Slive, league will soon be faced with major decisions that will fundamentally transform conference
Maybe it happens very soon -- AggieYell.com, the Texas A&M Rivals.com affiliate, said Thursday it is a done deal to be announced Aug. 22 -- or maybe it takes a year or two. It doesn't much matter. Eventually, everyone in College Station is going to extend their salute fingers toward Texas and its Longhorn Network, escape the house of cards that is the Big 12 Conference and climb aboard the gravy train in Birmingham.
It would be a slam dunk for commissioner Mike Slive and the SEC. Adding Texas A&M extends the league's geographic footprint into the Dallas and Houston television markets. It further opens up the fertile recruiting grounds inside the state of Texas for SEC programs to draw talent from. And, maybe most importantly, it gives Slive and Co. the necessary leverage to take CBS and ESPN back to the negotiating table and revise the league's current television contracts, which would skyrocket further with A&M in the fold.
That being said, adding Texas A&M is not the end. It is merely the beginning of a journey down a road Slive has shown some hesitance about in the past.
A 13-team conference can't operate smoothly for long. The Mid-American Conference, which is faced with scheduling nightmares annually, is proof of that. It would be even more of an issue for the SEC when you look at competitive balance. Forcing SEC West teams to play six division games to East teams' five with a very good A&M program as No. 6 isn't fair.
So, if A&M comes to the SEC, another school or schools are going to have to join, too. And that's where things could get dicey for Slive and the conference. It is well known Slive doesn't want to be seen as an aggressor in the college expansion game. He remembers how ACC commissioner John Swofford was vilified when he poached Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College from the Big East several years ago.
Simply put, he doesn't want to be a league wrecker.
But given the current climate and what dominoes may fall, it might be in the best interest of the SEC that Slive risk being called an aggressor.
If Oklahoma, another elite national program that has grown weary of the Texas influence in the Big 12, is also open to joining the SEC, Slive can't hesitate (and I don't think he would). OU is an even bigger coup than Texas A&M, as its lack of a major media market (although Oklahoma City, No. 45 in the U.S., is nothing to scoff at) is offset by the name recognition and heritage it provides.
To get OU, though, many believe you have to take rival Oklahoma State. Again, if that's the case, Slive can't hesitate. Do all that, though, and your league is now 15 teams, meaning you are right back where you started when Texas A&M joined to make 13.
This is where it potentially gets really interesting. The logical move, it would seem, is to add Texas Tech for a 16-team league, ship Alabama and Auburn to the Eastern Division and be done with it.
But, as most know, conference expansion isn't about adding schools that fit your footprint. It's about expanding the footprint. So Texas Tech wouldn't be the smart choice in this case. The smart choice would be for Slive to look away from the West and toward the North and the ACC and even the Big East.
Duke, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia Tech, West Virginia — those are the teams available to Slive that could make a difference. Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami and Louisville would be great fits for rivalry purposes, but they bring nothing in the way of new markets. The first group, though, can open up Washington, D.C., Charlotte, Raleigh and Baltimore.
And if Slive did go about this route, it would be hard to stop at one. Each institution brings something to the table, and each one likely won't jump without its archrival (Duke-UNC) or another school taking the plunge with it. In the end, the dust could settle with 18 or even 20 teams in the SEC (and elsewhere, because the Big Ten and Pac-12 aren't sitting pat if the landscape starts to rumble again) and the end of not one but two leagues the side effect.
This of course is, as with any discussion of conference expansion, all educated speculation. Twenty-team leagues would require extraordinary circumstances and a great deal of chaos to transpire. However, it would be foolish to count out those possibilities. Collegiate sports is in a new era. The NCAA seems to finally be ready to revamp the way it does business. Nebraska is in the Big Ten. Texas is basically becoming its own nation state, itching to grab athletic independence. Billions and billions of television dollars are there for the taking. When Pandora's Box gets open, who knows what the final result will be. Anything is possible.
It is a wild, unpredictable new frontier. Leaders like Slive will soon be forced to make a decision when the best interests of their league clash with their personal sense of what is fair and just to the leagues around them.