Conference realignment has turned college athletics into a much more national endeavor than it ever was previously. The Big Ten stretches from Southern California to New Jersey. The ACC includes a pair of teams on the Pacific coast. And the Big 12 has members located in both the deserts of the Southwest and the mountains of Appalachia. The end result is something almost entirely unrecognizable from college sports just a decade ago.
Most fans would agree that it would behoove college sports to return to some semblance of regionality, where schools in neighboring states play each other more often than schools on opposite coasts. Whether such a return is in the cards isn’t exactly clear, but it’s something that NCAA president Charlie Baker would welcome. During an appearance on Face The Nation this weekend, Baker outlined that he sensed a willingness among schools to embrace a more regional approach for non-football sports.
When asked if he felt conference realignment was nearing its end, Baker first suggested that the expiration of TV contracts ultimately will determine future shifts, but then pivoted to change he sees on the horizon with regard to non-football sports.
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“The real question there is when does everybody’s TV contracts come up, and what will that mean with respect to how they get negotiated at that point in time? Because everybody’s obviously living with the terms and conditions associated with those,” Baker said.
“I will say this. Most of the conversation I’ve heard among schools, at least at the Division I level, is whether they should try and figure out some way to create a more regional approach to sports other than football. Because football is, depending upon the conference, the league, and the program, somewhere between 11 and 14 games in a season, whereas you have many other sports, men’s and women’s sports, where you play, literally, 30, 40, 50, 60 games. And I think the conversation people have started to have is whether or not there’s a way to think a little differently about how to schedule the football stuff than the way you schedule some of the other sports. Football’s once a week, right? And it’s usually over a weekend. A lot of these other sports, you’re playing midweek, you’re playing the weekends, and those sports, the travel question becomes a much bigger challenge and a bigger issue than it is for just football.”
“Are you suggesting there’s some kind of college football league separate from all the other athletics?” CBS anchor Ed O’Keefe asked.
“No. I’m saying that schools and conferences are just starting to have conversations about whether or not there should be some thought put into whether or not it makes sense to think a little differently about how to handle some of the other sports that have huge numbers of games relative to some of the sports that have a much fewer number,” Baker answered.
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Baker, of course, wants to avoid any suggestion that a breakaway football league could supplant the NCAA’s status as the governing body of college athletics. But the idea he’s floating is still a game-changer. It’d involve some form of inter-conference system, cooperation between leagues, and even amendments to current television contracts.
Fans would certainly welcome the change, but, at least as it stands, it seems like wishful thinking until these same conferences and schools can figure out a sustainable path forward in football.
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