Imagine for a moment that money didn’t exist.
Society wouldn’t function for a multitude of reasons, but for this exercise, pretend that money wasn’t a driving force in college athletics. It wouldn’t look nearly the same as it does today.
There probably would be a lot more sports offered at the varsity level with rosters bigger than ever. Mid-major football teams would probably have little motivation to go and get curb stomped by Alabama by 55 points in September. Heck, conferences probably wouldn’t exist.
So when the bombshell dropped in summer 2021 that Texas and Oklahoma would be leaving the Big 12 to join the SEC, the first domino also fell. The Big Ten was left with no choice but to start looking at expansion. Otherwise, the conference risked taking a backstep to the SEC, the other power five mothership.
Handfuls of schools were thrown around as ideas that could potentially make the change into the Big Ten. Was the Big 12 a free-for–all after losing its two powerhouse schools? What about Notre Dame who is already in the Big Ten for ice hockey? Schools like Pitt and West Virginia geographically made sense, but it seemed unlikely they would leave the ACC.
A couple months later when Michigan State named Alan Haller its new athletic director, a closed roundtable was held with him and reporters to gain an idea of Haller’s vision of MSU athletics. I was there. Of the many aspirations he discussed, one thing in particular caught my attention: his idea that football programs would soon start to schedule more non-conference games versus power five opponents.
At the time, I didn’t think much of it. Sure, MSU might play two non-conference games against power five opponents versus the traditional one. But, I was wrong. I didn’t think that Haller was perhaps hinting at the possibility of the conference adding influential schools such as USC and UCLA.
Nobody saw it coming and nobody knew how to feel about it right away. But, everyone knew why this was happening: money. That’s because there are not many other logical reasons. Nearly five months later after UCLA and USC announced they would be joining the Big Ten as soon as 2024, that hasn’t changed.
There is no denying that the exponential leap the Big Ten makes by adding USC and UCLA to the conference. Most of it ties back to football, the enormous moneymaker for conferences. USC and UCLA have a stranglehold on Los Angeles, the second largest media market in the country.
It will be extraordinary to see Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State regularly take on USC and UCLA – two programs that have historically been in the upper echelon of college football. Even USC traveling to Evanston to take on Northwestern in mid-November offers some intrigue.
But what about everyone else? What about the other athletes who make up the majority of the student-athlete body?
“Bold,” “forward thinking” and “innovative” were words used by Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren this summer at Big Ten Football Media Days. One word he forgot: risk.
As a current student at MSU who also works two jobs, I can vouch that time management is extremely difficult, especially when you also want to enjoy the social experiences college has to offer. For the large majority of Division I athletes, playing a sport professionally after college is highly unlikely. That means finding a career/job relating to the student's major is the reality.
But as someone who also misses class somewhat frequently due to those two jobs that help pay for my college, it is not easy to play catchup. Being in class is important, and also a slippery slope. Assignments, quizzes and exams begin to pile up and all of a sudden you aren’t even learning anything – the reason why you are going to college in the first place.
Sure, the Michigan State softball team maybe had a thrilling win at UCLA on a Thursday night, but how much education did the players miss out on? And what about the USC and UCLA athletes that have to make the trip across the coast for just about every single road matchup?
Luckily, Arizona State was a guinea pig for this experiment. During the COVID impacted 2020-21 season the ASU men’s ice hockey team temporarily joined the Big Ten, competing in all 26 games on the road in the midwest with zero home games. Contrary to popular belief, the Sun Devils have a phenomenal hockey program. In the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, Arizona State produced a 21-13-1 and a 22-11-3 record respectively. Then in the 2020-21 COVID season, ASU dipped all the way to a 7-16-3 record before rebounding at 17-17-1 last year.
That’s no coincidence.
What’s going to be more impactful in the future: a win or two on the west coast or the cumulative days missed in class?
I’m no student-athlete so I can’t answer that, but I do know that life after college is more important than that diploma. As a secondary graphic design minor, I would’ve never learned gestalt or how to use an X-Acto knife had I been making frequent trips from coast to coast.
And I don’t think an athlete would’ve learned it either.
Although it can vary from school to school, football, men’s and women’s basketball and men’s ice hockey are the main revenue drivers for athletic departments. Coming with that are special privileges – perhaps a debate for another time. Those athletes have the pleasure of chartered flights to many road games.