Rivalry games and why not playing them is bad business, literally

The latest in conference realignment talk -- which is a long way from finishing its spin cycle -- centers around Missouri and their not-so-subtle efforts to get into the SEC. This news comes just days after the Big 12 seemingly had created stability in a league on shaky legs by agreeing to pooling the money made off of Tier I and Tier II media rights and through a six-year grant of rights to the conference.

As you might imagine, Kansas head coach Bill Self was less than thrilled with this news, and I don't blame him one bit. He's the head coach of one of the biggest, most popular and most influential basketball programs in the country at Kansas, but since his school is lacking in football success and tradition, most projections of the eventuality of super-conferences have the Jayhawks on the outside looking in. Missouri jumping ship to the SEC, thus further weakening the Big 12, would make that inevitability one step closer.


"To me it's a great rivalry, one of the best in college basketball without question, but I don't think I would be interested in having a once a year game like I did when I was at Illinois, playing Missouri," Self told the Journal-World on Tuesday night.

"I could probably change my mind (but) trust me, we would have no trouble finding another non-league game to play. I love the rivalry. Playing home and home in the league is great and all those things ... (but) I can't imagine, why would we continue playing? If they choose to be somewhere other than with us and with the other schools that they’ve been a part of and could jeopardize the future of the other schools ... I'm not going to make a commitment now that we'd ever play again. I'm not saying we won't. I'm certainly not going to pretend that we would."

I strongly suggest you click and read through that link if you haven't already. Self is pissed, and if that's him holding back in the media, I'd hate to be the guy that committed four turnovers in the first half during one of his halftime lectures.

Now, it goes without saying that the worst part of this process of conference expansion is the death of rivalries, and The Border War is one of the best there is. It has been played uninterrupted since 1907, with Kansas leading the series 171-94. But this rivalry isn't just a case of two teams having played a lot of games over the years or a number of great games in recent seasons. And this isn't a case of one school simply not liking the other school.

The rivalry between the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri stems from the rivalry between the state of Kansas and the state of Missouri, which dates all the way back to before the Civil War. When our country was being settled and people were starting to spread out west, tensions rose between the two over the issue of slavery -- Missouri was a slave state while Kansas was a free state. The conflict turned bloody, particularly during the War.


Games between the two schools are always going to be heated. It doesn't matter if the teams involved are in a position to compete for a league title, because a .500 season can be defined with a win in the Border War. That's what a true rivalry is all about.

And taking that away from the fans because one school or one coach is butthurt over their rival's luck in landing a spot at the cool kid's table is not only a shame, but it would be dumb and shortsighted.

I'm calling out Bill Self here because he is the guy whose quotes made the rounds on the blogs this afternoon, but the same can be said for everyone on in the athletic departments and coaching staffs at schools like Texas and Texas A&M, or Syracuse and Georgetown, or Pitt and West Virginia.

Conference realignment has only stoked the flames of each of the four rivalries I've mentioned in this post. Georgetown fans are pissed that their program, which was a major reason that Big East basketball became the Big East basketball that we know and love today, is going to eventually be relegated to playing in a Catholic League that's on par with the Atlantic 10. Pitt and Syracuse fans are pissed their team is getting blamed for the death of the Big East when they simply made a move that everyone else would have made. West "f*cking" Virginia fans are pissed that Pitt was able to find a comfortable landing spot while they are getting denied by the SEC and the ACC. Texas A&M fans are pissed about the Longhorn Network while Texas fans are pissed Aggie fans are pissed about the Longhorn Network.

And all of that gets thrown on top of the hatred that already exists between the two schools. Think about the anticipation that would lead up to those games if they are only played once every season. Think about how many tickets would be sold. Think about how many folks would watch the games at home. Think about how many gimmicky t-shirts and bumper stickers and hats and posters can be sold.

This is supposed to be all about money, right? We are destroying the fiber of our collegiate athletics system because these schools are trying to make a quick buck, amirite?

So why would they pass up on a marketing opportunity like this? Because they are are pissed at each other? Because the opposite sides of the rivalry is holding a grudge against one another?

If people were smart, they would capitalize here, turning anger into a more intense rivalry, and those rivalry games into a more profitable event.

But if people were smart, we probably wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
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Conference realignment isn't over, its just on pause

If you follow the right people on twitter, than the last four or five days have been wild.

With every article that is published, every source that is quoted, and every theory that is floated comes a wave of speculation, analysis, and rumor-mongering. And its non-stop. Expansionocalypse is moving so quickly that in a matter of hours, the entire landscape changes. Trying to keep up to date is utterly exhausting.

The good news, however, is that late on Tuesday night, it looks like we've reached a resting point. For starters, the Pac-12 announced that they would not be expanding.

"After careful review we have determined that it is in the best interests of our member institutions, student-athletes and fans to remain a 12-team conference," Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement. "While we have great respect for all of the institutions that have contacted us, and certain expansion proposals were financially attractive, we have a strong conference structure and culture of equality* that we are committed to preserve. With new landmark TV agreements and plans to launch our innovative television networks, we are going to focus solely on these great assets, our strong heritage and the bright future in front of us."


(*Culture of equality, huh? Was that a cheap shot at Texas and the Longhorn Network? Methinks that's a yes.)

There's more. The Big East's seven football schools met and made a commitment to the conference while deciding to actively pursue replacements for the departed Pitt and Syracuse.

"Our membership met this evening," the Big East said in a statement, "and we are committed as a conference to recruit top level BCS caliber institutions with strong athletic and academic histories and traditions. We have been approached by a number of such institutions and will pursue all of our options to make the Big East Conference stronger than it has ever been in both basketball and football."


The reason I call this a resting point as opposed to a stopping point is that there are still decisions to be made. First and foremost, the SEC needs a 14th. As of Tuesday afternoon, most believed that Missouri was the SEC's top target after West Virginia had their application denied. But Missouri still wants the Big 12 to work out, so with the Pac-12's decision to stay at 12 teams, Missouri is forced into a holding pattern. They don't want to be responsible for the downfall of the conference and they want a piece of Texas A&M's exit fee while avoiding having to pay the fee themselves.

Second of all, both the Big 12 and the Big East have to find some level of stability. Its no secret that UConn wants out, and that notion was reinforced on Tuesday when a source informed the AP that the Huskies still want to follow Syracuse and Pitt to the ACC. Rutgers may also accept an invite from the ACC if the league wants to go to 16 schools, while Notre Dame to the ACC was also floated today. And even if the league somehow manages to keep all seven football playing members on board, they will still need to add at least one football-playing member to retain FBS status.

What does the Big 12 do to promote stability? Can Texas and Oklahoma ever learn to get along? With schools like Baylor and Iowa State be ok with the money Texas brings in from the Longhorn Network and unequal revenue sharing? Will the conference add BYU? What about snagging TCU from the Big East? Will anyone actually want to submit themselves to this kind of squabbling, in-fighting and sibling rivalry?

This is far from over.

And even if we reach a stale-mate this fall, where the team's shifting leagues are forced into a holding pattern, will that last? Is there enough trust between league presidents and conference commissioners to prevent another round expansionocalypse next year? Or next month? Or tomorrow?

I doubt it.
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With conference realignment, just be honest with us

I'm not as angry about conference realignment as some folks are.

Yes, it sucks that some of the best traditions in the collegiate ranks -- the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry, the Georgetown-Syracuse rivalry, the Big East Tournament, possibly the NCAA Tournament -- will vanish in the coming years, but I'm less pissed off than I am accepting of our fate. We've known that the end game of the shifting of the tectonic plates would be four superconferences for almost two years now. If we can make it through without losing the NCAA Tournament to the secession of those four conferences, than I think that everyone -- even the folks at the Baylor's and the Villanova's and the Louisville's of the world -- can say that this round of realignment wasn't too bad.

What does piss me off, however -- and where I agree with both Dodd and Doyel, the scribes of the two articles linked above -- is the constant lies and efforts to save face by claiming that these changes were precipitated by anything other than money.

The latest comes from Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor: "I would say that our concerns are really forward looking with respect to the ACC. The issues for us is that we have increasingly strong Olympic sports across the board, women sports -- the ACC is a wonderful match for that for us. And we really are obviously very excited about that."


Get the fuggoutta here. Seriously. Get the fuggout.

Olympic Sports? Women's sports?

Nancy -- can I call you Nancy? -- you don't care about the success of the Olympic Sports or your women's teams. Nothing about your move to the ACC has anything to do with how well your women's volleyball team will do taking mid-week trips to Miami and Tallahassee, or how well your shotputters stack up against the rosters of North Carolina and Duke. Nancy, we know this. And we don't believe the garbage you are spewing. Just be honest with us. We can handle Syracuse making a move for more money and status because its something we all would have done.*

(*For anyone that disagrees with that last statement, let me ask you a question: do you drive a Prius? Why not? Would you be willing to take public transportation or ride a bike to work? Again, why not? Is it a status thing? A comfort thing? Living further away from work, driving distance, saves you some money? If you do drive a pick-up or a mercedes, than you aren't doing your part to try and stave off global warming, which is a much bigger deal than anything that could possibly happen in college sports. But you criticize schools for choosing comfort and status when switching conferences while ignoring the greater good of college sports? Sounds hypocritical to me.)

Its mind-boggling to me that Cantor can claim that non-revenue sports are what drove this decision. Syracuse is one of the few schools where the basketball program is actually more profitable than the football program. According to a study done by the website The Business of College Sports, the Syracuse basketball team generated $18,309,470 in revenue with a profit of $10,223,094. That ranks them as the 41st most profitable team -- including football and basketball -- in the country and the sixth highest basketball program. I guess it pays to play in a place that can hold 34,000 people and be the most popular sports team in New York once you get outside of Westchester.

The Syracuse football program, on the other hand, generated just $3,851,951 in profits -- less than Penn State's basketball team -- in 2009-2010.

Digest that for a second. Syracuse basketball is the sixth most profitable program in the sport. They are (were?) a founding member of the best basketball conference in the country. Their iconic, bespectacled and balding head coach and his infamous battles with John Thompson Jr's Hoya Paranoia teams is the stuff of legend, a rivalry that helped build the foundation of what the Big East became.


And all of that is getting tossed to the curb with the decision to move to the ACC.

I'm not telling you this to ridicule Syracuse for their choice. Like I said, its a decision that few of us will be able to criticize without being hypocritical.

What I'm trying to say is that the decision to move to the ACC is being done without regard for the Syracuse basketball program, its history, its tradition and its rivalries. If the people making these decisions are ignoring the cost on their school's -- and their region's -- most popular sports teams to chase more profit from football, what makes you think that the fate of a single non-revenue sport had any influence whatsoever?

What realignment has taught us is that people, in the end, just don't care enough about college basketball.

But Cantor expects us to believe they care enough about Women's Golf to set the demise of the Big East in motion?

Get the fuggoutta here, Nancy.
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I'll miss the Big East, but college basketball will live on

Let's face it: the Big East as we know it is done. Its over. No more Big Monday, no more Syracuse-Georgetown home-and-home's, no more five-day runs through the Big East Tournament.

And that sucks.

People that don't live in the Northeast don't truly understand what Big East basketball was to us. We may not have tailgated as hard, we may not have been quite as delusional as fans, we certainly didn't pack 100,000 people into the arenas to see the games, but the passion and the love affair with the sport ran just as deep as SEC football in the south. Big East basketball was Lou Carnesecca and John Thompson, Jr, Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim. It was Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin to Kerry Kittles and Ray Allen to Gerry McNamara and Kemba Walker, and every hero in between.

The Big East was everything that was right about college basketball. But the writing was on the wall -- the Big East simply thrived in the wrong sport.


With so many of the founding members of the Big East playing football below the Big East level -- Villanova, Georgetown, St. John's, Providence -- it was only a matter of time before someone made the move. Many believed that Syracuse and Pitt were eventually going to be headed to the Big Ten. The surprise of this tweet on Friday night from Pete Thamel wasn't that the Big East had two members defecting, its that those members were defecting to the ACC.*

(*Frankly, we shouldn't be surprised. With the lack of football strength in the Big East, it became the ACCDL [ACC Developmental League, thank you very much] over the past six years. The last five teams that the conference has added -- Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Syracuse, and Pitt -- all came from the Big East.)

As disappointing as this move is for Big East hoops fans, college basketball will live on. Hell, it may end up being better. If the rumors are true and UConn does follow Syracuse and Pitt into the ACC, that conference immediately becomes the most powerful in the country. Think about this -- since Michigan State's national title in 2000, eight of the last 11 national champions will be playing in the ACC, and that doesn't including UConn's title in 1999. You don't think it will be fun to see North Carolina and Duke have to do battle with UConn, Syracuse and Pitt every single season? If the powers that be opt to bring in a school like Louisville or West Virginia instead of Rutgers**, the league will be even stronger.

(**I seriously don't understand the love-fest with Rutgers. They stink at football, they have never been good at basketball [although Mike Rice seems to have that trending towards change], and no one in the New York market cares about them.)

I'm not naive. I know that conference alignment in college sports in a fluid thing. These shifts happen, and for some schools and leagues its for the better. For the Villanova's and the Georgetown's and the rest of the Big East (ahem, TCU), its for the worse.

But I'm also sentimental and nostalgic.

I'll miss the Big East Tournament and Big Mondays. I'll always fondly remember the rivalry between Syracuse and Georgetown. I'll never forget moments like DeJuan Blair's body-slam of Hasheem Thabeet in 2009; or Ray Allen's prayer to beat Georgetown in the 1996 Big East Tournament; or the late-game heroics of Gerry McNamara in the 2006 Big East Tournament; or, simply, the sixth-overtime.

Most of all, I'll miss those late-nights in the Garden. Every college basketball fan has to have the Big East Tournament on their bucket list.

Its an unbelievable experience.

And it may come to an end, as we know it, in March.
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