COLUMN: Conference realignment forever changed the purpose of college sports

I was never into college sports until I got into college.

And when I was in college, I was convinced my team played in the most pure model of college sports.

The PAC-10.

The year was 2008. I was a freshman at the University of Arizona, walking to the football stadium for about seven Saturdays per fall semester. I would see the flags representing the members of the Pac-10; Arizona, Arizona State, USC, UCLA, California, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, and Washington State — two teams for each of the west coast states, including two for each side of California.

Perfectly balanced, as all things should.

That period was the time when ESPN completely took over the college scene and put every program on TV. A result of this was that mid-major programs from the MAC or Sun Belt started playing some of the games in the middle of the week because it was more exposure for the teams and more content for ESPN. Eventually, as more broadcasting rights deals between ESPN, FOX, and the conferences were being secured the start times were being dictated by them. It's why the east coast games start at noon, and the west coast games start at 10 p.m. EST.

When realignment among the conferences was occurring in the early 2010's the main motivator for transient programs was positioning. The teams that moved were to better pave a path to the BCS title game, and later the College Football Playoff. It's what led TCU into the Big 12, how Utah and Colorado turned the PAC-10 into the PAC-12, how Missouri and Texas A&M went to the SEC, and how the old Big East had an unofficial, hostile merger with the ACC.

The conference realignment of the 2020s is all about television money. The conferences that have the better broadcast rights deals are the conferences where teams are flocking to. Money from TV, even in this entertainment environment, is the be-all and end-all of collegiate capitalism. It's why Washington and Oregon followed USC and UCLA to the Big Ten. It's why Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah went to the Big 12.

"This was about national visibility for our players, being on linear TV so they can be seen, so they could have the national exposure," University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce said in a conference call with news media on Saturday. "It was about stability. It was about having a future that we could count on and build towards."

The Big Ten has 18 teams, the Big 12 will now have 14 teams, including Arizona, and the SEC has 16 teams with more potentially on the way. Safe bet that none of the conferences intends to change their names to accurately reflect the number of members.

At this point, the Big Ten should just absorb the MAC and create a three-tier relegation system similar to European soccer.

Missouri was once a part of realignment back in the previous decade. By moving into the SEC, the Tigers were set so long as they could one day compete with some of the greatest programs in college.

This moment in college sports was enough for Mizzou head coach Eli Drinkwitz to ask for retrospection as to whether or not the power players in college football took the athletes' well-being into consideration.

"We’re talking about a football decision, they based it off football," Drinkwitz said during his weekend press conference, "but what about softball and baseball (teams) who have to travel cross country? Do we ask about the cost of them?"

All these episodes of conference realignment are entirely about football. No other sport generates the revenue and thus has the pull to move a school from one conference to the next.

Drinkwitz mentioned that the No. 1 indicator or symptom or cause of mental health is lack of rest. For the athletes, that's just the cost of being part of the business. A business that they have recently been only allowed to be an adjacent factor in.

"We’re asking them to go out on their own to get NIL," Drinkwitz said. "We didn’t say we’re going to revenue share. We’re not saying they’re getting a piece of it. So that’s the thing that’s bothering me right now in this whole situation is we keep trying to limit what the student-athlete can do, but then we act on our own."

Unfortunately, it's been the point of this business for decades.

Not even SEMO was spared from realignment, even though the Ohio Valley Conference has no place in the national scene. Over the past two years, Murray State, Belmont, Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, and Austin Peay have left the conference. Now, SEMO has to establish a rivalry with Lindenwood and forge a football alliance with the Big South.

As a fan, watching Arizona take on TCU in football, Kansas in basketball, and Oklahoma State in baseball will be a thrill. But I will miss what I felt was the purity of the PAC-10.