MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — It was a nugget tucked away among a pile of other concerns of money and just how the college football season may look in 2020, if there is even one to be had.
Truth be told, even after Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby spoke his thoughts on conference realignment, they didn’t take hold until much later.
“The thing you have to remember is the motivation for past realignment was the capture of cable households,” Bowlsby said last week during a teleconference with reporters.
Our sports world had begun to take major steps toward change long before the coronavirus hit the United States in 2020.
Before there was even such a thing as the COVID-19 virus, much discussion in West Virginia, as well as other parts of the country was either the love or hatred for the league’s online streaming package on ESPN+.
We’ll steer clear of that conversation today, but what we can no longer deny are online streaming services have made more than just a small dent in how and where we take in our entertainment options.
I am literally kicking myself for not thinking of this earlier, but as the streaming services continue to make larger dents into our everyday life, it means lines that divide our states and major cities begin to disappear.
Think of it this way, Rutgers was added to the Big Ten in 2014 for no better reason that it opened up the doors to the conference to the major New York TV market.
It certainly wasn’t for the Scarlet Knights’ ability to compete in most major sports in that conference.
Any maybe up until now that was the No. 1 selling point for any school outside of the Power 5 looking to get invited to the adults’ table.
TV money was the end-all, be-all. Don’t get me wrong, it still is and will be for some time to come, but the number of TV and satellite subscriptions are dropping across the country.
Why? Because of ESPN’s streaming service. Because of Netflix. Because of Hulu and because of the dozen other streaming services available that offer the same sports people want to see for a more affordable price.
“With a shrinking cable universe, that motivation is gone,” Bowlsby continued.
WVU fans living outside of the Big 12’s footprint can simply log in and watch all the WVU football and basketball games they want.
Sports fans living in Florida can catch all the Pac-12 games. Fans in Connecticut can catch all of the Big 12 games and so on.
True, there is still an ACC Network on cable, as well as a Longhorn Network and a Big Ten network.
Like I said, TV is not going down without a fight and it will be a fight that will drag on until maybe we’re all long gone.
But, for those schools on the outside of the Power 5 — say a Memphis, Houston or Cincinnati — it’s going to take much more than the argument of how many TV households they have to make a case for getting an invitation.
“There has to be some other motivation that replaces it,” Bowlsby said. “Adding members to your conference, without adding substantial revenue, all that would do is divide the pie into more pieces.”
At this point, for a school like Houston to get an invitation, it would take almost nothing short of the Cougars becoming a sort of national brand, which is extremely difficult under the current football playoff guidelines.
This doesn’t mean realignment is a dead issue.
What it does mean is any realignment that happens down the road will come from Power 5 schools looking to move to a different Power 5 league.
In the case of the of the Big 12, it’s current TV deal is complete following the 2024-25 seasons.
That deal will be renegotiated and extended before 2024, but there is no guarantee that a school like Texas or Oklahoma will continue to sign away their TV rights beyond 2025, meaning they could jump ship after 2025 if they chose to do so.
Both schools are obviously national brands and would be welcomed into any Power 5 league, which is where your next round of realignment would begin.
The rules of realignment have certainly changed since the days of Miami and Virginia Tech leaving the old Big East in 2003.
That doesn’t exactly mean it’s completely out of the picture. Even the best of online streaming services can’t change that for now.
TWEET @bigjax3211
