uppity TV guys. It’s 14 mostly like-minded institutions that all realize they are better off as a whole than as individuals.
That’s dangerous and in these times, it is quite refreshing
Look around: The SEC and the Big Ten are rich, and by gawd they will call most of the shots. I will not even try to deny that. But the ACC is fracturing and I’m telling you – it is only a matter of time before the Ohio State’s and Alabama’s look around and say, “Why the hell are we funding the Vanderbilt and Indiana football programs?”
Mark my word. It is going to happen.
When the Arizona news first dropped on Thursday, I honestly felt some sadness. I know any days of any regional conferences are now behind us. I will miss those days and know that this new round of realignment is real, and will forever change the college sports that we all love.
But that sadness has now turned to fire.
Why in the hell did it take the rest of the country so damn long to see what is going on here? Because it wasn’t impacting YOU. For far too long, Big 12 fans have had to live with the anxiety of being relegated (because of this, my heart aches for Oregon State and Washington State) because many in the national media have cheered it on for over a decade.
It’s an evolve or die world that we are living in now. And we are also getting to the point where “television eyeballs” mean less and engaged fan bases (will you buy a subscription/do you care?) will be king. And Yormark gets it.
For the first time in a long time, the Big 12, with Yormark at the helm, is in a position of power. Does it feel good? I won’t lie, it sure beats the anxiety stemming from instability. But much like how I feel about realignment as a whole, it’s complicated—because this is the end of the landscape of college athletics as we know it.
We know the beginning of the end started long before Yormark, despite the tune the national pundits are singing today. But regardless of their narratives, what matters is how you finish, and the Big 12 has its closer.
