Something to consider is the NFL currently has antitrust exemption via the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. Who says college football couldn't end up with its own antitrust exemption? For the sake of discussion let's assume the power conferences form their own division. Given how much money the NFL is able to make with its TV deals, why wouldn't the schools consider pooling their resources together and see if they could end up with NFL-like figures? In this environment the conferences don't have to exist as we currently know them. Instead, they may evolve to exist like we know them in the NFL.
ACC - East
Big Ten - North
Pac 16 - West
SEC - South
ACC
Atlantic = AFC East
Coastal = NFC East
Big Ten
East = AFC North
West = NFC North
Pac 16
North = AFC West
South = NFC West
SEC
East = AFC South
West = NFC South
The various "conference networks" could still exist and act more like "regional networks" (i.e. MASN). People could still have access to the other regional networks plus the "national networks" (i.e. Fox, NBC, CBS, and ESPN in NFL). By pooling their resources it could mean that every school makes the same money. If every school makes the same money, then there becomes less of a reason to be affiliated with another conference. Also, it allows the 4 conferences to become regional again for all sports. So for the other 3 conferences, they could look like this:
ACC
Atlantic: BC, Pitt, WVU, VT, Wake, NC State, Clemson, and Miami
Coastal: Syracuse, Penn St, UMD, UVA, Duke, UNC, GT, and FSU
Big Ten
East: Ohio St, Mich, Mich St, Notre Dame, Indiana, Purdue, Ill, NW
West: Wisc, Minn, Iowa, Iowa St, Mizzou, Neb, Kan, and K-State
Pac 16
East: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Arizona St, and 4 more schools
West: Original Pac 8
For L'ville and Rutgers, I am not entirely sure which region they will end up in. I say that because I am not sure the "divisions" in each region would want to go beyond 8 members for scheduling purposes. Likewise, I am assuming that all the divisions in all 4 regions would have the same number of teams to not put a region at a competitive advantage or disadvantage.
Since there is a lack of quality programs in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, then Neb and the 2 KS schools could end up in the Pac 16 with BYU being the 4th school. It would allow the 2 IL schools to be placed back in the West plus 1 other school (either Purdue or a new addition). L'ville and Cincy could then take the IL school places or possibly Penn St and Rutgers. Depending on who ends up being the 8th school in the West, Penn St could remain in the Big Ten East. The ACC would then just back fill its vacant spots with whomever is left in the candidate pool (i.e. L'ville, Cincy, Memphis, UConn, Temple, etc).
A potential byproduct of all this is the conferences could view these athletic conferences as what they are; purely athletic and having no impact on academics. The schools could then pursue forming "academic conferences" to fulfill those needs.
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