[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by Saul Good

Perhaps the most heated discussion point of the BCS era in college football has been the ebb and flow of conference realignment. Teams have changed conferences at a frantic rate in pursuit of greater exposure and better rankings. While fans and purists alike have dreaded the loss of traditional conference rivalries like Texas-Texas A&M, Oklahoma-Nebraska, and Missouri-Kansas, numbers suggest that the moves have largely paid off for the conferences. For example, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) home of the last seven National Championships, and already quite a popular conference in its own right, saw its number of television viewers go up by 21 percent (nearly three million new viewers) between 2011 and 2013. The difference? The conference added Texas A&M and Missouri (and their home television markets of Houston, St. Louis and Kansas City) in 2012. Similarly, the Big Ten’s addition of Nebraska as it’s twelfth team in 2011, has seen the number of weekly viewers of the Big Ten Network grow by 40 percent from 2010 to 2013 (nearly 1 million new viewers).

Unfortunately the numbers can work the other way as well. Since 2011 the Big 12 has lost Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M and Missouri to other conferences. Despite replacing them with Texas Christian University (TCU) and West Virginia, the league has seen its total number of TV viewers drop by 23 percent, more than 2 million pairs of eyes in a given year.

Even with the end of the BCS this year, the conference realignment carousel will continue to spin. Pittsburgh & Syracuse join the ACC this year, with Louisville set to follow them in 2014. Maryland and Rutgers will join the Big Ten next year as well. What impact will they have on both the conference and national landscape? Only time will tell.

SOURCE: Scarborough Multi-Market Study, Release 1, 2013

Ouch, the conference gets stronger by losing Nebraska, A&M, and Missouri and tv ratings drop by 23%? Tough break.