College sports, business and realignment entangled

The television-rights money grab is imploding decades worth of traditions and rivalry at major college campuses across the country.

All of this discombobulation is about television. Television and cable rights fees from college football, and to a lesser degree men's college basketball, pay for the lion's share of most men's and women's collegiate sports, from tennis to water polo. With most public universities strapped for cash, television rights have become the Holy Grail for university presidents as a means to fund their sports programs. The television and cable networks are willing to pony up billions in long-term contracts because, for now, televised live sporting events are among the few programs that seem to defy time-shifting -- the practice in which viewers watch programs when they want after recording them on their digital video recorders or downloading them from Netflix.