Explaining How Pac-12 to Mountain West Relegation Would Work
Promotion and relegation is a system that has been brought up across almost every sports league in the United States for the past decade.
With conference realignment taking over headlines across collegiate sports, we look at what the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences may look like if the two merged with a promotion and relegation system.
Bottom 2 Down, Top 2 Up
For those unfamiliar with the idea of promotion and relegation, it’s pretty simple: At the end of each season, the bottom two teams in the top league – the Pac-12 – are relegated to the bottom league – the Mountain West – and are replaced by the bottom league’s top two finishers. It leaves a blend of your powerhouse, blue-blood programs being forced to mingle with smaller programs that have proven they can hold their own against this level of opponent. And doing so creates a sense of urgency among programs to put the best product on the field possible. When your bottom line may be impacted based on whether you are in the top or bottom division, it forces athletic departments to ensure integrity and put their best foot forward to remain in the top flight.
New Rivalries
While breaking up conference rivalries has become one of the biggest cons when discussing realignment, you can have the best of both worlds. While new rivalries may take shape among the programs involved, you are not destroying the ones with over a century of tradition. With so many of these schools located within the same region, new traditions and rivalries could be sparked while largely maintaining the ones that have made collegiate sports unique.
Rewarding Success & Added Drama
The top argument for implementing promotion and relegation in any system comes with rewarding success and punishing tanking. While tanking isn’t part of the college game, why not reward success? The teams atop the Mountain West will be awarded a bigger stage against more prominent programs and more revenue. The programs that are constantly underperforming will have to face the consequence of relegation. When we are talking millions in revenue on the line, it can create incredible drama at the end of the season. Those familiar with European soccer understand the structure of promotion/relegation and what kind of drama it can bring when teams face off for survival at the end of a season. It can arguably create more entertainment than a matchup against the conference’s top teams. Rewarding success, punishing failure, and adding drama are all things we believe fans can get behind in college sports.
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