Let's keep in mind a few other things as well. The investment levels of Universities into their sports have natural cutoffs at 60, around 67, and again at 71. 3 regional conferences of 20 was a corporate think tank idea for a while. It was thought to be a way of energizing all three regions (North Midwest & Northeast), (Southeast), (Southwest & West) and still leaving a wildcard in the mix which could be utilized as a reward to a great team that stood to be left out of the mix. It could also be used to pull in a national crowd if one of the teams from a region championship had poor national following. Texas and North Carolina rendered that moot with refusals to take temptations to change.

The 4 x 16 model is the simplest of all to work whether it is a four team playoff or an eight team playoff. It moves us closer to a conference champions format which currently has been compromised away in order to facilitate change, but which, once consolidation has taken us to a P4 setup, will naturally creep back into the picture. Which by the way may be one reason the SEC has been content not to poach the ACC and to partner with the Big 12. That keeps multiple slots open for us in a 4 team playoff. If we have just 4 conferences Slive knows where this ends and it means each conference gets one slot.

In the end I believe the TV money will force the new structure upon all of us and they will get what they want. And what they want is a guarantee that each region of the country will have a dog in the hunt up until the semifinals. This optimizes their advertising revenue by keeping the rates higher in all regions from the start of the season up until the next to last week of it. Playing only other FBS schools also helps to eliminate duds from schedules.

While 64 teams would satisfy most of the top schools as far as exclusivity the networks will eventually figure out that 72 would bring in some markets that were left uncovered, not for the country, but for the regions. They are going to want overlap on the regional boundaries because having such guarantees that there is more than normal interest for 2 regions should an overlap school make the playoffs. It is for this reason that I believe we may look for 18 team models for 4 conferences at some point. Plus that format allows for a wildcard within each conference championship format (which is more insurance for TV execs that large fan bases that might otherwise have been excluded on a given year will stay energized). This line of thinking permeates professional sports and will be applied in collegiate sports once network control is established.

At that point, East Carolina and Cincinnati make sense as shared boundary teams. Both add markets and more importantly viewers to the mix. Viewers who might, if their teams are eliminated from even participating in the FBS, have opted not to watch. Now multiply their counterparts across all 4 regions and you can see how statistically this could be relevant in tying in two different regions in interest over 1 team. A plus for viewership.

If the PAC doesn't get Texas then TCU becomes a boundary overlap team. Louisville is such a team (the best one out there) for the ACC. Notre Dame even as a hybrid is a big time overlap addition. Cincinnati could work for the ACC or SEC. Look at what new markets were all about guys. They were about blurring regional lines. That's why Missouri and Texas A&M are terrific additions for the SEC. A&M puts us into the Southwest demographic and Missouri puts us into the Midwest demographic. That's why we wanted North Carolina and Virginia (and in a 3 x 20 model would have gotten them). The fact that this is market driven realignment (not a total cultural fit realignment) is how we know who is driving it. What is transpiring may help our conferences, but that is purely ancillary to helping the market management of the networks. I don't have a crystal ball, but I do analyze this mess from a business model. Whatever optimizes the ability of the networks to maximize viewers the longest and in the greatest number is what will transpire eventually. Which specific teams go where is not as relevant to the networks so much as the apparent balance of access to the playoffs for the regions. But maximizing potential viewership by blurring the edges of the boundaries are (hence the Texahoma idea). Also, avoiding hassles in public perception is important to get the viewers to buy in. Which is another reason I think we eventually go to an 18 team model.

At 64 you have about a dozen teams that could band together to form a class action suit. Realistically 7 of those teams would have a decent argument against exclusion versus the bottom third of those who would get in because their situations financially would not be too dissimilar. Take in those 7 and 1 more and now you are down to 4 schools who live essentially beyond the investment break at 71. Less outrage, more reasonable definition, and I think better for the top 64. Better because in a system that plays only against itself we need more teams that may gravitate toward the bottom of the new pool if we are to keep parity from destroying the records at the top.

So to my way of thinking the SEC, Big 10, ACC, and PAC need to be thinking in terms of what 18 they want rather than what 16. The ones that exercise their strategies to 18 will be the happiest with the results. And, I might add that a strategy to 18 will not be the same as a strategy to 16. Different divisional alignments would be at stake.