Sunday, September 11, 2011

Conference Expansion in all of its Glory

I know I created this blog a month ago, got a post up immediately, and haven’t done anything since. We have been very busy at ESPN 93.9 The Team creating what we hope is a great local sports talk station. We are signing deals with Westwood One to bring more football to our air than ever before.
My show, The Drive, is constantly evolving and working to get better every day. We try to bring you the best interviews and contests, and I feel so far we’re coming through pretty good. Our ESPN The Team Survivor Pool starts today and I could not be more excited about the amount of listener participation we are receiving for it.
So with that said, let’s churn out a couple blogs on a Sunday morning. I’m enjoying a cup of coffee, have updated my fantasy roster for today (I elected to go with Plaxico Burress over Nate Burleson at my final flex position), have been chatting with the listeners on our Facebook discussion board, and now am writing about sports. Life is good.
I want to write today about this college football expansion thing going on and what a mess is taking place. The fans want to look at it from the perspective of what conference fits my team best for competition? If that were the case then perhaps these schools would consider territory, rivalries, and post season play- all of the things we the fans and alumni of these schools make a priority.
Unfortunately these are the last things on their mind. Let me list the top 3 things on these university Presidents minds while they go through the idea of conference expansion.
1.       Money
2.       More Money
3.       And in one scenario- we don’t want to be in a conference with another team who decided to start its own TV Network so we’re going to go somewhere else rather than work out a partnership and resolve the matter like civilized adults

With that being the driving force we could end up with a Division I College Football system that adheres to the following system:

1.       Two or Three super conferences of 16 teams battle it out each year for the national title, which will continue to be based on a vote of popular opinion/computer math formulas rather than a playoff
a.       Within those conferences we will have conference match ups that put a team in Texas playing a team in New York in what we can call the conference that resides in the Big East (it is Big isn’t it?). But it’s ok that the schools are spending the money to send a 60 man team, plus coach’s, plus trainers, plus the band halfway across the country each week- they’ve got the money to afford it now
2.       One or Two traditional conferences will no longer exist
3.       Five or Six conferences will have eight to ten mediocre teams. They will battle it out each year for a conference title. Most of the time it will be won by the same team. That team will never get an opportunity to compete for a national championship because they don’t make enough money. But it will make for a good story line and good talk radio each year for us all to predict when that one team will get it’s shot.
4.       And finally, the governing body of the sport will sit idly by saying there’s nothing we can do about it. Even though every other sport (including every other division of football) under that governing body has a system in which every team, every year gets an opportunity to play for a national title so long as they win games.
The bottom line is that there is no logic. There is no law. Nobody is taking control. This is what happens when an amateur sports organization starts to generate more money than most of the world’s professional sports organizations. Something has to change quickly.  But as long as the NCAA abstains from stepping in to resolve the situation, we’ll be left with university Presidents and conference Commissioners making decisions based purely on how it affects their bank accounts.

Aaron Marks is the Sports Director for WJXY-ESPN Radio 93.9 The Team, and host of "The Drive" which airs daily Monday-Friday from 4-6 p.m. Read his bio at http://www.teammyrtlebeach.com/