Written by: Jaylin Hardin | Sports Editor
Fans of college athletics are no stranger to the conference realignments announced back in October 2023 — changing the way the Division I matchups would look this coming fall. Western itself is no stranger to conference changes: the 2022 football season was the first year of play in the Lone Star Conference.
These conference changes come in the wake of the networks and conferences paying their student-athletes for using their names, images and likenesses in various settings, such as advertising. This isn’t saying that student-athletes could be paid for their performance; however, it does mean that student-athletes could now sign partnerships with companies such as Reebok and Vuori, an athletic clothing brand. These two brands have both signed Louisiana State University athletes Angel Reese and Olivia Dunne as ambassadors.
This new ability to be paid for name, image and likeness, rather than performance, allows student-athletes to pursue business interests outside of their university and their respective athletic programs. However, even within this, there are issues.
The NIL — name, image and likeness — deal takes away the amateurism aspect of college athletics, pushing it closer toward the professional side of athletics. In their long-standing history, college athletes had not been able to accept payment surrounding their sport, to remain amateurs in their field — amateurism defined as only playing the sport in which they were recruited and not receiving payment. That being said, a college football player could also play pro baseball and be paid for baseball.
When the new conference changes are discussed, they are usually only looked at in how college football will be affected, meeting mixed reactions. Many fans have stated that the PAC-12 conference, consisting of the majority of West Coast Division I universities, had only been kept relevant due to the football programs at the University of Oregon and the University of Washington. On Jan. 8, X user @tpuffer18 posted to the social media platform: “So the Pac12 never won a national championship?”
This mindset of the conferences being only recognized for their football program is a large issue. Within the last seven years, the PAC-12 has won 38 national championships, in sports varying from indoor track and field, and beach volleyball to soccer. Many PAC-12 athletes also go pro; the most famous of these athletes is Adley Rutchsmann, one of two starting catchers for the Baltimore Orioles.
The PAC-12 is not the only conference that has member schools leaving; the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas are both joining the SEC, the Southeastern Conference, in lieu of the Big 12 Conference. The SEC boasts member schools such as Auburn University, the University of Georgia and the University of Mississippi, commonly known as Ole Miss.
So why is this such a big deal? With these new conference realignments, student-athletes now have further to travel for competitions and new weather environments they would not initially encounter in their home states. An example of this is the PAC-12 schools transferring to the Big 10 conference. Members of the Big 10 often play in heavy rain and snow during the playoff and Bowl season, something PAC-12 athletes are not accustomed to.
In the College Football National Championship, this was not a problem as it was played in Houston, Texas at the NRG Stadium — home of the Houston Texans. During this game, Michigan, a Big 10 school, faced the University of Washington, and won 34-13, falling as number one and two nationally.
However, these gridiron conferences, while boasting strong football programs and truly proving the saying “any given Sunday,” do not bode well for other sports and programs within these conferences.
An example of this lives in college softball. For three years in a row, the University of Oklahoma has won the National Championship for Softball, with big competitors coming from Texas, Alabama and Georgia. Originally, Texas and Oklahoma were both parts of the Big 12 Conference, with Alabama and Georgia in the SEC.
However, these four schools now being in the same conference makes for a less competitive Softball World Series; these programs may end up being knocked out of the bracket in early play, due to each team knowing how they play. This could very much be the reality for many of the sports programs.
There is, however, a perk to these conference realignments. The lesser-known Division I schools, ones that never initially had a dog in the race, now have a higher chance of participating in the National Championships. Fans of college softball can never forget the time James Madison University nearly beat the University of Oklahoma during the 2021 Women’s College World Series.
There are pros and cons to the NIL deal and its change for the college athletics landscape. Athletic programs that were once strong can now meet their downfall in its first season; similar to how Western’s football team has not had a winning season since they joined the Lone Star Conference.
Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu
