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[QUOTE="Townie72, post: 434644, member: 780"]
You ask the question "What does it all mean?" But the answer you provide  --- that "no attention to geographic boundary and rivalries are considered" in conference realignment and this is what is at the root of low demand for championship game tickets --- seems to me to be both unsatisfying and unsubstantiated.
 
First of all ... FSU and GT are close together geographically and have been in the ACC together a long time. (decades). Wisconsin and Nebraska are not traditional rivals but that itself isn't a disincentive I'm more likely to watch Wisconsin vs. Nebraska than I am Wisconsin vs. another Big Ten team (except Michigan or OSU) because of the "newness" of it. This "unfamilarity" of teams is, in part, what makes bowl games interesting (at least to me).
 
I agree that some rivalries have been torn asunder by all this (e.g, Pitt and WVU) by realignment. But there are actually only a few of these and the impact of these ruptures in the old status quo is going to be felt in the regular season, not in the championship games. We'll see how much Maryland fans don't show up to watch MD vs Purdue vs. how many didn't show up to watch MD vs NC State.
 
Even during the "regular season" or the vast majority of games --- not named OSU v. Michigan or Alabama v. Auburn --- you are way overstating the value of "tradition".
 
Old guys like me bemoan that Penn State isn't a fixture on SU schedules, but who among us --- old and young --- is going to miss SU not playing Rutgers? (Except for OrangePA).
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