The Big East Conference realignment makes about as much geographical sense as a connecting flight to London when traveling roundtrip from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.
On Monday, Tulane and East Carolina announced they would join the sometimes expanding, sometimes shrinking, historically unstable, joke of a BCS qualifying conference Big East in 2014, unofficially flushing rational decision-making down the drain of greed and into the sewer of conference conglomeration.
Here’s what an in-conference travel schedule could look like for Tulane’s football team in two years: at San Diego, at Orlando, at Boise, at Philadelphia and at Cincinnati — interspersed with home games of course — totaling a costly round trip distance well over 10,000 flight miles.
Granted, that would be an unlikely nightmare scheduling scenario. Not to mention half of those schools will have likely already switched allegiances since then, much like when TCU joined the Big East and, like many high school athletes, de-committed and joined the Big 12 instead.
Still, my wallet hurts.
Oh, but wait! The BCS dished out a cool $175 million two years ago, which I’d guess like everything but state higher education budgets, has grown since then.
But the Big East only received $21.2 million, compared to about $28 million for conferences with two schools in BCS bowls. If that $21 million were divided among every school, it would total less than $2 million each for the 13 schools that’ll be playing football in the Big East in 2014.
Of course, there won’t be a BCS in 2014. There will be a 4-team playoff. Will less prestigious football schools like Tulane still have a monetary advantage?
Also, like LSU, every single aforementioned University is currently dealing with varying degrees of budget cuts. How can athletics afford such unnecessary travel expenses while teachers, the number of classes offered — and therefore critical learning in higher education — drop like a peewee quarterback being sacked by an NFL linebacker?
Oh, right. Football earns all the money (thanks BCS!), to the point where they have to pseudo-bailout struggling flagship Universities in states like … this one. So if you were a young kid, wanting to grow up and get rich, like most of us, what would you study? Literature, which will likely funnel you right back into the failing cycle of higher education, or your playbook?
OK—money aside, what about rivalries? What about loyalty? What about sanity?
What about school?
“But Coach, I’ve got three tests this week?” says the collegiate athlete, artificially hung-over from jetlag.
The Big East, more than any other realigning conference (see Big 12, Big Ten, PAC 12, SEC … the list goes on), has affirmed the belief that money comes first, as academic growth continues to slide further down the NCAA totem pole of priorities.
During in-season athletics, the average Division I student athlete misses about two days of class per week, based on an average of one-to-two competitions per week and accompanying travel days (sleeping in, hangovers, and apathy were not factored in to reasons for absences in my 100 percent scientific formula).
Shouldn’t that be a bad thing?
I say yes. But then again, I’m 5’9, 160 pounds and perpetually injured. Staying healthy on a tennis court is hard enough.
If I were 6’5 and 240 pounds, the dream of every undersized sports writer, would I still feel the same?
Sports are great. But when it comes down to it, a broken society held up by athletically funded slings is not something I want to be a part of.
All that being said—whoever invented the blindly throw darts onto a U.S. map to pick schools for our conference game—how many concussions have you suffered?
