Expansion Winners and Losers

With the news that Texas was staying put and the apocalypse had been avoided, it looks like the expansion talk has finally calmed and perhaps we can judge the winners and losers….

Winner: The SEC. Mike Slive played it cool, and in the end, he gets what he wanted. No seismic shift in the college football landscape, and his hand wasn't forced to make changes to a league that was already working quite well.

Loser: The Pac-10. "So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, 'Hey, Texas, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.' And he says, 'Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you expand, in 2011, you will receive Colorado.' So I got that going for me, which is nice."

Winner: Traditions. OK, so we may not see the Oklahoma-Nebraska game so often anymore, but if this is essentially the end of the "super conference" talk, score one for folks who still care about football for what happens on the field rather than what ratings the games get on TV. Would A&M in the SEC have been interesting? Maybe, but I'm glad they'll still be going toe-to-toe with Texas each year in the Big 12.

Loser: New names. So the Pac-16 is gonna be the Pac-11 now? I was hoping for two Pac-10 divisions that would result in a renamed conference called 2-Pac. (No, I can't take credit for that one.) And will the Big Ten and Big 12 just switch names? Or will they have new names altogether. I suggest "Steve."

Winner: Dan Beebe. This was the rough equivalent of my buddy Tim, who would go to a bar, get hammered, look like a jackass the entire night, then still manage to leave with a hot girl after last call. Of course, he did it with an approachable charm that the ladies just loved. Beebe did it with $25 million.

Loser: The Mountain West. After spending so much time working to get into the cool clique of college football, it looked like things might just break perfectly for the MWC. They added Boise State and were poised to nab Kansas and Kansas State if the Big 12 had fallen apart. Instead, they're likely to lose Utah to the Pac-10 and they're right back where they started.

Winner: The Big East and the ACC. The doomsday scenario could have been ugly for these guys. In the end, nothing came particularly close to happening. Of course, is it a victory that your leagues stayed intact because no one really wanted any of your teams?

Loser: Bloggers and columnists. If this is all the expansion we're going to get, what are we supposed to write about for the next two months?

Winner: Internet journalism. Kudos to Chip Brown for being on point every step of the way during this process. When the news first started breaking about the Pac-10's interest in Texas et al, most folks were less than inclined to buy into rumors from a site called Orangebloods.com. As it turns out, Brown beat the pants off the big names with each new wrinkle that developed.

Loser: Joe Schad. Anatomy of ESPN's coverage: Report rumor. Backpedal. Backpedal. Backpedal. Go on TV to talk about how your original report was accurate except that the people you were reporting on decided to do something else. Repeat. Seriously, was anyone else enjoying watching this happen as much as I was? You know, Joe Cox really was going to be benched in Week 2 except that it didn't actually end up happening.

Winner: Texas. Huge TV revenue -- and more than anyone else in the conference. Gets own TV network to boot. Keeps rivalries with A&M, Texas Tech and Oklahoma alive. Looks like the good guys for not ruining college football as we know it. And the Big 12 threw in a free toaster oven. It was a hell of a deal.