And while the NCAA is flawed—hugely, hilariously flawed—and was in desperate need of reform, it was still the closest thing college football had to an overarching authority. When it checked out, that vacuum launched an arms race among athletic directors, conference commissioners and television executives to fight for every scrap of revenue—and to destroy anyone who stood in their way.
That’s why Oklahoma’s now in the SEC, Arizona is in the Big 12, Washington’s now in the Big Ten and the Pac-12 is dead. Every college football decision has been made with solely short-term interests—rather than what’s good for the sport, and higher education in general—in mind. No one’s minding the store. So everyone’s pulling up and selling anything not nailed down.
This is bad enough for college football which is going to look up in 10 years and realize almost everything people loved about it is now gone. But it’s also bigger than college football. If you care about other collegiate sports, or just “college” as a concept—you need to know: there is collateral damage everywhere.
First off, what may make sense for college football television contracts—the reason all this realignment is happening in the first place—is generally a disaster for every other collegiate non-revenue sport. (A non-revenue sport is one that doesn’t make money for the university but is an essential part of the collegiate experience regardless—generally speaking, it’s every sport but football and occasionally men’s college basketball).
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