Collegiate athletics has been sick for a very long time. One major symptom is the skyrocketing tuition kids pay, and the fact that some of the highest paid state employees are football coaches. These are pretty serious, unsustainable problems. Realignment doesn’t fix any of that of course, but it fits within the context of it all. From that perspective, for the last 20 years, I’ve pretty much stopped watching concussion-ball altogether; and for basketball I’m resigned to the idea that it’s all temporary and everything is fluid. I grew up cheering for 3 teams, South Dakota St, the local team (and my school); University of Minnesota, the local D1 team, and my other school; and Kansas, the local powerhouse (and what Midwestern kid in the 80s didn’t love Danny Manning?). The goofs are probably stable, as a founding member of the Big 10, but honestly who knows anymore? Everything is fluid. At the end of the day, these are academic institutions for public good. I’ll support my teams, but only to the extent that they serve their function in the community.
This problem isn’t going away until the NCAA is completely overhauled with new mission and guidelines and strong oversight. Basically just a profit generator for universities and their endowment-fund-loving trustees right now.