Over the last several years the landscape of college athletics has changed in many ways. One of the most significant changes has come with the realignment of the conferences. Schools have decided to leave conferences in which they had been long standing members for the greener pastures of another conference. The moves have been largely predicated on promises of higher payouts from television contracts in the new conferences. No matter the reasons though, the shifting of the conferences has had a major impact on the rivalries between many of the schools involved. As a student at the University of Kansas this has had an impact on me recently. I’d like to take a look at the impact of the loss of these rivalries in college sports today.
The University of Kansas has been bitter rivals with the University of Missouri since 1891. It is the second oldest rivalry in all of Division I. It’s a rivalry that dates back to the civil war and has been very fierce at times. In the latest round of conference realignment though, the University of Missouri has decided that a move to the Southeastern Conference was in the schools best interests. Thus, effectively ending the rivalry with the University of Kansas. This is only the latest occurance of the death of a rivalry in recent years. Other examples of rivalries that have died with the shifting of the conferences are the Nebraska vs. Oklahoma rivalry, Texas vs. Texas A&M and Pittsburgh vs. West Virginia among many others. As a fan of college sports in general it pains me to see this happen.
With teams leaving conferences and rivals behind in those conferences there is little chance of sustaining the rivalries. There are many reasons a team wouldn’t want to schedule the same non-conference game every year to keep a rivalry going. Taking away a non-conference game takes away a lot of exposure to different part of the country. This in turn can hurt recruiting for teams in some of the hotbeds around the country if they don’t play teams from those areas. Teams are not willing to give up this recruiting tool or the money that is generated from playing different teams every year in the non-conference portion of their schedules. These are some of the major obstacles to keeping some of the long time rivalries going as teams change conferences and move away from playing teams that have traditionally been some of their most anticipated games.
From a fans standpoint the loss of a rivalry game is hard. Not playing the team that you love to hate takes some of the passion out of the sport. With money as the driving force behind all of the conference realignment fans are really starting to feel like tradition and rivalries really don’t matter anymore. It’s getting to the point where it doesn’t even seem to be about the students anymore either. The athletes are now having to be transported further to play conference games then they have been in the past. The extra distance makes it harder for the fans to follow the team and support them on the road as they have been able to in the past as well. All of these factors have led to the death of the rivalry and has kind of tainted college sports a little bit. Without the passion that is generated by the bitter rivalries between two schools that just don’t like each other some of the essence of what college sports was all about is lost. In the end though everything is about money and what is going to generate the largest amount of revenue. And maybe, just maybe, some new rivalries will be born out of all the new conferences. One can only hope college sports can continue to generate the passion that they have for so long.