Perfect Expansion Scenario

Before I begin, I just want to make one thing clear. This is just my scenario of how a super conference would look for the top four conferences after expansion.  

The biggest issues with super conferences is number one, money. Will teams bring in money to the conference, and, enough so that the pot does not get watered down? I think televisions look at this the wrong way. Ratings are not generated by the number of people viewing a university, or, by the number of people in a given area. Ratings are generated by how good your product is and does. Generating the best product (i.e., conference) you can, that offers good competition will bring viewers from all over. The SEC has good ratings because they offer a good product with great competition. If your product is good, anyone, regardless of conference affiliation will view your product.

A second issue is travel and funding. Travel and funding are a big issues, especially if you are playing a new university in your conference that happens to be 1000 plus miles away. This is why having three divisions is important, given the number of universities in a super conference. Looking at the conferences below and how they are broken down, during a football season, a university from the East would play all the schools in their division, two from the Central, and three from the West. The following year the university from the East would play all the schools in their division, three from the Central, and two from the West. Now, if you understand what this does, then you also understand how this would eliminate travel and funding issues with these universities. To add to this, universities would not have to worry about only playing one university every three or four years.

WEST	CENTRAL	EAST
BIG XII
1.       Oklahoma 2.       Texas 3.       Oklahoma St. 4.       TCU 5.       Texas Tech. 6.       Baylor	1.       Kansas St. 2.       Notre Dame 3.       West Virginia 4.       Louisville 5.       Iowa St. 6.       Kansas	1.       Florida St. 2.       Clemson 3.       Miami 4.       Virginia Tech. 5.       N.C. State 6.       Pittsburgh
SEC
1.       Texas A&M 2.       LSU 3.       Missouri 4.       Arkansas 5.       Ole Miss.	1.       Alabama 2.       Auburn 3.       Miss. St. 4.       Kentucky 5.       Vanderbilt	1.       Florida 2.       South Carolina 3.       Georgia 4.       Tennessee 5.       North Carolina
B10
1.       Minnesota 2.       Nebraska 3.       Northwestern 4.       Iowa 5.       Illinois 6.       Cincinnati	1.       Michigan 2.       Ohio St. 3.       Michigan St. 4.       Purdue 5.       Indiana 6.       Virginia	1.       Penn St. 2.       Maryland 3.       Georgia Tech. 4.       Duke 5.       Rutgers 6.       Syracuse
PAC 12
1.       USC 2.       UCLA 3.       Stanford 4.       California 5.       Arizona	1.       Oregon 2.       Oregon St. 3.       Washington 4.       Washington St. 5.       Boise St.	1.       BYU 2.       Utah St. 3.       Colorado 4.       Arizona St. 5.       New Mexico St.

Winners and Losers:

After expansion is completed, who are the final winners and losers?

BIG XII

The Big XII is the overall winner in this scenario because their arm now reaches from central United States across to the east. Their new territory also brings heavy competition for the SEC and BIG for recruiting, exposure, and viewers. In addition, the competition level is strong and can only enhance each of their universities as the years pass. Furthermore, imagine the level of competition in all their sporting events, especially football and basketball; hell even baseball. This scenario also keeps and creates new rivalries. If this is not a good scenario for a perfect conference, I do not know what is.

SEC

The SEC will always have good competition, and the football crown, until someone can dethrone them. Adding A&M and Missouri proved to be a good fit for them in both football and basketball. Now adding North Carolina will given them that additional university in the east they were looking for. It also creates a new rivalry for South Carolina. Their overall sporting events will continue to good competition for years to come.

BIG

Adding Maryland and Rutgers only adds viewers, but not competition. The goal should have been to add a university that could bring in more viewers on top of what they already have, not just settling for the viewers a university already has. However, adding universities in the Southeast gives them those east viewers they were looking for. In the end, the BIG does not gain much and is still the third best conference.

ACC

The ACC is the obvious loser in this scenario. Because of their distance from other top notch universities, they have slim pickings from around their regional area. Adding BYU and Boise St. does help them out though when it comes to viewers and bringing in more funding. Although Boise St. is still a smaller university, they are gradually winning viewers as long as they can compete and upset the bigger universities.

Big XII Conference?

If the Big 12 considered this idea, then the Big 12 would be the most dominant conference in the land. They would cover television areas from central to eastern United States. This would really give the SEC and B10 a run for their money in both television viewing and recruiting.  Also, they could keep the name Big 12, because the conference would be made up of universities from 12 different states. Let’s hear ESPN say there is no additional value. Other networks would drool at the hope of landing this conference. Think of this conference in terms of football, basketball, and even baseball.

BIG XII

WEST	CENTRAL	EAST
Oklahoma	Kansas St.	Florida St.
Texas	West Virginia	Clemson
Oklahoma St.	Louisville	Virginia Tech.
Texas Tech.	Cincinnati	Miami
TCU	Iowa St.	N.C.  State
Baylor	Kansas	Georgia Tech.