Today the major college football championship is run by the BCS or Bowl Championship Series. This is currently 5 bowl games that guarentee payment - Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Orarnge, and BCS Championship game. The conferences are considered BCS schools are the Big Ten, Pac 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, and Big East. Each guarenteed conference in the BCS gets $17 million to distribute to however they see fit. The other 4 slots are give to the highest rated schools according to the BCS rankings at the end of the year. These schools share $4.5 million each.
A few years ago the top 3 teams (Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College) left the Big East to join the ACC and were replaced with Louisville, Connecticut, and South Florida. At the time there was murmuring that the Big East would lose their automatic entrant status but nothing was done. The truth of the matter is there is a huge gap between the schools in the Big East and the rest of the BCS schools. In fact, you could make a pretty good argument that the Mountain West are as good as the Big East. Look at last year's teams - Cincinnati (3) vs TCU(4)? Pittburgh (17) vs Brigham Young (14)? West Virginia (16) vs Utah (23)? At worst you can say these teams are even and with Boise State/Fresno State/Hawaii's recent success the WAC isn't far behind. Don't misunderstand me ... I think the way the system is set up these teams are overrated vs schools that have to play a SEC or the Big Ten conference schedule. If you look at the current bowl payout Big East get $17 million to split between their 8 teams while the SEC/ACC/Big12 have 12, the Big Ten 11, and the Pac10 10. That means each of the teams in these conferences get a smaller share of BCS revenues than a Big East school and and you can believe that the "Big 5" Conferences know this. I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed but I think the saving grace for the Big East has been the fact that political pressure has been building to give non-BCS conferences conferences a better shot at the BCS. If they eliminated the Big East, there would have been shouts not only on the east coast but from Texas to Idaho to California. In other words, it wasn't a politically expedient thing to do.
There is a limited amount of revenue available for college football in the United States. Revunue is mainly generated through ticket sales and television and it really can't be argued that the members of the "Big 5" are the drivers. You have to believe that behind closed doors these conferences are steaming about the intrusion for money. I think it is entirely plausible that the Big Ten and Pac 10 realize that if they add teams to bring their number to 12 that this will cause a reorganization in college football. That will more than likely mean the end of at least 1 conference and a reorganization of some bowl agreements. As athletic program costs continue to rise this could mean even more consolidation.
I am starting to believe that the Big Ten could add multiple teams just so they can tie down more TV markets and something like a Rutgers, Syracuse, Missouri, Nebraska, Pittsburgh addition isn't totally out of the realm of possibilities. The Pac 10 has a bit of a different problem as there there aren't any schools close by but if they are looking for TV markets then Utah (Salt Lake City) and Colorado (Denver) would be fine additions. This is probably the most extreme case but what would happen if this occurred?
Under this scenario the Big 12 would lose 3 schools, the Big East 3 schools, and the Mountain West 1 school. That would leave each conference with 9, 5, and 8 teams respectively. The first wildcard is Texas. The Big 12 could add 3 schools from the likes of TCU, SMU, Rice, New Mexico, or New Mexico State but the question mark is Texas. They could stick around and they/Oklahoma could dominate this weakened conference or bolt for a tougher conference. The Big East would cease to exist and be forced to join with Conference USA. The Mountain West wouldn't neccesarily have to do anything but you have to believe they would talk to the WAC especially if the Big 12 took a few teams from either.
The bottom line would be powerhouse conferences in the Big Ten, SEC, and Pac12 with the ACC close behind. The Big 12 would be a weak sister and it would be interesting to see how long the other conferences were willing to support this conference as it would now be in a situiation similar to the Big East today. It certainly isn't unimaginable that the SEC would move a bit to the West to get Texas/Oklahoma in this scenario. No matter what the money would be firmly in the hands of few schools and college football would be changed forever.
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