May Smaller Conferences Look at Expansion to Help Offset Fuel Costs?

I was reading an article in my Sporting News magazine (yes, I still get the print one) about the plight of Hawaii's athletic program. Due to the rising fuel costs, it is difficult for them to (a) get to road games and (b) get anyone to fly out to play them.

The article threw it out there that conferences may have to adjust to the rising fuel costs by rescheduling and/or expansion.

Hawaii's conference, the WAC, is the nation's largest geographic conference ... and that's even if you took Hawaii out of the picture. WAC teams must travel all the way down to Louisiana, all the way up to Idaho and all the way west to Hawaii.

The Pac-10 ... a BCS conference ... uses an outstanding scheduling model where a team plays at both Oregon teams (or Arizona, or Washington, or Bay Area or Southern California teams) on a Thursday/Saturday schedule. That allows these schools to limit their travel costs. Could the WAC follow suit?

The WAC has two Idaho schools (Idaho, Boise State), two California schools (Fresno State, San Jose State) and not much else. They could link a trip to Utah State and Nevada together, but Hawaii, New Mexico State and Louisiana Tech are kind of left in the cold.

Would it be ideal for the WAC to expand and add three more teams? That would give them 12 and allow them to hold a football conference championship game and maybe help on travel costs in basketball. Most likely, they'd have to pillage the Sun Belt for a few teams (Arkansas State? North Texas?) or add some non-football members like Northern Arizona?

And that is just the WAC. Will smaller conferences look to do the same? The Big West has made themselves a conference of nine members ... all based in California. Conference USA pared down to a predominately gulf based conference, though they do have members in West Virginia and North Carolina.

In the conference booms of the early 1990s and mid 2000s the goal was to spread your conference's reach to new markets. The ACC moved up to New England, the Big East over to Louisville and Cincinnati and many smaller conferences adding far away schools.

That is just a conference issue. There is another issue of non-conference scheduling, something that is tough for schools like Hawaii and events like the Great Alaskan Shootout. What we could see is a lot more intraconference games between regional schools and less cross-country showdowns. That could trouble the western schools who like to have a few games that get some pub from the east coast media.

Schools are thinking about shortening their seasons by a game or two. The NCAA is even thinking about toying with the scheduling of the NCAA tournament so schools can find the cheapest way to travel.

With the economy the way it is and fuel prices the way they are, this is just one of the areas of collateral damage.