I've always enjoyed Berry Tramel at the Oklahoman. Thoughtful and quality writer. Anyways, he finally wrote today on what he thinks about OU & UT's move to the SEC... and his thoughts might surprise you. I wanted to share cause they encapsulate my thoughts on college sports right now very well. Everyone is moving in their own self-interest (NIL, Open transfers, Realignment, etc), but no one is asking is this for the good of the sport. I follow horse racing very closely (as Tramel mentions in the article) and fans of that sport lament how there is no central governing body... college sports is headed that direction and I don't think its a good thing.
Tramel: SEC expansion good for OU & Texas, but it stinks for the sport of college football
OU and Texas are headed to the Southeastern Conference. We’ve known about it for three weeks, during which I’ve typed probably 25,000 words on the subject.
Tried to explain why it’s happening. Tried to explain what it means. Tried to speculate on the future.
But the one thing I haven’t written is how I feel about it. Until now.
And I think it stinks.
Oh, the Sooners’ move to the SEC is good for OU and maybe great. Probably the same is true for Texas, though I don’t claim to be a Longhorn expert. The move to the SEC is both good and bad for the state of Oklahoma, no matter what the partisans say, and the weight of either has yet to be determined.
But for college football in general? The consolidation of power in fewer conferences is not good. Not good at all.
About 15 years ago, my friend, noted anti-trust lawyer Kent Meyers, taught me the simple definition of his field. Anti-trust law boils down to one question. Does it help or hurt the consumer masses?
I’m not connecting any conference-realignment dots to anti-trust lawsuits, though others might. I’m just asking the question. Does this benefit or impede, does it help or hurt, the average college football fan?
The answer is hurt, unless you’ve got stake in OU, Texas or the SEC.
This is unlike any other conference realignment. When Nebraska jumped to the Big Ten, it was a bummer, but it didn’t cripple the Big 12. When Texas A&M and Missouri went to the SEC, the Big 12 added West Virginia and Texas Christian, and the Aggies and Tigers hardly were missed.
When six Big East football schools jumped to the Atlantic Coast Conference in less than a decade, fans actually benefited, because the original Big East basketball schools eventually broke off and reasserted their identity, and the football product just played under a different banner.
But the OU/Texas exodus imperils some quality football schools. OSU. West Virginia. TCU. Kansas State. Iowa State. Texas Tech. Maybe some or all will land on their feet financially. Pray the rosary.
And even if most or all the Big 12 remnants emerge OK, college football will be a lesser product.
Fewer championships. Fewer relevant programs. Heck, fewer relevant programs IN THE SEC. Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky. They’re all about to get a lot more money and a lot more defeats. Good for beancounters in all the ‘villes of the SEC, but bad for fans in those hard-to-win places like Fayetteville and Starkville and Nashville.
College football has taken a giant step toward a Super League. Or maybe two Super Leagues, since admittedly the Big Ten is a financial heavyweight.
NFL-style money. NFL-style scheduling. NFL-style media.
But not NFL-style competition. To blatantly steal from the Sooners, there’s only one, one!, NFL. In college, even the sacred SEC, 28-17 is a classic. In the NFL, 28-17 is a blowout.
I love NFL Sundays. Watch every game I can live and tape the rest.
But I love college football Saturdays more. Saturdays are more entertaining. Remember the old business line about losing money on every sale but making it up in volume?
That’s a college football Saturday. There are far too many blowouts, even in the showdown games. But there are so many relevant games on any given Saturday, a quality game always pops up, no matter which television window, and usually multiple.
And besides, while we love the NFL for the competition – two-minute drives virtually every game; seemingly every other game comes down to a last-second field goal – we love college football for the pageantry and tradition and rivalries.
The pageantry already has been slipping – 11 a.m. kickoffs; piped-in music instead of the glorious bands; players rejecting bowl games – and the traditions are endangered.
Maybe Bedlam survives this round of realignment, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But OU has been in a conference with Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State for 101 consecutive years.
I know things change and the world evolves. I also know that one day you look up, and your downtown is dead and your mall is closed and your streets are full of Amazon trucks. Not everything that masquerades as progress is progress.
An OU/Texas SEC will be great. There’s no doubt about that. Heck, there will be just as many mediocre games (OU-Ole Miss, Texas-Tennessee) as glorious games (OU-Georgia, Texas-Florida), and even the mediocre games will be cool.
But that means fewer interesting games across the country. If the Big 12 dies or falls to inferior status, the sport will be harmed. Same with the ACC and the Pac-12, should Clemson and Florida State long for the SEC, while Southern Cal and Oregon make goo-goo eyes at the Big Ten.
If college football becomes more big event and less regionalized, all kinds of fans will slip away gently.
Don’t believe it? Ask baseball. It once was America’s pastime, and even when pro football superseded baseball, it remained a healthy No. 2. For awhile. But no more.
A sport’s status in the national consciousness is not guaranteed. Horse racing and boxing once stood with baseball as America’s favorite sports. Now where do they rank? In the teens? The 20s?
Horse racing and boxing had no guardians. No one in power looking out for the sport. Everyone was in it for themselves.
Sound familiar?
OU and Texas will be great fun in the SEC. I can’t say the same for the whole of college football.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
Tramel: SEC expansion good for OU & Texas, but it stinks for the sport of college football
OU and Texas are headed to the Southeastern Conference. We’ve known about it for three weeks, during which I’ve typed probably 25,000 words on the subject.
Tried to explain why it’s happening. Tried to explain what it means. Tried to speculate on the future.
But the one thing I haven’t written is how I feel about it. Until now.
And I think it stinks.
Oh, the Sooners’ move to the SEC is good for OU and maybe great. Probably the same is true for Texas, though I don’t claim to be a Longhorn expert. The move to the SEC is both good and bad for the state of Oklahoma, no matter what the partisans say, and the weight of either has yet to be determined.
But for college football in general? The consolidation of power in fewer conferences is not good. Not good at all.
About 15 years ago, my friend, noted anti-trust lawyer Kent Meyers, taught me the simple definition of his field. Anti-trust law boils down to one question. Does it help or hurt the consumer masses?
I’m not connecting any conference-realignment dots to anti-trust lawsuits, though others might. I’m just asking the question. Does this benefit or impede, does it help or hurt, the average college football fan?
The answer is hurt, unless you’ve got stake in OU, Texas or the SEC.
This is unlike any other conference realignment. When Nebraska jumped to the Big Ten, it was a bummer, but it didn’t cripple the Big 12. When Texas A&M and Missouri went to the SEC, the Big 12 added West Virginia and Texas Christian, and the Aggies and Tigers hardly were missed.
When six Big East football schools jumped to the Atlantic Coast Conference in less than a decade, fans actually benefited, because the original Big East basketball schools eventually broke off and reasserted their identity, and the football product just played under a different banner.
But the OU/Texas exodus imperils some quality football schools. OSU. West Virginia. TCU. Kansas State. Iowa State. Texas Tech. Maybe some or all will land on their feet financially. Pray the rosary.
And even if most or all the Big 12 remnants emerge OK, college football will be a lesser product.
Fewer championships. Fewer relevant programs. Heck, fewer relevant programs IN THE SEC. Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky. They’re all about to get a lot more money and a lot more defeats. Good for beancounters in all the ‘villes of the SEC, but bad for fans in those hard-to-win places like Fayetteville and Starkville and Nashville.
College football has taken a giant step toward a Super League. Or maybe two Super Leagues, since admittedly the Big Ten is a financial heavyweight.
NFL-style money. NFL-style scheduling. NFL-style media.
But not NFL-style competition. To blatantly steal from the Sooners, there’s only one, one!, NFL. In college, even the sacred SEC, 28-17 is a classic. In the NFL, 28-17 is a blowout.
I love NFL Sundays. Watch every game I can live and tape the rest.
But I love college football Saturdays more. Saturdays are more entertaining. Remember the old business line about losing money on every sale but making it up in volume?
That’s a college football Saturday. There are far too many blowouts, even in the showdown games. But there are so many relevant games on any given Saturday, a quality game always pops up, no matter which television window, and usually multiple.
And besides, while we love the NFL for the competition – two-minute drives virtually every game; seemingly every other game comes down to a last-second field goal – we love college football for the pageantry and tradition and rivalries.
The pageantry already has been slipping – 11 a.m. kickoffs; piped-in music instead of the glorious bands; players rejecting bowl games – and the traditions are endangered.
Maybe Bedlam survives this round of realignment, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But OU has been in a conference with Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State for 101 consecutive years.
I know things change and the world evolves. I also know that one day you look up, and your downtown is dead and your mall is closed and your streets are full of Amazon trucks. Not everything that masquerades as progress is progress.
An OU/Texas SEC will be great. There’s no doubt about that. Heck, there will be just as many mediocre games (OU-Ole Miss, Texas-Tennessee) as glorious games (OU-Georgia, Texas-Florida), and even the mediocre games will be cool.
But that means fewer interesting games across the country. If the Big 12 dies or falls to inferior status, the sport will be harmed. Same with the ACC and the Pac-12, should Clemson and Florida State long for the SEC, while Southern Cal and Oregon make goo-goo eyes at the Big Ten.
If college football becomes more big event and less regionalized, all kinds of fans will slip away gently.
Don’t believe it? Ask baseball. It once was America’s pastime, and even when pro football superseded baseball, it remained a healthy No. 2. For awhile. But no more.
A sport’s status in the national consciousness is not guaranteed. Horse racing and boxing once stood with baseball as America’s favorite sports. Now where do they rank? In the teens? The 20s?
Horse racing and boxing had no guardians. No one in power looking out for the sport. Everyone was in it for themselves.
Sound familiar?
OU and Texas will be great fun in the SEC. I can’t say the same for the whole of college football.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
