College football analyst predicts conferences could drop teams amid expansion
College football conference expansion and realignment isn't going to slow down anytime soon, and as the process unfolds, some leagues now earning historic amounts of money from TV deals could find themselves getting rid of teams rather than adding them.
That's according to Fox college football analyst Joel Klatt, who speculated that the way conferences have to split their money with member schools could drive those leagues to engage in some cost-cutting measures that will include dropping the lesser-performing schools from the rotation.
Related: ACC reacts with bold plan amid college football realignment rumors
"It's been about who can we add to increase value so that we all make more money," Klatt said on his show. "Well, pretty soon it's going to start being about who can we drop.
He added, "I know people think I'm crazy and look at me kind of sideways. That's absolutely coming. Because, again, there's not an unlimited source of money, and the money then has to get smarter."
“You know, only a certain number of taxpayers actually pay all the taxes while only a certain number or a number of teams in every one of these conferences are actually driving the valuation for the entire conference," Klatt said.
"Well, pretty soon, those teams are going to be like, ‘Hey, we can’t handle the dead weight at this point. Having X, Yor Z school in our conference is just diluting the conference. It’s diluting it in two ways.
More: Big 12 has new team on radar amid expansion rumors
"One, we’ve got to chop up the pie in more pieces. And then the other is we’ve got to enter them into the schedule so we don’t even get all the big boys facing each other as often as they should, because we’ve got to dilute the schedule with that other team that really doesn’t derive any value.”
It's not a secret that college football both nationally and regionally is an extremely top-heavy sport, with a few elite brands dominating on the field and in creating value while other schools, while they may play decent football and have some historic following, do little more for leagues than fill up a schedule.
Expansion: Colorado could move "soon," per reports
And while it's far too early in the expansion process to suggest conferences will think of getting rid of teams, it's not completely out of the ordinary to say they could have it on their mind as they look to concentrate the value being created by expansion now.
More college football from SI: Top 25 Rankings | Schedule | All Teams
Follow College Football HQ: Bookmark | Rankings | Picks