Last week, the Big East’s Syracuse University Orange and University of Pittsburgh Panthers were accepted into the Atlantic Coast Conference. This is just one of many moves in the past two years in the always changing world of conference realignment.
This idea of conference realignment is not new. Since college athletics began using the conference method to organize teams, schools have been rearranging themselves. While some conferences like the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference have been around for decades, other conferences like the Big 12 were founded less than 20 years ago.
The main reason for switching conferences is money. Simply put, college athletics has become a business, despite the amateur status of the athletes (which is a different conversation for a different time).
In college, like in real life, the organization that runs the team will often make decisions that are for the financial betterment of the organization and not necessarily for the betterment of the team. More money generated by the team means more money for the university.
In fairness, some of the recent moves have provided both financial benefits to the schools and competitive benefits to the teams. After spending years beating up on the Western Athletic Conference, Boise State University transferred to the Mountain West Conference, where the competition is better.
Unfortunately for Boise, fellow BCS-buster Texas Christian University is going to be moving to the Big East, where they will play against better teams and join a conference with an automatic BCS bid. As for the University of Utah, shortly after Boise announced a move to the MWC, the Utes announced they would be joining the Pac-12, another conference with an automatic BCS bid.
The moves by TCU and Utah were mostly for football reasons. The current BCS format gives automatic bids to six of the power conferences, and the MWC is not one of them.
The situation with Syracuse and Pittsburgh is not as simple. While Pittsburgh and Syracuse will benefit from playing the better teams in football (even though both the Big East and ACC have automatic BCS bids), they will be no longer be a part of Big East basketball, the premiere conference for basketball.
Despite the chance for an increase in revenue and the opportunity to play new opponents, there are downsides to conference realignment.
While new matchups with Syracuse and Pittsburgh are enticing, they don’t have the same excitement as a Syracuse-Georgetown Big East basketball game.
Rivalries in college sports are huge. Some say a major factor in the retirement of former University of Michigan Football Head Coach Lloyd Carr was because Carr, in his final seven seasons at Michigan, had only beaten rival Ohio State University once.
Sure, new rivalries will be formed, but current Pittsburgh fans probably won’t have the same animosity towards Duke University as they would have towards West Virginia University.
It’s not just fans that have some doubts about conference realignment affecting traditions. Syracuse basketball Head Coach Jim Boeheim recently expressed disappointment towards the fact that the Orange would no longer be going to Madison Square Garden for the Big East Tournament. The appeal to play in the Garden is much greater than playing in Greensboro, N.C., where the ACC tournament will be held for four of the next five years.
Like any change, there are good elements and bad ones. Short-term conference realignment hurts the fans that now must deal with a whole new set of opponents.
However, benefits could be even better in the long term. Who knows? Maybe in a couple of years the AU basketball team will join the Big East and fill the new vacancy.
sports@theeagleonline.com
