Imagine if the fate of a Major League Baseball team was directly connected to an NFL team that played in the same city. In this scenario, if the New York Giants decided to move to Connecticut, the Yankees would have to as well. The arrangement would also affect which channel you watched Yankees games on, as well as the team’s budget and potentially even its slate of opponents. (Better hope the Patriots move to the same conference as the Giants, or … no more games against the Red Sox!) Does that sound like a good position for the Yankees, or Major League Baseball, moving forward? Does that sound like a league well-positioned to succeed long term, or one that has any real control over its future?
This is what it has felt like to love college basketball lately. In an age of constant realignment and dramatically shifting priorities for universities and television networks, the sport, whose new season begins on Monday, seems to be fading more in relevance by the year. Some of its wounds are self-inflicted; for instance, a massive amount of roster turnover makes it somewhat inhospitable to fans. But the most existential problem is the chaos going on in college football, which has scrambled the entire college-sports landscape, and not in a good way.
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