"Significance and Ramifications of Conference Realignment in College Athletics"

From Sports Networker

Review by Eric Southard in KIN 332

One of the most talked about topics going on in collegiate athletics today is conference realignment. Conference realignment has been going on for over twenty years, but not until recently has it been such a controversial topic. The past five years or so, collegiate athletics has been filled with universities and colleges exiting and entering conferences. The idea of conference realignment has a big impact on the Sports Marketing Industry in many ways. In the article, “Significance and Ramifications of Conference Realignment in College Athletics”, Porsche Farr focused on three implications conference realignment has on the Sports Marketing Industry. Those three implications Farr mentioned were the loss of identity for conferences, the rivalries between schools and the financial impact involved. 

The loss of conference identity affects sports marketing in that fans and players associate certain schools with certain conferences. One conference that is in shambles today is the Big East Conference. The Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament, held at Madison Square Garden, is one of the most exciting and recognizable events in all of sports. For years, this tournament has consisted of power basketball programs such as Syracuse, Louisville, and Pittsburgh. However, as of 2014, the Big East will no longer have these three schools, as they will join the Atlantic Coast Conference. Marketing wise, this hurts the Big East Conference majorly because Louisville, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse consist of some of the conference’s biggest fan markets. The second implication conference realignment has on sports marketing is that it causes rivalries to be ruined, rivalries which date back as far as the 1800s. For instance, the “Backyard Brawl”, one of the most famous college football rivalries between Pittsburgh and West Virginia University, was ended in 2011 due to West Virginia leaving the Big East and joining the Big 12. Another example is “The Missouri-Kansas Border War” rivalry which dates back to the 1890s. This rivalry ended in 2012 when Missouri left the Big 12 for the South Eastern Conference. Rivalries are used as great marketing tools for the fans, as well as for the players. The rivalry game is usually the biggest game of the year, and as a marketer, you want your product to be known and seen by all the fans. Coaches use rivalries to market and recruit players to come to their university. With the loss of these traditional rivalries, marketers and coaches are going to have a harder time selling their product. Also, “Rivalry Week” in college basketball is a huge marketing week for ESPN. Without these long-established rivalries, “Rivalry Week” will not be the same, or even exist, and ESPN could possibly lose one of its biggest weeks for the network. Last, the financial impact caused by conference realignment has an impact on sports marketing in one major way, and that being television contracts. One important aspect to know in all of this conference realignment is that TV contracts rule everything, and for some conferences, such as the Big Ten and the SEC, conference realignment will provide a huge boost to their revenue. A perfect example of this is the Big Ten and their recent additions of the University of Maryland and Rutgers University. By adding these two universities, the Big Ten’s television network, Big Ten Network, will acquire more viewers from the Washington D.C./Baltimore and New York/New Jersey television markets. New television markets equals new revenue and not only will this help the conferences, it will also provide revenue for the individual universities as well.

Although there are a few negative implications to the Sports Marketing Industry, conference realignment provides one big, positive implication, and that being money. And in the end, isn’t that what college sports all comes down to?