Is conference realignment ruining college football?

The Big Ten and Big 12 absorb teams from the Pac-12 in a chase for TV money

college football
(Image credit: Illustrated / Getty Images)

College football is getting a huge makeover. The Pac-12 league — composed of major universities in the West — has all but dissolved, The Washington Post reported, with eight of its teams fleeing for the Big Ten and Big 12. The leagues are "being scrambled because of television money," the Post explained. The Pac-12 was having trouble securing a lucrative television contract after USC and UCLA announced their departure a year ago, so the league's other teams started looking elsewhere "even if that meant doing away with geographic and historic rivalries."

The chase for television money and the upending of old alliances has drawn concern from the top of the sport. Sports Illustrated reported that NCAA president Charlie Baker this week expressed concern about the impact the moves will have "on student-athletes' well-being." (The new super-sized leagues span nearly from coast-to-coast, meaning athletes in, say, Florida will now spend more time on planes to Utah than in classrooms.) He said there is a "growing gap between well-resourced Division I schools" and also-rans that "is highly disruptive for… college sports overall."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Joel Mathis, The Week US

Joel Mathis is a writer with 30 years of newspaper and online journalism experience. His work also regularly appears in National Geographic and The Kansas City Star. His awards include best online commentary at the Online News Association and (twice) at the City and Regional Magazine Association.