The conference realignment drama will never end. Always another move, a need to rearrange the deck.
Too much power to wield in the hands of whoever’s in charge not to be playing God with other universities, teams and people. The ultimate game of oneupsmanship for has-beens and never-beens in athletics calling the plays in athletics, as conference commissioners and college presidents.
The current madness will continue until there are four 16-team super conferences. But after a few years, TV ratings will plummet, revenues will decline, and all the long-distance travel will wear on university budgets. Research will indicate the decline began when all the artificial made-for-TV match ups and amalgamated conferences were forced on consumers.
Fans and TV networks, and finally the conference commissioners and lastly the college presidents, will yearn for a return to the days of natural geographic rivalries. There will be reports that the super conferences are going away, accompanied by the usual rumors, denials, and misinformation until it becomes obvious that the 16-team were never realistic or manageable.
Schools will begin to exit the super structures and smaller conferences will begin to be formed again. Naturally all the universities wanting to be as elite and exclusive as possible, citing academic equality in predictable instances. The process will be lengthy and drawn out. Expensive, too, harming some universities, destroying some once proud programs.
A new generation of power brokers will be doing their thing. Once conference realignment gets in the blood, there’s no letting it go. Long-term stability in college football? Never. Just too fun rolling the dice and pushing those game pieces around the board.
Perhaps they’ll even further follow the money and evolve (devolve?) into athletic wear sponsor conferences with eponymous names like The Nike 9, The Under Armour 8, etc.
That is what happened to the WAC!