The push since the summer of 2010 has been to expand the BCS auto-qualifying conferences from the 8-12 team size to a 16-team super conference. The idea is that a 16-team superconference is worth more to a television partner like ESPN, Comcast or Fox than two separate 8-team conferences would be worth. The PAC-12 (formerly the PAC-10) got the ball rolling by aggressively courting Texas and Oklahoma, while eventually settling for Colorado and Utah; the Big Ten around the same time added Nebraska. Shortly thereafter, the PAC-12 signed a $3 billion, 12-year television deal with Fox and ESPN, and this seemed to lend some credibility to the idea of expanding the conference. However, there is a feeling that TV deals have simply been undervalued in recent years and that even if the PAC-12 hadn’t expanded, they would have gotten a good deal. Utah had previously earned less than $2 million per year as part of the Mountain West Conference and Colorado earned about $9 million per year in Big XII. Now they were going to make about $21 million a year. Would adding these schools have given the PAC-12 Conference much more money? Probably not.
Twelve schools is the ideal size for a football conference. It allows schools to play the other 5 teams in their division and 3-4 crossover teams in the other division. This guarantees that you will play all the schools in your conference at least every two years. If you go to 16 teams, you will have 7 division opponents and a maximum of 2 crossover games. There will be teams that you will only see once every 4 years. That’s ridiculous. What are teams in the same conference like if you never play them? The 1996 WAC was the original superconference with Utah, BYU, Colorado State, Air Force, Wyoming, Hawaii, San Diego State, UTEP, UNLV, TCU, SMU, Rice, Tulsa, Fresno State, the state of San Jose and New Mexico. It was a flop and resulted in 8 of the older members leaving to form Mountain West. They cited excessive travel costs, diminished traditional rivalries and history, as well as having 16 teams to split the revenue.
PAC-12 is probably the potential superconference with the most disjointed structure. The PAC-12 looks down on Mountain West schools that make up the most geographic from its existing footprint and is most likely to target Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Missouri, or Kansas from Big XII. This will result in the emergence of schools that are very different geographically and perhaps culturally from existing member schools. This will also move Arizona and Arizona State into an Eastern Division and separate them from the schools they have played against since 1978.
There are currently about 110 FBS Division I schools and some schools are in the process of being promoted. Potential superconference commissioners seem to think that four 16-team superconferences will rise to a new higher-tier division. This will leave 50-60 schools behind. Is the television pie going to be bigger if 50-60 schools are expelled? Are the schools lucky enough to be in the SEC, the future PAC-16, or the BIG Ten (16) much better than everyone else? Is it fair that West Virginia, Boise State, Kansas State, or Fresno State probably won’t make the cut, but Vanderbilt, Washington State, and Indiana will? Is it really good to crush Mountain West, ACC and Big East? TCU has cited a 100% increase in application due to its success and national exposure in soccer. Perhaps Texas and USC should double their student body size along with the 50-60 team contraction plan to absorb this demand. College football superconferences are dumb. But they will happen, sooner rather than later.
