Conferencing

At whatever your preferred sports news website, you may read speculation, an actually tiny bit of certain knowledge, opinion and full-throated blatherskite about the idea that the University of Oklahoma and University of Texas might be invited to join the Southeastern Conference. I picked The Athletic, and learned what I could learn here.

What I didn't learn there, and what I wouldn't learn anywhere, was what academic changes this move might entail. Because of course it involves none. Whether either school's athletic programs have competed in the Southwest Conference, Big Eight Conference, Big Twelve Conference or whatever other alphabet combo cobbled together to soak up TV money has made absolutely no difference to the primary reason either school -- if indeed they still desire to be called such -- exists.

The only question about such alignments or re-alignments is which individuals make money off of the efforts of unpaid young people, often members of minority groups. Since the odds that those unpaid young people won't be among those making money, what difference does it make which "athletic conference" an institution belongs to?