Money, football and television contracts; that is all the NCAA conference commissioners and athletic directors seem to care about.
The conference commissioners and athletic directors do not seem to care about the student-athletes, who will be affected by the conference realignments more than anyone.
When discussion of realignment began a little over a year ago, the concern of the student-athletes never crossed my mind.
The University of Nebraska and the University of Colorado were the first schools to switch conferences when they bolted from the Big 12 for the Big 10 and Pac-12, respectively.
Thankfully for the student-athletes of Nebraska and Colorado, most of the road trips are not much longer, so the number of classes missed should not change.
The fact that they switched conferences because of football, money and a television network without considering the student-athletes bothers me, but the University of Texas-Austin is to blame for its Longhorn Television Network.
The contract for the network consists of a 20-year, $300 million deal with ESPN, and will broadcast Texas sports around the clock. The Longhorn Network completely undermined the Big 12 Network to give Texas more revenue, especially from football. It was Texas that spearheaded the idea that money, football and television contracts were all that mattered.
Conference realignments will also take away some rivalry games and possibly keep some fans from traveling to road games that are farther away.
I am encouraged that the Pac-12 and Big 12 seem to be content with having a maximum of 12 teams, but I hope the other conferences will not try to tear apart the rest of the Big East to make super-conferences.
With schools like Texas Christian University that are still planning to move to the Big East, there could be student-athletes having to miss more classes due to traveling. There are some student-athletes that will have to get used to the hectic traveling schedule for when they play professionally, but most of them won’t play sports professionally.
During the 2011 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, there was a slogan of a commercial that has stuck with me. It ends by saying, ‘There are over 400,000 NCAA student-athletes and most of us will go pro in something other than sports.’
It is time for the NCAA to stand up for its student-athletes instead of allowing its athletic directors and conference commissioners to ruin the academic schedule of student-athletes.