Kentucky leaves SEC for ACC.
Florida leaves SEC for new Florida based conference.

My opinion on the new Florida conference

Miami
Florida st
Florida
South Florida
Florida int
Florida atl
UCF
it would be interesting to see who else joins.

SEC replaces two teams with UT and A&M.
PAC 10 raid 2 Big 12 teams.
Big 10 take Iowa st.

Big 12 replace 5 teams with
UH
TCU
BYU
Air Force
UNLV.

I bet OU find a way into the SEC to join UT. Maybe South Carolina joins Florida conference and makes room for OU in the SEC.

Thoughts

While I would LIKE to see conferences be more regional (ie break up all BCS conferences and cherry pick the best from the non-BCS and make them into eight 10-member and 12 member conferences) it's just isn't going to happen for monitary, historical, or academic reasons.

More money in regional conferences. California is smart to try to get Fresno st and San Diego st into the PAC 10. Florida is smarter to try to put together the Florida conference.

Far, far less money in regional conferences. You save on travel expenses, but you lose a lot of revenue. For example, Florida, would lose annual conference games against Tennessee, Georgia, etc.

This also brings up the issue of institutional fit. All of the University of California system schools are very different than the California State University system schools. Florida would have more in common with its fellow AAU schools in the Big Ten (research emphasis) than Central Florida (undergraduate emphasis).

wbyeager is correct. The amount of TV sets just in Florida pales in comparision to say the South East (ie the current makeup of the SEC). It's one of the big reasons the SWC merged with the Big 8. In addition, the most of the teams in the BCS conferences are the universities that garner most of the viewership. Again, this is out of historical context too as most of the BCS conferences are major research and/or elite private schools. For example, who do you think gets more support (financial, TV, etc) in say Louisiana - LSU or LaTech? In addition, why would say the SEC want to add LaTech when they already have the major player in terms of media, etc from Louisiana?

Expansion ulitmately leads to more TV revenue and exposure. This is why expansion is always about getting more markets. Ultimately, politics can get in the way but generally more money wins out. Watch out because a new wave 'may' happen with the early 'success' of the Big 10 network. Everyone is taking a wait and see approach. Think about how much the BTN is charging for 'in footprint' ($13.20 per year) vs. 'out of footprint' ($1.20) and you can see how much money say the state of Texas or some Northeastern markets can deliver. Again, there are huge TV markets that are still in play - NJ, NY, CT (ie the NYC market) - and can be had by other conferences via expansion.

I mean, a google search for population has the Mountain West region (Rocky Mountain states including Arizona and NM) at 18 million people while NY state by itself at 19 million.

Florida schools vary considerably, and frankly, not all are interested in or need to play all the others. Florida, for example, stopped playing Miami, but could have continued to do so as an OOC game periodically.
Near all the schools being from one State led to the breakup, in part, of the SWC. Arkansas bolting had the profound impact, than hypothetically saying Rice had bolted.
Certain state schools, even those that play each other every year, don't want to be in the same conference. Ask South Carolina and Clemson; or ask Florida and FSU. FSU had an SEC chance and passed for the ACC. South Carolina long ago left the ACC without Clemson.
While I believe conferences should have a measure of geographic cohesion and fundamentally contiguous by states, I think it is valuable and contributing for have multiple conferences represented in certain states. Cost saving and revenue enhancement do go hand in hand.

sec03 -

I absolutely agree. The intra-state conference makes a lot of sense in Div. II, Div. III, and NAIA where athletic budgets are tight, and transportation may largely be by bus.

In Div. I, about the only intra-state conference is the Big West (California).

Generally a conference of the "Big Boys" wants to spread out and hit the major markets in a region (and not be restricted by state lines).

Once a conference is well-established (I'm talking D-I), a team on the inside may want to veto admitting another intra-state "rival" to preserve a recruiting advantage. Otherwise (by conferring "equivalent status", the new team is elevated to recognition as a full-fledged competitor...

Thanks, tute79. Another good example is the Div. II Pennsylvania Athletic Conference -- consisting of the 14 state colleges.

And even that conference is branching out beyond Pennsylvania, although its footprint is still very small.