Barfknecht: Conference shuffle talk is mostly just trash

College sports fans across the country are starting to look like burn victims.

The reason? All of the hot air from talk jockeys and anonymous bloggers over conference expansion.

The breathless “reporting'' of random tidbits and the endless speculation over bald-faced rumors is another disturbing sign of how today's 24-hour news cycle values filling time and space over finding facts.

Only the six BCS conference commissioners and their university presidents know what's really going on, and they aren't talking.

Sifting through the rumors is like dumpster-diving for a lost jewel. You find a lot of smelly gunk, and almost never uncover anything of real value.

So if you dare, put on your mask and jump with me into the speculation pit of expansion to see what to toss and what to keep:

TOSS: Texas going to the Big Ten.

The answer to this isn't no. It's Hell No!!!

This borders on the comical. Texas already has more money than God. It doesn't need a measly $8 million more annually from changing leagues.

The Longhorns battled to get revenue-sharing rules in the Big 12 that favored the more prominent schools. Why in the world would they go to the only league that equally shares all money, thus limiting future Texas-driven projects?

Big Ten membership would create other difficulties, too.

Public pressure certainly would force UT to keep its rivalry football games with Oklahoma and Texas A&M. With those two games and regular contests with Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin, you're looking at some three- and four-loss seasons. And that invites the mess of a coaching search.

Also, why would Texas essentially want to invite an entirely different group of schools into the already crowded recruiting world that is the Lone Star State?

Then consider the travel time and expense for all of the Olympic sports. Good luck getting that volleyball team back to Austin in a timely matter after a midweek game on the dark side of the moon, better known as Penn State.

And you think that Texas would lump its precious powerhouse baseball program into the mediocre, cold-weather Big Ten? No chance.

KEEP: The Pac-10's interest in pursuing expansion.

This league is undergoing a major culture change. The new commissioner is Larry Scott, who was CEO of the Women's Tennis Association. For a league that has long done business in a mom-and-pop sort of way, this was a way-out-of-the-box hire.

Note that Scott engineered the largest TV deal in the history of women's tennis. Now read what Scott said recently about his hiring last July: “My top priority was to explore all available options to expand our revenue through television.''

With the Pac-10 TV deals for football and basketball expiring soon, and the major source of money for schools coming from TV, looking to create a wider profile makes sense.

Hiring former Big 12 Commissioner Kevin Weiberg as deputy commissioner also was a serious move, considering his experience at the Big Ten Network.

Still, adding two more teams is far from a done deal. If the Pac-10 can't find enough new money to make a 12-way split more profitable than the current 10-way split, the status quo will prevail.

TOSS: Pitt to the Big Ten.

Maybe some day. But the recent discussion over this began with a “report'' that school officials had met with current athletes to tell them about changing leagues.

Are you kidding? With all of the confidentiality clauses involved in such discussions, the last group on Earth to be told about this would be the biggest group of social media hounds on campus.

Yet broadcast outlets repeatedly ginned this up as something serious. We all need to remember the first letter of ESPN stands for entertainment.

TOSS: The notion that conference expansion talk only erupts after four- or five-year periods of dormancy.

Most conferences, BCS or not, have someone whose regular duties include monitoring a “hot file'' about potential expansion and realignment. The topic is continually under review, and few ideas are too unusual or incongruent to be quietly explored.

An example: Current NCAA rules require that in order to hold a championship football game, a league must have at least 12 teams and be split into two divisions.

One BCS conference official told me that an inquiry once was made into the championship-game parameters for a 24-team conference — yes, 24 — with four divisions of six. The key question: Would the four winners be allowed to meet in semifinal games to determine the title-game participants?

That idea isn't likely to come to fruition. But it shows that the folks who work in conference offices are thinking much further ahead than many believe.

TOSS: The ignorant criticism of Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe over the league's television contracts.

The best current TV packages are in the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conferences. According to figures provided by some BCS league officials who handle TV, that's because the Big Ten has about 28 percent of the nation's television footprint and the SEC about 24 percent.

The Big 12 has 16 percent. So unless TV folks start doing business in a new way, the Big 12 will never have a contract as good as those other two leagues because of market share.

The Big 12's deals, put together before Beebe took charge, are a little better than the Atlantic Coast's, better than the Pac-10's and far better than the Big East's. Barring a major population shift, these facts won't change.

Beebe knows that, which is why the Big 12 is actively looking for new and nontraditional sources of revenue.

TOSS: The viability of TCU and BYU as potential expansion candidates for the Big 12.

TCU is a private school with an enrollment of 8,000. Other than Baylor (15,000), the other Big 12 schools are massive public institutions with enrollments from about 20,000 to 50,000. Also, TCU brings no new television households to the league.

As for BYU, it is a religious-affiliated school. It's primary mission? To promote its religion. That isn't the formula to get votes from research-oriented academicians who make the call.

From our exploration today, you've noticed there is a lot more to toss than keep. Conference expansion or realignment clearly is worth watching, though with a more cold-blooded eye.

After saying that, I can't resist dumping something else into the speculation pile:

The final evolution of all future movements will be six 12-team leagues. They all break away from the NCAA, host their own eight-team football playoff (six champs, two wild cards) and hold a 72-team basketball championship.

Toss or keep? You decide.

Contact the writer:

444-1024, lee.barfknecht@owh.com

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