Crafting a Better Plan for College Sports Realignment

For decades, college sports conferences have been characterized by fierce rivalries, regional traditions, and intense competition for championships. In general, these conferences were based on geography to minimize travel distances. However, college sports have become increasingly commercialized.

In an era of soaring broadcasting rights, conferences seek lucrative television deals to fund athletic programs. Adding more teams in different geographic areas helps conferences to maximize their revenue. As a result, many colleges have left their traditional conferences in recent years. The Big 10 was once confined to only universities in the Midwest. Now it spans the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

However, these moves come with consequences. Realignment can strain century-old rivalries, leaving fans nostalgic and disconnected from the new conference structure. Increased travel distances can burden student-athletes and fans, while time zone differences may affect game scheduling and viewership. Furthermore, smaller schools may struggle to keep up with financial demands of larger conferences, potentially exacerbating economic inequalities.

Learning from Europe

European soccer leagues offer three key principles that the NCAA could consider implementing.

One of the unique aspects of European soccer is the promotion and relegation system, where teams move between higher and lower divisions based on their performance. There is already essentially two tiers of leagues: the so-called Power 5 conferences and the rest. The NCAA could consider implementing mechanisms where lower-performing schools could be relegated to a lower-tier conference, while successful schools are promoted to a higher-tier conference. Recently there has been a dip in attendances, especially among poorly performing programs. Promotion and relegation would give their fans more reasons to watch.

Since European leagues almost always only include clubs within their country, their travel costs are much lower. NCAA conferences could place greater emphasis on regional alignment to minimize travel and enhance traditional rivalries, which could reduce financial strain and contribute to greater fan engagement. As a bonus, fans can travel more easily to away games if the colleges are in the same region, potentially supplementing attendance numbers.

Another typical aspect of European soccer leagues is that all their clubs play each other both home and away. Balanced scheduling ensures that the league standings more accurately reflect the true abilities of each team. Nowadays, many college football teams do not even play every team in their conference, leading to an unequal competition.

A Better Plan

The NCAA should group colleges into essentially four super conferences based on geography. These football conferences could have 13 teams each, with every team playing all the other teams in their conference once for a total of 12 games. This would also give a bye week to a team every week. Scheduling basketball would have 24 conference games with home and away games with all teams in the conference.

These four super conferences would have at least two divisions, a top division and a lower tier division, for a total of at least 104 teams participating. The best two teams in each conference would face each other at the end of the season for the conference championship, like most leagues do now. Then the four conference championship winners would face each other in a playoff to determine the national champion.

Furthermore, the worst teams in the top division would face each other in relegation playoffs at the end of the year. These poorly performing teams would be replaced by the best performing teams in the second division, giving fans more drama at the end of the season. A third division could even be created as well.

Map of Football Realignment

Here is a look at what college football teams could potentially be in the first division of these four super-conferences. This is based on historical NCAA football success, weighting recent history more heavily than results that happened decades ago.

Western Conference:
Division 1

1. Southern California
2. Oregon
3. Washington
4. Colorado
5. UCLA
6. BYU
7. Arizona State
8. Stanford
9. Boise State
10. Utah
11. Oregon State
12. California
13. Washington State

Division 2

1. Arizona
2. Air Force
3. Texas Tech
4. Wyoming
5. Colorado State
6. Utah State
7. Nevada
8. San Diego State
9. New Mexico
10. San Jose State
11. Fresno State
12. New Mexico State
13. UNLV

Northern Conference:
Division 1

1. Ohio State
2. Notre Dame
3. Nebraska
4. Michigan
5. Michigan State
6. Wisconsin
7. Iowa
8. Minnesota
9. Kansas State
10. Missouri
11. Cincinnati
12. Illinois
13. Louisville

Division 2

1. Purdue
2. Northwestern
3. Kansas
4. Indiana
5. Kentucky
6. Miami (OH)
7. Iowa State
8. Toledo
9. Western Michigan
10. Marshall
11. Ohio
12. Ball State
13. Kent State

Southern Conference:
Division 1

1. Alabama
2. Oklahoma
3. Florida State
4. Georgia
5. Miami (FL)
6. LSU
7. Florida
8. Texas
9. Auburn
10. Tennessee
11. TCU
12. Arkansas
13. Texas A&M

Division 2

1. Mississippi
2. Georgia Tech
3. Baylor
4. SMU
5. Oklahoma State
6. Houston
7. Mississippi State
8. UCF
9. Tulane
10. Louisiana-Lafayette
11. Rice
12. Tulsa
13. Southern Miss

Eastern Conference:
Division 1

1. Clemson
2. Penn State
3. Pittsburgh
4. Virginia Tech
5. Syracuse
6. Army
7. Maryland
8. Navy
9. South Carolina
10. West Virginia
11. North Carolina
12. Duke
13. Boston College

Division 2

1. North Carolina State
2. Virginia
3. Princeton
4. Penn
5. Fordham
6. Wake Forest
7. Cornell
8. Dartmouth
9. Coastal Carolina
10. Rutgers
11. Yale
12. East Carolina
13. Villanova

Map of Basketball Realignment

Here is a look at what college basketball teams could potentially be in the first division of these four super-conferences. This is based on historical NCAA basketball success, weighting recent history more heavily than results that happened decades ago.

Western Conference:
Division 1

1. UCLA
2. Arizona
3. Gonzaga
4. UNLV
5. Utah
6. San Francisco
7. Oregon
8. Texas Tech
9. California
10. Stanford
11. San Diego State
12. Oregon State
13. UTEP

Division 2

1. Southern California
2. Wyoming
3. Washington
4. Colorado
5. Santa Clara
6. BYU
7. Arizona State
8. New Mexico State
9. Seattle
10. Long Beach State
11. Washington State
12. Idaho State
13. Utah State

Northern Conference:
Division 1

1. Kentucky
2. Kansas
3. Louisville
4. Michigan State
5. Indiana
6. Michigan
7. Ohio State
8. Cincinnati
9. Marquette
10. Wisconsin
11. Kansas State
12. Illinois
13. Butler

Division 2

1. Purdue
2. Notre Dame
3. Loyola Chicago
4. Xavier
5. Iowa
6. Wichita State
7. Missouri
8. Dayton
9. DePaul
10. Iowa State
11. Bradley
12. Minnesota
13. Western Kentucky

Southern Conference:
Division 1

1. Florida
2. Arkansas
3. Baylor
4. Houston
5. Oklahoma
6. Oklahoma State
7. Memphis
8. LSU
9. Georgia Tech
10. Florida State
11. Tennessee
12. Alabama
13. Miami (FL)

Division 2

1. Auburn
2. Vanderbilt
3. Florida Atlantic
4. Jacksonville
5. Texas A&M
6. Mississippi State
7. SMU
8. Tulsa
9. Georgia
10. UAB
11. Oral Roberts
12. TCU
13. Rice

Eastern Conference:
Division 1

1. North Carolina
2. Duke
3. Connecticut
4. Villanova
5. Syracuse
6. Georgetown
7. Virginia
8. North Carolina State
9. Maryland
10. Wake Forest
11. West Virginia
12. St. John’s
13. Temple

Division 2

1. LaSalle
2. Providence
3. St. Joseph’s
4. Seton Hall
5. Pittsburgh
6. Boston College
7. Penn
8. Holy Cross
9. South Carolina
10. Dartmouth
11. UMass
12. Princeton
13. Davidson