The all-expansion Mailbag (cont.)

Nobody seems to care how these potential realignments will affect college basketball. When a school like Kansas is an afterthought, and the Big East is facing possible defections, it's clear that football and football only is driving all of this. Could it be because basketball has a legitimate, playoff-based national championship instead of the ridiculous BCS system? Conference alignments aren't nearly as important when a rational championship figures into the equation.
-- Derek Anderson, Washington D.C.

There's definitely truth to that. BCS-conference schools clearly exert far more control in football than in basketball, where the NCAA-controlled tournament is king. The value of BCS affiliation, both financially and from a perception standpoint, is undeniable at this point, and much of the shuffling revolves around that status.

But at the end of the day, football's regular season is infinitely more valuable than basketball's --- the stadiums are vastly bigger and TV ratings are much higher. Therefore, football television contracts drive expansion. A good illustration of this comes from the SEC, which, in releasing its aforementioned 2009-10 revenue data, was kind enough to provide an exact breakdown of the sources. Football television accounted for $109.5 million, with another $26.5 million coming from bowls and $14.5 million from the SEC title game. By comparison, basketball TV accounted for $30 million, "NCAA championships" $23.5 million and the SEC basketball tournament $5 million.

Granted, the SEC is indisputably a football conference first, and we'd probably see less of a disparity in the ACC or Big East -- but not in the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-10. These leagues make as much money off the BCS as they do the NCAA tournament, and even those figures are puny compared to their massive (or potentially massive) football TV deals.

WINN: In expansion game, who's looking out for Kansas, K-State hoops?

MWC not inviting BOISE ... WHY? I know they say they are waiting to see how everything shakes up, but I feel the MWC should snatch up Boise before they lose TCU or Utah to expansion. The MWC should be the one who invites and start the first "domino" of expansion. No one else is inviting Boise or talking about them ... so get them.
-- Jeff Hostetler, Gainesville, Fla.

I hear you. Boise looked like a slam-dunk done deal late last week for that very reason. However, the Mountain West presidents read the same articles we do. This time last week they were operating under the premise that the Big 12 might lose one or two teams and therefore come after theirs. By the time they got to Wyoming on Sunday, there was suddenly the possibility of there being no Big 12, that schools like Kansas and K-State might become free-agents and that their league might soon find itself in a position of power.

Therefore, it's now a no-brainer to at least wait a week and see if anything dramatic happens. Boise State is in the bag whether the MWC invites it this week or two weeks from now. The only drop-dead date is July 1, the deadline by which the Broncos must join to begin play in 2011 and count toward BCS auto-qualification. And by all indications, commissioner Craig Thompson remains strongly in favor of adding Boise. The only question now is whether the Broncos come alone or as part of a bigger package.

Hi Stewart. Outside of the teams in danger of being left behind in the Big 12 (like Kansas), who are the biggest programs out there at risk of being left without a chair with the big boys when the music stops playing?
-- Bennett Aikin, Pittsburgh

It depends on how far the dominos fall, but one school with genuine reason for concern is West Virginia. The Mountaineers boast arguably the strongest football program in the Big East, yet if the Big Ten and/or ACC make a run at the Big East, West Virginia won't likely be one of their targets due to the state's small population and the school's academic reputation*. I'm not sure where the Mountaineers would land if, say, Rutgers, Syracuse and Pittsburgh went elsewhere, but it probably would not be a current BCS conference. Ditto Cincinnati and possibly USF and Louisville.

*-- Note: An unfortunate byproduct of discussing expansion is that "academics" is such a nebulous category. Whenever I write that a school like West Virginia might be discounted for academic reasons, I invariably get a slew of nasty e-mails from alums of that school. Please know, I am NOT an authority on universities' academic credentials. I know plenty of perfectly successful people with degrees from West Virginia, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State and anyone else that's been mentioned in this vein. I'm merely passing along very real perceptions that, fairly or unfairly, exist within the industry. Thank you kindly for your understanding.

And now, to the most important question I received all week.

From all the e-mail you are receiving and discussions you are having with fans and colleagues, what is the general consensus (among fans, not institutions) regarding these possible expansions/mega-conferences?
-- Garth Hammer, New York

It's a very interesting time. There's no question fans are consumed by this topic right now. I think most are generally fascinated by it (as they have been for as long as I've covered the sport) and love hypothesizing the various possibilities -- like college football's very own hot stove or trade deadline. Yet at the same time, I don't sense much collective "excitement" about realignment, even from fans of the teams expected to benefit. If anything, I'd say most people fall somewhere between "intrigued" and "concerned," with a noteworthy contingent that seems borderline-disgusted by it all.

My two cents: No college administrator could possibly tell me with a straight face that 16-team super-conferences, severed rivalries and politicians having to grovel to protect their states' programs is a good thing for college football. The sport is built on tradition, but tradition clearly is not the top priority for many parties right now. They'll undoubtedly tell you how all that extra television money and exposure will ultimately benefit their "student-athletes" (more so those in the sports being funded by football than in football itself), or how excited they are to be aligning themselves with such academically renowned peers, but the average fan doesn't care. He or she just wants the Ohio State-Michigan game to still matter.

But college football has undergone an unbelievable amount of change over the past 15-20 years. If someone had told you in 1990 that Penn State would join the Big Ten, the Southwest Conference would crumble, the Rose Bowl would start occasionally hosting non-Big Ten and Pac-10 teams, the amount of bowl games would more than double and 6-6 teams would be eligible, the Orange Bowl would be played on Jan. 5, shoe companies would alter schools' uniforms beyond the point of recognition, coaches would make $5 million and most major teams would play one or two games per year against I-AA foes ... well, you would probably have been horrified. And that's before even bringing up the BCS.

And yet, the sport has never been more popular.

So something tells me that whatever ultimately results from all of this -- no matter how clunky, no matter how blatant a money-grab, no matter how many fans are initially resistant, disappointed and/or ticked off -- the new world order will eventually seem normal, much like everything I just listed above. As long as there are still brats to be had in the parking lot and hits to be seen on the field, people will still crave college football. The landscape is ever-changing, but the game remains the same.