With a few notable exceptions such as the Southwest Conference (RIP), modern day conferences rarely die. Look at, for example, the WAC, a conference that started in 1962 with Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, BYU, New Mexico and Wyoming. Every single member of that conference has moved on (fully half to a P5), but the conference reloaded several times over, including pretty well the entire MWC past and present. Yet it's still kicking around. Similarly, Conference USA was founded primarily by members of the Metro Conference and the Great Midwest Conference (notable exception being Houston from the SWC), and even though all of the founders except Southern Miss and UAB have departed, they've reloaded.

I say this because history pretty well shows that the Big XII is pretty unlikely to disband despite some writers (and posters) more or less predicting that. Anybody who can find a life raft out will do so, but it's far more likely that they will live on.

USFFan

(08-19-2021 03:19 PM)usffan Wrote:  With a few notable exceptions such as the Southwest Conference (RIP), modern day conferences rarely die. Look at, for example, the WAC, a conference that started in 1962 with Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, BYU, New Mexico and Wyoming. Every single member of that conference has moved on (fully half to a P5), but the conference reloaded several times over, including pretty well the entire MWC past and present. Yet it's still kicking around. Similarly, Conference USA was founded primarily by members of the Metro Conference and the Great Midwest Conference (notable exception being Houston from the SWC), and even though all of the founders except Southern Miss and UAB have departed, they've reloaded.

I say this because history pretty well shows that the Big XII is pretty unlikely to disband despite some writers (and posters) more or less predicting that. Anybody who can find a life raft out will do so, but it's far more likely that they will live on.

I'd say this is because of the nature of organizations and also the NCAA rules. Organizations tend to persist even after they have no formal purpose, because the employees of the organization have a personal interest (i.e., their jobs) to keep it going anyway. Maybe all or most of a conference's members have left, but the conference administration has an interest in keeping the entity going.

Also, NCAA rules related to distributions and NCAA tournament bids and the like create incentives to keep otherwise shell or zombie conferences going. As long as there are even a couple members who have no place better to go, they have an incentive to keep the lights on in the abandoned conference house, so to speak, and the incentives listed above mean they can usually attract more house guests, even if of the ragged vagabond variety, to breathe new life in to the beast.

The L8, btw, is nothing like that. They can keep going on far better terms. But my account explains why even really low-end conferences tend to lumber on.

Metro Conference
Great Midwest Conference

(08-19-2021 03:48 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Metro Conference
Great Midwest Conference

They merged and became CUSA.

(08-19-2021 03:48 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Metro Conference
Great Midwest Conference

(08-19-2021 03:19 PM)usffan Wrote:  With a few notable exceptions such as the Southwest Conference (RIP), modern day conferences rarely die. Look at, for example, the WAC, a conference that started in 1962 with Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, BYU, New Mexico and Wyoming. Every single member of that conference has moved on (fully half to a P5), but the conference reloaded several times over, including pretty well the entire MWC past and present. Yet it's still kicking around. Similarly, Conference USA was founded primarily by members of the Metro Conference and the Great Midwest Conference (notable exception being Houston from the SWC), and even though all of the founders except Southern Miss and UAB have departed, they've reloaded.

For all intents and purposes, CUSA is the Great Midwest Conference (Dayton had no desire to be in an all sports conference and thus joined the A-10). The Metro was indeed dissolved. Fun fact, originally USF and UNCC weren't going to be invited to join CUSA which would have left the Metro intact and thus cost Louisville, Southern Miss and Tulane a boatload of cash, which was why both schools with designs on starting football were invited and promised automatic entry into the football part of the league.

USFFan

No conference is a better example of this fact as the Missouri Valley Conference.

Just look at the list of its former members and yet it still continues on (founded in 1907):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_V...Conference

Great West Conference
Pacific Coast Conference

The Great West was more a scheduling arrangement for a bunch of independents. Big Sky and WAC expansion finished it off.

The PCC was disbanded due to scandal, but really it appears so that what became the Pacific 8 (AAWU at first, aka "Big Five" then "Big Six", took a couple years to round up everyone) could ditch Idaho.

As veteran of the SWC and WAC, I beg to differ.

(08-19-2021 04:13 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  No conference is a better example of this fact as the Missouri Valley Conference.

Just look at the list of its former members and yet it still continues on (founded in 1907):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_V...Conference

That's astonishing. I had no idea they had so many iterations.

On this theme, both Cincinnati and Memphis have been conference mates over the years with more programs than is almost fathomable. I once counted. The numbers are staggering.

(08-19-2021 03:19 PM)usffan Wrote:  With a few notable exceptions such as the Southwest Conference (RIP), modern day conferences rarely die. Look at, for example, the WAC, a conference that started in 1962 with Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, BYU, New Mexico and Wyoming. Every single member of that conference has moved on (fully half to a P5), but the conference reloaded several times over, including pretty well the entire MWC past and present. Yet it's still kicking around. Similarly, Conference USA was founded primarily by members of the Metro Conference and the Great Midwest Conference (notable exception being Houston from the SWC), and even though all of the founders except Southern Miss and UAB have departed, they've reloaded.

I say this because history pretty well shows that the Big XII is pretty unlikely to disband despite some writers (and posters) more or less predicting that. Anybody who can find a life raft out will do so, but it's far more likely that they will live on.

USFFan

The SWC also had no exit fees--so there was no financial incentive to keep it alive like FBS conferences in todays era.

(08-19-2021 05:54 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  On this theme, both Cincinnati and Memphis have been conference mates over the years with more programs than is almost fathomable. I once counted. The numbers are staggering.

Yup. Other than their 20 years in the SWC, the Coogs have led a very nomadic existence.

A lot of conferences have died:

Southwest
Big 8 (technically speaking)
Metro
Great Midwest
American South
Border
Mid-Continent (AMCU-8, became the Summit)
Yankee
AAWU (morphed into the Pac 8 without Idaho and Montana)

(08-19-2021 06:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-19-2021 05:54 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  On this theme, both Cincinnati and Memphis have been conference mates over the years with more programs than is almost fathomable. I once counted. The numbers are staggering.

Yup. Other than their 20 years in the SWC, the Coogs have led a very nomadic existence.

No doubt. I strongly hope UM, UH and UC stay together through this (either in the AAC or in the R8).

When did exit fees become a thing? I assume they learned from the SWC experience

(08-19-2021 04:04 PM)usffan Wrote:  For all intents and purposes, CUSA is the Great Midwest Conference (Dayton had no desire to be in an all sports conference and thus joined the A-10). The Metro was indeed dissolved. Fun fact, originally USF and UNCC weren't going to be invited to join CUSA which would have left the Metro intact and thus cost Louisville, Southern Miss and Tulane a boatload of cash, which was why both schools with designs on starting football were invited and promised automatic entry into the football part of the league.

Yes. There's a difference between a "merger under a new name eliminating one" and a disbanded, separate ways situation.

But I will say your Dayton comment is not correct. Dayton did not leave the Great Midwest, the GMW members left them behind for C-USA. Dayton got home & home basketball series and financial compensation as part of a settlement to avoid a lawsuit.

(08-19-2021 07:51 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  A lot of conferences have died:

Southwest
Big 8 (technically speaking)
Metro
Great Midwest
American South
Border
Mid-Continent (AMCU-8, became the Summit)
Yankee
AAWU (morphed into the Pac 8 without Idaho and Montana)

Big 8 is a technicality, they're the Big 12 now.
Metro and Great Midwest technically, they're C-USA now
American South technically, they merged with the Sun Belt

The Yankee Conference, technically, because the NCAA changed its rules on football-only conferences and forced it to "merge" into the Atlantic 10. The 1996 Yankee and 1997 Atlantic 10 football conferences had the exact same membership. The A-10 football conference suffered kinda the same fate as the Yankee Conference: Northeastern joined the Colonial in all sports, giving CAA enough members to sponsor football and the CAA just invited the remaining members of the old conference. Same league, new name.

The Mid-Con isn't a technicality, they just changed their name to the Summit League.
The AAWU isn't technicality, either, they changed their name a few times and ARE the Pac-12.


The Southwest and Border are really the only conferences to actually disband.

(08-19-2021 07:51 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  A lot of conferences have died:

Big 8 (technically speaking)

This post doesn't seem to be about the technicalities. And the technicalities of which conference championship histories the conference acknowledges and which charter survives can be different. But in any event, the "Big Eight" lived on in the "Big 12", while the SWC was dissolved.

Quote: Great Midwest

... but the Great Midwest effectively became CUSA, so as has already been discussion in the thread, in these terms it didn't "really" die ... though the Metro did.

Quote: Mid-Continent (AMCU-8, became the Summit)

If it became the Summit, then it didn't really die.

Quote:
AAWU (morphed into the Pac 8 without Idaho and Montana)

That morphing doesn't seem to be "conference dying" in the sense of this post.

So that's:

Quote: Southwest
Metro
American South
Border
Yankee

How many of these are "modern" conferences? I don't see the Border conference being considered a "modern" conference. Indeed, if the modern era starts with the court decision that schools own their home game rights, not the NCAA, in early 1980, the Yankee was no longer an all-sports conference by then.

So in these terms, it's really just three or four, and the American South conference was more a failed start-up than a conference that got established and then got killed.

To my mind, two or three established "modern" conferences dying and one attempted start-up conference failing satisfies the "modern conferences rarely die" claim.

TBC, this is among the majors. AFAIU, conferences down in Division III come and go with greater frequency.