Bob Bowlsby Says Motivations for Realignment have Changed

It’s no surprise to anyone that cable’s grasp on the world is dwindling, and with that its reasoning for football conferences to add other members is also decreasing.

It used to be that Power Five leagues would want to get into different TV markets to up the money they could make. It’s a big reason as the why the SEC stole Texas A&M from the Big 12 in 2012 to get further into the Lone Star State. However, with the internet already being in most household and cable being in fewer and fewer, that reasoning could drift as to why the Big 12 would want to poach some teams from the Pac-12 before the next round of TV deals.

“The thing you have to remember is that the motivation for past realignment was the capture of cable households,” Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said in a teleconference Thursday. “With a shrinking cable universe, that motivation is gone. So, there has to be some other motivation that replaces it. Adding members to your conference without identifying substantial new revenues, all that does is divide the pie in more pieces.

“An awful lot of what was the motivation over the last 15 years has now gone by the wayside.”

It’s a good point. If cable deals aren’t as lucrative, why would the Big 12 want to split that money between 12 or 14 teams when it could just split it into 10 pieces.

With that said, there would still be value in the Big 12 adding teams such as UCLA, USC, Stanford or Oregon. Schools with solid athletic pedigrees.

It could also be a selling point for ESPN to gain ESPN+ subscribers in getting those fan bases on ESPN’s subscription service and away from the less-than-stellar Pac-12 Network. So, there’s an argument that the cable money would just turn into internet money.

It’s no longer about where the households a conference is getting into are and more about how many potential households a particular fanbase has because that could draw the most subscriptions.

It’s an interesting thought that could change more and more as technology advances between now and when the media rights deals (Pac-12 in 2024, Big 12 in 2025) are up.