I was a peripheral college baseball fan before this season. I enjoyed it, but didn’t try to plug myself into the national scene. I’m also a big believer in East Coast bias in all media — sports media not excepted.

So this season, I think I’ve learned a lot about college baseball, the way it’s covered in general, and the fans. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

California is a good place for college baseball, but the South is insane.

California has a lot of college baseball teams, but people care about college baseball a whole lot more in the South, and the numbers back it up.

At the end of the season, the SEC dominated in attendance, drawing numbers that look like those of a bad Major League Baseball team.

SEC has set a new record with over 2.25 million in paid baseball attendance during the 2014 regular season.

— Chuck Dunlap (@SEC_Chuck) May 18, 2014

Nearly half a million of that total comes from the state of Mississippi alone. LSU 380K. ARK and SC both over 1/4 million each.

— Chuck Dunlap (@SEC_Chuck) May 18, 2014

LSU ended the season in first place in attendance, drawing over 378,00 fans in 35 home games. Ten of the top eleven and 12 of the top 14 total attendance leaders were from the SEC or ACC.

Cal Poly, in the midst of the greatest baseball season the school has ever seen, drew the 41st-most fans in the country. In a city like San Luis Obispo, it’s nothing to scoff at — just over 45,000 fans in 30 games — but let’s not compare it with what happens in the SEC and ACC.

Baggett Stadium is a great place to watch a game. It drew the 41st-most fans in college baseball this year. By Owen Main

San Luis Obispo is the kind of town this can be sustainable in. Maybe.

All that being said, SLO isn’t the typical place to find a university in California. Located in a more rural county, San Luis Obispo probably has more in common with an SEC college town than maybe any other college town in California.

For that reason, I have a little bit of hope that with some continued, sustained success, college baseball in San Luis Obispo could be a lot more popular. There are only 45,000 people in in the city of San Luis Obispo and about 275,000 in the entire county — not exactly a metropolis.

There are also five or six quality beach towns, lots of wine, and about a thousand other things to do than watch baseball. I don’t think sustaining an average of 1,500-2,000 fans per game is an unreasonable goal for the program.

When things like this happen though, during a season like they’re having, one has to wonder….

RT @pistolpete565 : Someone really just asked me if baseball season has started yet! Are you serious?

— fansmanship (@fansmanship) May 20, 2014

What about that East coast bias?

Does the East coast bias exist? I believe it does.

I also believe that, in a lot of ways, it’s justified. If I owned a website that covered college baseball nationally, I would look at the above numbers that reflect Southern fansmanship and skew my coverage waaay in that direction. Add to that the fact that SEC and ACC teams are really good and have great RPI’s and you have a system that promotes the game where the game is the strongest — SEC and ACC country.

UCLA, arguably the most successful West coast school of late, has a stadium that holds 1,820 people. Oregon and Oregon State — two other Pac-12 powers — have facilities that accommodate for 4,000 and 3,248 people respectively. These are big numbers, but they don’t sell-out every game all season and, if they did, they wouldn’t even break the top-10 nationally.

Also, let me make this clear. Guys like Aaron Fitt, John Manuel, Eric Sorenson Kendall Rodgers, and Shotgun Spratling do yeoman’s work. In Major League Baseball there are 30 teams that get covered by countless writers. In college baseball, a small core group cover over 300 Division 1 teams, and it seems like guys like Fitt could name most of the starters on most of the top 100-150 teams in the nation. They do a great job.

In the end, arguing bias doesn’t matter

Fans on the West coast can argue an East coast bias all they want, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Teams that are national contenders will host regionals. Teams that are good will make it to Omaha. Six of the past ten national champions have come from a conference on the West Coast. Despite there being far fewer Division 1 schools West of Texas, the schools that have made the College World Series from the West have fared relatively well.

Listen, I’m not here to start a fight. I’ve lived in the South. I’ve seen what SEC football can do to people. I can imagine what happens during football’s offseason. By every measure, college baseball in the South has more eyes on it and is more important to the general population there than anywhere else. On some level, I get the bias in this sport and I am on-board with supporting fan-bases that come out in droves.

On Monday though, neither fans nor the media won’t be the one who selects who gets in the tournament and what regional they go to. That is up to a selection committee that has shown a good deal of thought in recent years when it comes to selecting NCAA Tournament teams. They seem to do a pretty good job of understanding RPI bias.

Cal Poly felt like they got snubbed two years ago. Last season, they showed they belonged in a regional. So, what’s the next step? I guess we’ll find out next week.

To view attendance numbers for all NCAA schools go here, choose Division 1 baseball, and go to “Misc. Reports.”

The Big East looks to be the first truly dying conference, with Syracuse and Pittsburgh signing on the dotted line last week to join the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference).  Reports also have come out in the past few days that Connecticut and Rutgers will follow suit.  If this were to happen, it would transform the ACC into the first 16-team super-conference.  The Big East would then be left in shambles, and there is a good chance that TCU, who was slated to join the Big East next season, will be looking to back out of that obligation at some point in the near future.  Look for TCU to jump back to non-BCS league play by most likely joining either the Mountain West Conference or Conference USA.

What was the Pac 10 and now is the Pac 12, has been looking to become the Pac 16 by the end of the year.  Colorado and Utah joined the ranks this season from the Big 12 and the Mountain West Conference respectively.  Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech were looking to join the party and create a new Pac 16.  However, late last night Pac 12 commissioner Larry Scott announced that the Pac 12 would not be expanding any further at this point in time.  That doesn’t mean that the Pac 12 won’t explore the possibility at season’s end.  The reports are that Texas nixed any deal, given the fact that they refused to share any revenue created from their new “Longhorn Network” TV deal.

I believe the eventual destiny of the Pac 12 is to in fact add Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, and when this destiny is eventually fulfilled, the mass exodus from the Big 12 and the conference’s dissolving entirely will commence.  Given the idea that they could lose these four teams, Nebraska has already left the conference this season for the Big 10, and Texas A&M has already made a tentative deal to join the SEC next season, the Big 12 would then be left a rotting carcass. 

The Big 12 would then be left with five schools that would be searching for new homes:  Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Baylor, and Iowa State.  I believe the current 12-team Big 10 would then absorb Big 12 leftovers:  Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Iowa State to become the new Big 16, and Baylor will be left on the outside looking in.  It is reasonable to say that the only chance a school like Baylor would have to join the Big 10 is if Missouri joined the SEC (Southeastern Conference), which is also a rumor being floated. 

So where is this high-stakes game of musical chairs going to end up when the music stops?  If the end result is four 16-team super-conferences of and if my math is correct, that adds up to 64 teams.  There are currently 68 teams in the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision), 66 in the 6 “BCS” conferences, and independents Notre Dame and BYU.  So what four teams will be left out?  And what slots would be left if the 16-team ACC and Pac 16 would be created?  And will Notre Dame finally be forced to join a conference?

The SEC currently has 12 teams, divisions of East and West containing six each.  With Texas A&M most likely joining the West division next season, that leaves one more spot open in the West and two spots open in the East.  The obvious suitors for those three spots are:  Missouri from the Big 12, some other remaining Big 12 school (although there has been no formal or informal news the SEC is interested in any other Big 12 schools other than Texas A&M and possibly Missouri at this point), and Big East fall-outs West Virginia, South Florida, Louisville or Cincinnati. 

Even with the current news of the SEC possibly turning their noses up at West Virginia, I believe West Virginia joining the East division and Missouri or Cincinnati joining the West division are the best possible choices for the SEC to be able to expand its footprint.  The final spot in the East would then come down to a tug-of-war between:  a rising Cincinnati team (if Missouri takes the other spot in the West) that won back to back Big East titles in 2008 and 2009 and recieved automatic bids to BCS bowl games, a Louisville program that has underachieved vastly in the past five years, and a rising South Florida Program that has recently had multiple players selected in the early rounds of the NFL draft.  If I was a betting man (and I am) and had to pick them in order of possibility from most to least likely, I would bet on Cincinnati as the engine, South Florida as the passenger car, and Louisville as the kaboose. 

All of this being considered, four of these five programs could be left standing there when the music stops:  Notre Dame, BYU, South Florida, Louisville or Baylor. 

Notre Dame has the largest nation-wide fan base and a lucrative TV deal with NBC.  They have always been independent and I believe even with all this madness, they have no feasible reason to change anything. 

BYU also has a good national following, is enjoying its first season of independence, and worst case scenario could always re-join the Mountain West Conference, where they have flourished in years past. 

South Florida has overachieved in the past decade from where the program’s overall tradition of winning was in years past, but joining Conference USA or even the Sun Belt Conference would not destroy their program.  They would simply become a powerful non-BCS program like TCU or Boise State, who would benefit from a weaker schedule and could find their way into a BCS bowl if they go undefeated in a season.  This would be more than entirely possible given the distinct advantage of their talent versus the rest of that currently performing in Conference USA or the Sun Belt Conference.

Louisville would most likely join Conference USA, as even though it isn’t a BCS conference, it is closely comparable to the Big East talent-wise, as Conference USA has slowly become the best non-BCS conference right next to the Mountain West Conference, and the Big East has without a doubt become the worst BCS conference.  Louisville would be challenged by teams like Houston, East Carolina, Central Florida and Tulsa the same way they were by Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers. 

Baylor realistically would have the most options if they are left out of the super-conference shuffle, due to Baylor being a private school.  Baylor could go ‘Notre Dame’ and become a completely independent private school as far as football is concerned, or join either the Mountain West Conference or Conference USA.  Of those two conferences, the Mountain West would be more viable, due to less travel distance on a week to week basis because of Baylor’s proximity to the other teams in the conference.

Recent BCS championship contenders TCU and Boise State would also be left out, but if TCU joined the MWC with Baylor, they both would be a good challenge for Boise State in that conference, as the conference would then have 3 schools perpetually in the top 50, something it has never been able to boast.

The bottom line of all these possible scenarios falls back on one key fact  – a permanent landscape that will rule for decades to come most likely won’t be set for at least another two or three seasons.  A high-risk game of chicken (is there any other kind?) will be played over the next few years by conference commissioners that will have to dawn the power-broker hat, as these executives will without a doubt earn their salary and then some.  But once the paint dries on the new conference monstrosities, I believe the most salient advance for the game itself that will result from this re-structure will be the ever-closer advancing towards a playoff system to decide a champion – something the vast majority of college football fans have insatiably craved for decades. 

Four super-conference champions playing out a football final four in pursuit of the crystal ball would be beyond compelling.  And with all the hectic changes that are taking place and will continue to in the near future, it is, by the day, becoming all that much more safe to say that you can’t rule out any possibility.