Over the weekend, more than 10 million people tuned in to watch University of Southern California face University of Michigan in college football. That’s up 37% over the same time slot last year, according to CBS.

In the past, those two far-flung teams might only meet, say in the Rose Bowl. Now they criss cross the country to compete in the same Big 10 conference.

Over the last few seasons, lots of brand name college football teams have clustered into a couple of conferences, leaving smaller conferences to scrap over the teams that are left.

It’s hard to keep up with all the recent shifts in college football. California schools are playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference. There are 18 teams in the Big 10, and only two in the Pac-12. 

“Crassly, we’ll say, I guess it’s all about money,” said Mike Reynolds with S&P Global Market.

Reynolds said this game of musical chairs starts with TV and streaming contracts.

When brand name schools with big fan bases all compete in the same conference, “I think the product for the viewer is better,” said Rick Franza, a professor of management at Augusta University. “You know, there’s more matchups that never happened before.” 

And those exciting new matchups can drive up the value of media rights, according to Caitlin Jacklin, the college athletics leader at Deloitte.

“You know, bringing more people into the stands, more people watching at home across broadcast and streaming,” Jacklin said.

The reshuffling has winnowed the field from six major conferences to just four, said Alicia Jessop, an expert on the business of sports at Pepperdine University. 

“What we’re seeing is a consolidation,” Jessop said.  

Consolidation that’s pushing smaller schools and conferences further out of the limelight and making it harder for them to generate revenue. Jessop said the move away from regional conferences is also a geography problem. 

“Because we have to remember, the people who field the teams for these schools, they’re students,” Jessop said.

And while football is the money-maker, conference changes affect all athletes at these schools who are juggling academic deadlines and papers and midterms with regular cross-country trips to compete. 

“If you’re having to travel thousands of miles to go to a swim meet, go to a track meet, to play a baseball game,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said down the road, those costs might not pencil out for student athletes or schools. 

“You know, to cross sports metaphors, we’re in the first inning here,” Reynolds said.

Eventually, Reynolds said we could see college football break away from the conference system and do its own thing. 

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