8 years from now, there may not be many conferences left for revenue sports. I think that the elite teams in each conference are going to finally get wise and realize their true monetary worth via independent TV contracts, similar to what BYU has recently done. It's simple economics.

The PAC 12 equal distribution model will be the first to fall IMO. Later, even the uneven distribution models of the Big XII and the Big 10 will ultimately fail to satisfy the likes of rainmakers Texas, Ohio State, Michigan and Oklahoma. From there the dominos will fall until conferences have been eliminated altogether or greatly minimized in number. We may continue to see conferences in the big two sports (especially basketball) but they will be the home of the BCS cellar-dwellers and the mid-majors who have limited fanbases/national appeal, huddling together for whatever TV money warmth remains.

Just as the mtn was a harbinger of how conferences can leverage their own TV rights and was quickly followed by the Big 10 Network (and will probably be followed by still more proprietary conference networks), I think that Notre Dame (and Johnny-come-lately BYU) will ultimately convince the other powerhouses of the wisdom of greedily keeping their TV rights lucre rather than distributing it FDR-style to their conference have-nots.

Suffice it to say, we are positioned well, provided we can ride out the next few years as the BCS conference TV networks try desperately to prop up their conferences by making it difficult for independents to schedule and survive with more in-conference games and conference championship games for their teams.

Ultimately though, elite school greed will prevail and we'll see many more independent schools distributing their "product" via their own highly cost-effective internet-based networks similar to BYUTV, but with paid subscriptions. That will be great news for BYU as it will add considerably to the pool of teams we can schedule irrespective of dates during the season and will enhance our earning power as a "have" school either through added leverage in network TV contract negotiations or through BYUTV sports programming subscriptions, or both.

-----








Click my name to see the gutsiest hombres ever in blue.