Three plans to Save the WAC

Harry · February 29, 2012

The Mountain West Conference and Conference USA presidents are well into the planning stages of a merger. They met together in Dallas recently to hash out the plan.

East Carolina's chancellor Steve Ballard said after the meeting that the plan calls for expansion to as many as 20 schools by the summer and possible 24-30 by as late as 2016. (It should be noted that 30 teams would not lend itself to divisional play while 24 would.)

If the merger occurs, the Western Athletic Conference may lose one or two teams to the new conference this year and possibly as many as four by 2016.

If the merger does not occur, the WAC, with very little money coming in from ESPN, could lose two schools to the MWC and up to four schools to Conference USA in what would likely be a condensed time frame.

Additionally there is another potential predator out there. The WAC recently refused to extend the contract of longtime commissioner Karl Benson. Benson rebuilt the WAC from a five-team league into today's 11-team conference, but that was apparently not good enough to earn him an extension.

Benson now works for the rival Sun Belt Conference. He has mentioned that he sees the Sun Belt footprint as stretching from Texas to Florida. This is relevant because the Sun Belt's only Texas school is the University of North Texas, which is also a strong candidate for the new conference's initial round of expansion.

read more: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1071435-3-plans-to-save-the-western-athletic-conference