It's unofficially official. The conference that thrives in excess--from 100,000-seat stadiums to revenues that make member schools feel like big oil--will soon become the Granddaddy Of The Excessiest.
A Kansas City sports radio station is reporting that the Big Ten Conference, technically the Big Televen given Penn State University's inclusion in 1992, will add at least three more schools before month's end. And should they land the golden-domed Holy Grail of prestigous schools, which looks more likely than not, they will bring a fifth on board and become the Jabba The Hut of super conferences.
As many as 16 schools could call the conference home by the 2011 football season. Universities already on the "Where do I sign?" list are Nebraska and Missouri (see pic from their 1976 contest), the latter of which stands to triple its athletic revenue with the football team alone. Rutgers has also agreed, saying "yes" slightly faster than a heavy-set girl a the skin condition responds to a prom invite.
So 14 teams appears to be a done deal. What is anything but done is school in slot #15. That private school in Indiana with its own network-TV deal. Notre Dame has prided themselves in being an independent school, even after signing on with the Big East Conference for all those cute non-football sports. But the reprocussions of college football's plate techtonics may force the hands of Touchdown Jesus, who with each development appears more likely to have a gun in his back than six points on his mind.
The Big Ten's decision to forego the chicken caesar salad in favor of the entire right side of the menu, has started the ball rolling for other leagues concerned with their cash flow. The Kansas City Star and other sources report that the Big 12 Conference--that is, what will be left of the Big 12... heh heh heh--is talking very seriously with the Pac-10 about a merger of sorts, one that could unite schools representing six of the top 13 media markets (Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle and Phoenix). Presumably, USC and UCLA, Stanford and Cal, Washington and Wazzou, and the two Arizona schools would join forces with the top eight remaining conference teams to form a formidable, football-friendly Sweet 16.
To say this will be a defining moment for college football would be putting it mildly. It's been speculated that the snowball effect could be cataclysmic. The SEC, strong on its own as it is, may suffer a case of the "me too"s and grow, with schools like Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami and the biggest trophy fish of all, North Carolina. Which would loot the ACC and Big East, leading to further speculation that Notre Dame would best serve Notre Dame as a member of the soon-to-be Big Teen. For conferences like our middle children from the Mountain West, this could all be a blessing since it may set the table for a highly coveted automatic BCS berth--which for schools on the outside, is the budgetary equivalent of hitting PowerBall.
On that greater topic, what will this all mean to the BCS? Could these gargantuan super-leagues fall in love with the potential windfall of a NCAA division-1 playoff and pull out--even if it means pulling out of the NCAA altogether?
For fans of college football, this will rock them to their fundamentalist core. It was only a few years ago that traditionalists insisted on keeping the bowl system intact and not tampering with things like the seven-decade-long Big Ten / Pac-10 Rose Bowl alliance (see photo of the 1965 Rose Bowl between Michigan and Oregon State, courtesy of the way-back machine).
While many speculated about change, the culprits were assumed to be the greedy bowls or the greedy BCS itself. Who knew the greedy conferences would be the temporal forces?
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