First of all, the theory that FBS Football is moving to 4 or 5 large, geographically & regionally based "Super Conferences" of ~60 teams from it's current structure of Major and Mid-Major Conferences +Independents - e.g., would cut the top level of Major College Football in half - is not new or novel by any means. The theory has been put forth since PSU moved to the b1g shiz-hole back in the early 1990s. The halving of the Major College Football universe due to budgetary constraints and the exorbitant costs of sponsoring a program (and the vast majority of teams operating well into red figures annually) is nothing new either - this happened approximately 50 years ago when Major College Football was cleaved in two into Division IA and Diversion IAA . Essentially, there always has to be winners and losers in the system -- you can't have "traditional powers" that average 70%+ winning percentages without having equally "traditional patsies" that average sub-.500 winning percentages across time - this ranking of DIA teams by winning percentage over the last 50 years is quite instructive in this regard (note, this listing only includes teams that are currently playing, and have played, at the highest level of collegiate football, the so-called "Major College Level" which is currently "DIA", for 75% or more of the 50 seasons e.g., 38 or more seasons):
By-the-by, PSU is #5 with 439 wins over the period and a Winning % of .73173 with only tO$U, UNL, OU and Bama in front of them from 1 to 4 respectively (and there is not all that much separating the top programs in terms of winning) -- as I'm sure there are many on here wondering where perennial National Title Holder ASWP falls.....they came in at #54 over the period barely over .500 with a 304-272-8 (.52740) record.
The reality is that "Major College Football" has been cannibalizing itself for better than 50 years - again, there has to be traditional "haves" and "have nots", that is just the nature of a "competitive system" (e.g., the so-called "80/20 Rule" in statistics - the top 20% will typically account for 80% of the production....capitalism, education, or any other competitive endeavor being a good example). In other words, it is likely that the universe will keep shrinking as you shrink the Universe because when you have the Universe you are making the second half of the new Universe, the new "have nots", the "haves" at the top do not change. The only thing that is different this time around are the proposals for the entire "new Universe" to effectively "revenue share" such that it really does not matter who wins - other than a trophy. In other words, the vast majority of the financial reward for winning the title is removed and everybody - the "haves" and "have nots" - make essentially the same amount off the system (attendance, media contracts, broadcast rights, etc....so forth and so on) for providing the "content" (e.g., athletes, teams and games).....the "haves" subsidize the "have nots". Assuming 1/60th of this entire pie is sufficient to sustain expenses (which are huge with stadium & infrastructure costs, coaching and Athletic Department salaries, overhead, conference "slice" expenses, etc...) for a program with something left over to provide an incentive for the sponsoring school, I suppose this model might be stable.
However, the reality is that there are NOWHERE close to 60 schools operating in the Black in regards to Major College Football right now under the current system -- this tells me that there is still consolidation to come even if Major College Football went to 60 teams organized in 4 or 5 team regionally-based mega-conferences. The numbers suggest that this is nowhere close to a "stable platform" even with full revenue-sharing across the 60-team revised universe. The stable platform according to current numbers and programs operating in the Black is half-again that universe (30 teams) and even that is pushing it. There is a ton of consolidation coming in regards to over-spending DIA Athletic Departments relative to sponsoring football - Major College Football is going to continue to consolidate because 90% of the current universe cannot afford to operate perpetually in the red to the tune of completely obliterating their Athletic Department budgets. At the rate the rate traditional powers and the largest revenue generators are OVER-SPENDING relative to cumulative revenue growth, which is not very good and some would argue is actually shrinking, the entire system may not survive because there is no money to be made at these levels especially if you start paying players significant amounts of money which is very likely to happen due to the hypocrisy of the NCAA "stakeholders" such as Presidents, AD's, Coaches, etc... who are making multi-million $$$ annually with absurd long-term contracts and golden parachutes while the kids providing all the labor and content make virtually nothing relative to these self-serving, narcissistic, morally-debased hypocrites.
