Long Beach State fans can breathe a sigh of relief – the 49ers will continue to win conference titles.
San Diego State, which fields teams ranked nationally across multiple sports, will reportedly rejoin the Mountain West Conference after briefly being set to break off and join the Big East Conference in football and the Big West Conference in all other sports this summer.
In the short term, this failed conference realignment helps LBSU, as the Aztecs consistently produce high-quality men’s basketball, women’s basketball, women’s soccer, softball, men’s golf and women’s golf teams. LBSU took home conference championships in three of those sports in 2011-12 and advanced to the NCAA tournament in four of them. Without SDSU in the mix, the 49ers can continue their recent success without having to overcome a national power in the Aztecs.
That being said, any coach or administrator in the Big West will express disappointment that SDSU will not join the conference in the near future. The addition of such a strong athletics program was seen to be a big step forward for the Big West, a conference that has been making a clear effort to grow with the recent addition of Hawaii. Boise State had also agreed to join the Big West in non-football sports before rejoining the Mountain West in November.
FOX Sports is likely another disappointed party, as the network agreed to a multi-million dollar television deal with the Big West earlier this year that had SDSU in its coverage plans. The number of televised events was to be expanded by 60 percent from 2012-13 to 2013-14 in order to accommodate the additions of Boise State and SDSU. Whether the pair’s return to the Mountain West has an affect on the TV deal is not known at this point.
What is known is that the Big East’s failures led Boise State and SDSU to change their minds about realignment, and the Big West was hurt in the process. The Broncos and Aztecs broke off from the Mountain West almost entirely for football reasons, as the Big East had an automatic bid to the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) games at the time of the deal.
To accommodate the football realignment, Boise State and SDSU were forced to make plans for other sports outside the Mountain West. The Big West became the beneficiary, but those benefits now appear to have been short-lived.
Since then, the BCS has been restructured to allow for a four-team football playoff beginning in 2014-15. The Big East has also lost its best sports schools to the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12 Conference and Big 10 Conference. Schools like Boise State, SDSU and Texas Christian also backed out of their plans to join the Big East, instead electing to either retreat to their old conferences (Boise State, SDSU) or move on to different ones (TCU is now a part of the Big 12).
While it certainly would have been exciting to welcome the Aztecs to the Big West this summer, LBSU has a much easier chance to win conference titles and enter postseason tournaments than it does with SDSU to compete with. It is highly unlikely that the 49ers would have been favored to win the Big West in men’s basketball, women’s soccer or softball in 2012 if SDSU was also a member.
For now, it looks as if the Big West and LBSU will have to grow without the Aztecs. But with college football sparking constant conference realignment, the Big West may not have to wait too long before another expansion opportunity presents itself.