German philosopher Karl Marx explained the essence of communism when he wrote, “From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need.”

C’est la vie in the SEC, where each university – from Vanderbilt (2-10, 0-8 in 2009) to reigning National Champion Alabama – received an estimated $17.3 million in shared revenue last year, according to commissioner Mike Slive.

A paycheck like that makes it much easier for programs with less tradition than schools such as Alabama or Florida to hire a competitive coaching staff, expand their recruiting efforts and keep their facilities up to date.

In the SEC’s modern age, a sound game plan and a relatively athletic team is enough to take a nine-game conference losing streak to The Swamp and hand the eventual National Champion their only loss of the season.

Parity is at an all-time high, which makes almost every game played in the SEC worth tuning in (which, consequently, makes every game worth televising).

With the SEC as the home to the highest revenues and the last four BCS National Champions, it’s no surprise that conferences around the country are doing the best they can to keep up: the Big 10 plucked Nebraska from the Big XII, which gives them 12 teams and a conference championship game, and the Pac-10 added Colorado (also from the Big XII) and Utah (formerly of the Mountain West Conference) in an attempt to bolster its conference.

So where does that leave the Big XII? According to Texas Tech head coach Tommy Tuberville, formerly of Ole Miss and Auburn, on the fast road to extinction.

“We have a 10-team league right now, but I just don’t know how long that is going to last, to be honest with you. It’s just a matter of time, unless they get everyone on the same page,” Tuberville said on Rivals Radio when asked about the future of the conference.

Tuberville was reprimanded by the Big XII for his comments, but let’s not be so quick to dismiss him as a pessimist – try and read between the lines. Tuberville has been in this business for a long time, and he’s well aware that we can learn from the past to predict the future. As Marx would say, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

A number of factors contributed to the decline and eventual disbarment of the Southwest Conference – including SMU receiving the death penalty and Arkansas defecting for the SEC. However, at the root of the dissention among SWC programs was the same entity that has spurred the latest round of conference expansion – money.

Near the end of the SWC, Texas and Texas A&M were the only teams experiencing any real success selling their programs. The gap in revenues and competition grew between those two universities and the remainder of the conference. In 1996, the SWC and Big 8 conferences dissolved and members from both came together to form the Big XII.

Now that marquee programs like Nebraska and Colorado have left the conference just fifteen years later, Tuberville’s ominous prediction seems likely.

In fact, it almost came true this year when the Pac-10 was courting the majority of the Big XII South to form the first 16-team super conference in college football. Again, the fate of the conference was left in the hands of Texas and Texas A&M.

From many accounts, Texas was ready to make the jump to the Pac-10 (and ready to drag the rest of the schools in the Big XII South with them). Texas A&M had other plans, however – and for good reason too.

The Texas A&M campus – located in College Station, TX – is more than 2,000 miles away from a few Pac-10 teams. By comparison, the farthest trip TAMU would have to make if they played in a conference like the SEC would be to Columbia, SC, which is around 1,050 miles.

Joining the Pac-10 could have put an enormous amount of stress on TAMU fans and athletes.

Had Texas decided to head west, Texas A&M – from many accounts – would have been on its way east to the SEC. The Aggies had called Texas’ bluff, and had effectively saved the Big XII (for the time being at least). Regardless, in this new-look Big XII, UT is still the top dog.

Texas will take home more revenue than anyone else in the conference, and without the twelve teams required by the NCAA to play a conference championship game, Texas also gets to bypass another possible roadblock on its way to the BCS National Championship game.

If Tommy Tuberville thought being Alabama’s “little brother” was rough while at Auburn, he has no idea what he has in store for him during his tenure in Lubbock.

But just how long will the reformed Big XII put up with this monopoly? How long until the next round of conference expansions take place? More importantly, if the age of the super conferences does indeed arrive, what will become of the student-athlete and the fan experience?

Had the Pac-10 become the Pac-16, I think it is fair to speculate that most of the fans of the Washington State Volleyball team would have been out of luck when their team traveled all the way to Austin, Texas.

What’s more, constantly traveling across multiple state lines would surely put more pressure on the student-athlete – more time on the road means less time for the classroom.

College athletics are evolving at a rapid pace, and the NCAA is going to have to evolve as well if it plans on governing college sports for much longer. If an opportunity for greater capital gains ever arises for college football’s bigger conferences, they might decide to organize their own more lucrative system (with a playoff) and tell the NCAA to go takeover the NAIA if they want to stay in business.

Smaller sports, smaller schools, Title IX – what would become of all of it? The implications are absolutely endless and the first dominos have already fallen. It won’t be too long before the rest follow.