This is the flaw in the movement to fewer power conferences. It may not happen quickly, though it's possible that it could, but at some point excluding large portions of the population from a true seat at the table will kill the whole thing. College football is great because of the regional differences and passion of fan bases from all over the country. I know I used to love to stay up late on Saturday to watch a west coast game just to see the pageantry of it all. But the playoff being a rotation of the same 6-8 schools has already weakened my interest. Another ten years of huge disparity in resources will narrow the field even further. Surely someone at Fox or ESPN can see that there is a long term issue that needs to be addressed? I understand that in the moment it makes sense to pursue milking the profits you can get from the SEC or Big10 but what do you do when the rest of country stops tuning in? Even if VT ends up in one of the top two leagues it will be bittersweet. I did have one thought today that gave me some hope. Maybe there is a way that schools could break free from networks all together. Maybe in the not so distant future networks will give some money to the conference but the schools will individually be tasked with generating more of their own broadcast revenue. Not sure exactly how that would look but maybe the crisis can be averted by opening up new streams of revenue.