SEDALIA DEMOCRAT

Fans would suffer if Big 12 dissolves

By JOHN HANSEN

JUNE 10, 2010

The Sprint Center sound system blasted the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” as Kansas and K-State prepared to tip off for the Big 12 men’s basketball championship. Earlier on that March day, I had watched my team — Nebraska — in the women’s tournament just down the street.

In between, I and my Lee’s Summit-based friend drank overpriced beverages, got free T-shirts and bought $150 tickets to the title game.

We waded through the sea of fans watching the KU and K-State cheerleaders warm up the crowd in the Power & Light District. In my Huskers shirt, I knew I had something in common with fans sporting the colors of Mizzou, K-State, Oklahoma and so forth: We all hate the Jayhawks.

But, actually, my friend is a Kansas fan, and he’s a decent guy. The day was about rooting for your team, hating (but also respecting) your opponent, and soaking up one of the best events in sports.

Anyway, that was a good, good night, as the Peas put it. When I moved to Sedalia from Minnesota, I knew that no matter how bad my life got, I’d at least have the Big 12 tournament to look forward to every other year (Kansas City more or less trades off years with Dallas), and I could catch many more Huskers games on TV than I could when I lived in Big Ten country.

I never would’ve imagined that three months later, the Big 12 would be dying, starting with Colorado’s decision to move to the Pac-10 on Thursday, and — as many reports indicate — followed by Nebraska moving to the Big Ten today.

Tom Osborne, Husker football coaching legend and athletic director, ranks among the people I most respect. But he would be betraying Nebraska fans by switching conferences.

Most Husker fans live in Nebraska or at least in Big 12 country. If you live in Lincoln, Neb., you have seven Big 12 road trips of less than eight hours, according to Google Maps — Manhattan, Kan.; Lawrence, Kan.; Ames, Iowa; Columbia; Stillwater, Okla.; Norman, Okla.; and Boulder, Colo.

If Nebraska moves to the Big Ten, fans will have two road trips of less than eight hours: Iowa City, Iowa; and Minneapolis.

Fans of Mizzou — which also might move to the Big Ten — wouldn’t see their travel budgets strained as much. In the Big 12, the Tigers have six road trips of less than eight hours. In the Big Ten, they would also have six, counting the Nebraska trip.

But the Tigers would be throwing away tradition if they moved. MU-KU is one of the oldest football rivalries in college sports in terms of longevity (it dates to 1891) and games played (118). As a Huskers fan, I love Nebraska’s historic football rivalry with Oklahoma, its North Division rivalry with Colorado and its recent interdivision rivalry with Texas.

The Big Ten, with bigger markets and more money-making ability, doles out more cash from its TV network to its members than the Big 12 does. But should fans and tradition be kicked to the curb because of dollars? If Nebraska and Missouri bolt today, then the emphatic answer from those universities is yes.

Spokespeople will talk about how the move is good for academics. That’s absurd. Has anyone ever lost out on a job because they went to a Big 12 school instead of a Big Ten school? We’re supposed to believe that employers think, “Well, Candidate A went to Nebraska, and Candidate B went to Iowa, and we know what a huge difference there is in the quality of education, so obviously I’ll go with the Hawkeye.” And now, so they say, that situation will be rectified.

Give me a break.

This is all leading toward a day when there will be four megaconferences, all with multiple divisions, wild cards and playoffs to determine conference champions. Someday colleges will draft high school players. The draft will consist of about 1,000 picks. High schoolers will decide if they want to leave early to join a megaconference team. The football season will run from July to February.

There was a potential compromise in here somewhere, but nobody took it: The Big Ten could’ve annexed the entire Big 12. That way, the money pool would’ve grown, everyone would’ve shared in it, and tradition and fans would’ve been respected.

The Big East was the first megaconference. It has 16 teams in basketball, and in my head I don’t even think of it as a conference. It’s more of a monstrosity.

You know what a megaconference resembles? A professional sports league.

I think it’s time we dropped the word “conference” and just called these leagues what they are: The NFL’s Triple-A.

That will all come with time. For now, as a Nebraska fan, tonight’s not gonna be a good night for me.