Are College Football Superconferences Dumb?
The push since the summer of 2010 has been to expand BCS automatic-qualifier conferences from the 8 to 12 team size up to a 16 team super-conference. The idea is that a 16 team super-conference is worth more to a television partner like ESPN, Comcast or Fox than two 8 team conferences would be worth separately. The PAC-12 (formerly PAC-10) put the ball in motion by aggressively courting Texas and Oklahoma, while ultimately settling for Colorado and Utah; the Big Ten around the same time added Nebraska. Shortly thereafter, the PAC-12 signed a $3 billion 12 year TV contract with Fox and ESPN and this seemed to give some credence to the conference expansion idea. However, there is a feeling that the TV deals were simply undervalued in recent years and that even had the PAC-12 not expanded, they would have received a rich deal. Utah had previously earned less than $2 million per year as part of the Mountain West Conference and Colorado earned about $9 million per year in the Big XII. They were now going to make about $21 million a year. Had adding these schools netted the PAC-12 Conference that much more money? Probably not.
Twelve schools is the ideal football conference size. It allows schools to play all 5 other teams in their division and 3-4 crossover teams in the other division. This guarantees that you will play every school in your conference at least every other year. If you go to 16 teams, you will have 7 division opponents and a maximum of 2 crossover games. There will be teams that you only see once every 4 years. That is ridiculous. How are the teams in the same conference if you never play them? The WAC in 1996 was the original superconference with Utah, BYU, Colorado State, Air Force, Wyoming, Hawaii, San Diego State, UTEP, UNLV, TCU, SMU, Rice, Tulsa, Fresno State, San Jose State, and New Mexico. It was a failure and resulted in 8 of the older members leaving to form the Mountain West. They cited the excessive travel costs, the diminishment of traditional rivalries and history, as well as having 16 teams to spread revenue around with.
The PAC-12 is probably the potential superconference to have the most disjointed structure. The PAC-12 looks down upon the Mountain West schools which make the most geographic since in their existing footprint and is more likely to target Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Missouri, or Kansas from the Big XII. This will result in bringing upon schools that are very different geographically and perhaps culturally than their existing member-schools. This will also move Arizona and Arizona State into an Eastern Division and separate them from the schools they have played against since 1978.
Currently there are about 110 Division I FBS schools and a few schools in the pipeline to move up. The potential superconference commissioners seem to think that four 16 team superconferences will be elevated into a new upper tier division. This will leave behind 50-60 schools. Is the television pie going to be bigger by kicking out 50-60 schools? Are the schools lucky enough to be in the SEC, future PAC-16 or BIG Ten(16) that much better than everyone else? Is it fair that West Virginia, Boise State, Kansas State, or Fresno State probably will not make the cut but Vanderbilt, Washington State, and Indiana will? Is it really a good thing to crush the Mountain West, ACC and Big East? TCU has cited a 100% increase in application due to their success and national exposure in football. Maybe Texas and USC should double their student body size along with the 50-60 team contraction plan in order to soak up this demand. College football superconferences are dumb. But they will happen, sooner than later.
Toll Free Conference Bridge Service
Toll free conference bridge services are readily available and can save businesses and organizations a substantial amount of money because there is no need to buy expensive conference hardware or software. In fact, most conference vendors do not charge a start up fee, and you can use the service on a pay-as-you-go basis. You can get set up in a manner of minutes to begin using toll free conferencing.
As a business consumer, you have a couple of options when it comes to choosing what toll free service is right for you.
Your first option, is a pay-as-you-go plan, which is based on per minute pricing, and includes all incoming conference calls from the United States and Canada. As an example, 10 people on a conference call for 10 minutes would be a total of 100 conference minutes. You would multiply the per minute rate times the total number of minutes (in this instance, 100 minutes) to calculate your cost of the call. Depending on the set-up, you would be charged on a credit card, and sent a receipt.
The advantages of this option include only paying for what you use — no more or less. And if there are some months you are not conferencing at all, there is no cost. That’s why this option is ideal for the occasional or casual user.
Your second option is to purchase a set number of toll free minutes per month. This is very similar to how cell phone plans operate, when you buy a certain amount of minutes each month and pay for them whether you use them or not. Some refer to this as a “bucket plan” since you get a bucket of minutes.
This option is ideal if you are regular user and have a general idea of how many conference minutes per month you will use. When you break down the per minute pricing, this option is much less expensive than the pay-as-you-go per minute plans. Even if you overestimate the number of minutes you will use, you can still save money. But then again, you will be billed for the bucket of minutes you buy, whether you use them or not.
Overall, you should remember that there is no such thing as “free toll free conferencing.” Every vendor in the conference business charges for toll free service. Businesses and organizations enjoy toll free conferencing services because it provides customers, prospects and associates a convenient way to collaborate without the cost of dialing a long distance number. It may be more expensive than regular toll conferencing, but offering conference participants a toll free number provides a level of professionalism and shows everyone that you take your conference meetings seriously and that the discussions are important to you.
Toll free conference bridge services will continue to increase in popularity in the future because of how much time and money they save the participants. What would normally take an afternoon in getting everyone together can be accomplished in just a few minutes by meeting on the phone, rather than in person.