DEAR PRESIDENT Sullivan:
I am a graduate of the Law School. This fall, one of my sons enrolled in the College, following in the footsteps of his mother, who graduated from the Architecture School and resided on the Lawn. My oldest son is a senior at Duke and was a member of the track team for three years. Thus, my family has strong ties both to the University and the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Several years ago I left the legal profession to become a freelance sports journalist. I write features and commentary, and have written extensively on issues in college football. I write today to express my profound distress concerning the conference realignment frenzy in college football. This has been an issue for several years, but suddenly sparked by the imminent departure of Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the Big East to the ACC it seems to be spiraling out of control. More troubling is the fact that there seems to be no credible authority either at the university, conference or NCAA level capable of exercising any control of realignment and preserving the integrity and traditions of college football.
I urge you to read Pete Thamel's recent article in The New York Times, "With Big Paydays at Stake, College Teams Scramble for a Spot," which provides a cogent review of the realignment movement that is driven by the insatiable desire for even more television revenue, as well as universities' fear that they might be left behind as relative paupers if they do not jump ship and cut the best deal they can.
Athletic conferences such as the ACC, the SEC, the Big Ten, the Pac-12, the Big 12 and the Big East have formed the skeleton of college football for a long time. Yet now, without consideration of broader implications for academic, athletic and geographic compatibility, universities are, in Thamel's words, "tossing aside longtime rivalries, geographic sensibilities, and many of the quaint notions ascribed to amateur athletics in an attempt to cash in on billion-dollar television deals." Perhaps former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese best summed up the realignment phenomenon: "All these moves are about football and money and greed. It just seems that things such as integrity and loyalty and congeniality are gone. And our problem is quite simple. We have no one in charge. What we have are little fiefdoms who have conference names and we're living in a society where it's almost like it's Wall Street. Greed is good and I'm Gordon Gecko."
This is not simply another diatribe on the corruption of major college athletics by the pursuit of revenue. That horse left the barn long ago. We cannot expect universities, especially in this time of financial hardship, to blind themselves to the revenue potential of major college football and basketball. But what has become lost in the current realignment frenzy is a critical perspective on the essence of college football, and the intangible factors that bring millions of people to stadiums - and their television sets - each weekend. Ask almost any college football fan why he loves the game, and inevitably he will talk about traditional in-state and conference rivalries. In a recent poll, 76 percent of college football fans opposed the creation of mega-conferences because they will destroy many such rivalries.
Perhaps I am an incorrigible traditionalist, but I fondly recall the days when the ACC had eight teams, each team played every other team in its conference and the school with the best conference record was the champion. Now we have a 12-team conference with two divisions, which precludes many intra-conference match-ups but, of course, provides a lucrative championship game.
Traditional conference rivalries will be further diluted if the ACC grows to 16 teams, which seems likely. Will the ACC's core fan base in the Southeast be excited about games against Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Connecticut? And, more importantly, will the fans in the remnants of the Big East - if it survives - be watching any football once the marquis members have fled for more lucrative pastures?
Moreover, President Sullivan, let us not lose sight of the fact that there are many sports other than men's football and basketball. How will realignment affect all the student-athletes competing in minor sports who, as the NCAA likes to tell us, "are going pro in something other than sports?" Maybe there is plenty of money in the football budget to fly the Oklahoma football team to the West Coast ten times a year, but what about the baseball team, the volleyball team or the swimming team? And, the last I checked, it is a long way from Syracuse to Miami. Has anyone even considered such ramifications?
Most importantly, as Texas football coach Mack Brown pointed out, how will realignment affect the players and their families? It is one thing for families to travel across one geographical region to watch their sons play football, but another if a Texas high school player is recruited by the Longhorns and most of the games are on the West Coast. This is not to mention the legions of loyal fans accustomed to traveling to watch their teams play on the road. As Brown warned, if we lose sight of the best interests of the players, we may well lose the game.
In addition to threatening to shred the fabric of college football as we know it, the conference realignment frenzy might in fact prove to be financially shortsighted. I suspect that, if the major college football universe devolves to essentially four mega-conferences - which is the way things are headed - comprised of teams with no shared historic, academic or geographical connections, interest in the game will wane. Even if universities cannot comprehend - or wish to ignore - all of the distressing implications of realignment, surely they should be able to understand that less fan interest ultimately will translate to less revenue. It might not be an overstatement to suggest that the conference realignment frenzy could portend the demise of the goose that is laying the golden eggs.
President Sullivan, it is the province of university presidents to exercise control of all aspects of their schools' affairs and to make decisions that are in the best interests of the conferences of which they are members, both for the short- and the long-term. Unfortunately, there appears to be a serious leadership vacuum that is permitting the realignment frenzy to go unchecked, without any consideration of the many implications. As Princeton Athletic Director Gary Walters lamented: "What is lost in all of this is the presidents - the very people tasked with enforcing the NCAA's and the Knight Commission's principle of 'presidential control' of college athletics - have proven to all that they are incapable of fulfilling their mandate. The hypocrisy is almost tangible."
Two years ago, when legislation was introduced that would have mandated a playoff system in college football in place of the current Bowl Championship Series system, I roundly criticized the idea. Not that I am a fan of the BCS system; I just thought the federal government had no business interjecting itself into the management of college football. Given the inability of college presidents, conference commissioners or the NCAA to exercise any control of this realignment frenzy which threatens the integrity of college football, I am rethinking my position on federal intervention - as, apparently, are some members of Congress.
President Sullivan, it may be too late to urge you and your fellow university presidents to exercise control of what is happening with conference realignment in college football. Fear and the never-ending quest for revenue are driving decisions. This is unfortunate. One day, once the dust settles and we live in a radically different college football universe bereft of traditional regional alignments and rivalries, we might well mourn the loss of "the good ole days" and wonder how we got to that point. The answer, of course, is quite evident: putting short-term financial considerations ahead of fundamental values, principles and traditions. And it will be too late to turn back.
Sincerely,
Jack Ross
Jack Ross is a graduate of the Law School, class of 1982.
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