MORGANTOWN — Brett Yormark’s introduction to the Big 12 as its new commissioner on Wednesday in Arlington, Texas simply proved one of two things:
He’s either a crafty poker player still holding a strong hand close to his chest, or he’s like the rest of us and has no idea what’s going to happen next.
“We are exploring all options, and we’re open for business,” Yormark said in his opening at Big 12 media day. “Optionality is good, and we’re vetting through all of them.”
He shed little light on the Big 12’s pursuit of schools from the weakened Pac-12 other than saying he’s received phone calls and that certain levels of interest would be explored.
Yormark then quickly displayed the other side of the equation.
“Sometimes the best deals are the ones that don’t get done,” he said.
In either scenario, there is a next step to be taken and then another one after that.
Maybe that step is Notre Dame joining a megaconference. Maybe it’s the College Football Playoff (CFP) expanding, or not expanding, which would be all of the other conferences’ way of sending the old one-fingered salute toward the SEC and Big Ten by voting against it.
Maybe it’s the downfall of the ACC. Maybe it’s more Pac-12 teams joining the Big Ten.
Yormark wasn’t granted a crystal ball upon joining college athletics, and no one can say for sure when or if any of these things will happen.
If we look at all of these options as a chapter to some novel, let’s cheat for a moment and skip to the end. The ending is simple: Implosion.
Maybe not in our lifetime, but history tells us it will happen at some point.
The reasoning is simple: There are no infinite amount of financial resources to sustain the enormous amount of greed on display in college athletics.
Think of it in terms of corporations on Wall Street, many of which have raked in billions of dollars, seemingly enough to last lifetimes.
Except their need for greed kept increasing, almost like it was fueling some sort of addiction.
At some point, they’ve all gone belly-up. You had the tech bubble burst in 2000 that crashed the market. The housing market crashed in 2008, crushing all of the major banks.
Sooner or later, college football, too, will go boom.
While it may seem like networks such as ESPN, FOX, NBC and CBS are making money hand over fist, they do have limits.
Those limits are being tested pretty quickly, too.
The latest numbers tell us that major U.S. cable TV and satellite TV have lost 25 million subscribers since 2012, and are projected to lose another 25 million by 2025.
If those trends continue, that’s not good news for future TV contracts for college athletics.
Expanding into the streaming markets such as Amazon or Netflix is a great idea, but someone has to realize that even in streaming, there is still only an X amount of money to be made.
So what happens then?
Let’s take a school like Texas, which will obviously reap many financial rewards upon joining the SEC in 2025.
What Texas also has is a proud alumni base with expectations beyond what most of us can fathom.
At some point the fan base’s desire to actually win something has to outgrow the size of the athletic department’s checkbook.
And if Texas isn’t winning against Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Auburn, Georgia and the likes, you have the beginning of an implosion.
If USC never wins anything as the Big Ten’s newest member, you have eventual implosion.
If Ohio State starts to slide, if Alabama starts to slide, if 7-5 is suddenly considered a good year for Oklahoma, you have implosion.
If all Michigan has to look forward to year after year is the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, there are going to be major problems.
There is no way in a megaconference world — unless the CFP expands to a 32-team playoff (not going to happen) — you can keep everyone happy.
There are going to be major schools in these megaconferences who suffer on the scoreboard, and it’s not going to take long for those fan bases to realize the idea of a megaconference wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
“Yeah, but look at all the money we’re making,” the athletic directors at those schools will say.
The fans will no longer care. Attendance will drop. Donations will drop. Chaos will ensue.
Again, maybe that doesn’t happen in our lifetime, but it will happen, because history tells us the chickens will always come home to roost where it concerns greed.
So we go back to the challenges that await Yormark and we can tell him this:
It ultimately doesn’t matter if he decides to expand the Big 12’s horizons or stand pat, because implosion happens anyway.
The only solace we can offer Yormark is he likely won’t be around to see it.
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