Well,
 
There are too many messages to respond directly, so I'll just share my
thoughts:
 
1.  The rich always get richer.  Take school X and school Y, who have the
same number of students and the same total sales (c'mon - you know that
schools aren't that different from corporations!) in towns approximately
the same size.  Coincidentally, they've had the same records over the last
20 seasons.  However, school X suddenly decides to spend 1.5% of its budget
on the hockey team, while school Y spends only 0.2%.  School X is able to
upgrade its weight rooms, locker rooms, refurbish the rink, buy new
equipment, buy more local advertising, hire a pricier CEO (er, coach), buy
new busses (or plane tickets instead of busses), etc - just like any
business would.  The only difference is that they aren't allowed to raise
employee salaries....  Both schools therefore remain within NCAA
compliance.  Now tell me that blue chip recruits will be equally attracted
to both schools!
 
The logical extension of this thought experiment is how much easier it is
for a "rich" school to do the same thing as school X.  Michigan only needs
to spend 0.0000x% of its total university budget to outspend Clarkson, who
spends 0.00y% just trying to keep up.
 
2.  Winning matters.  The first three years that I lived in Vermont, the
sports section of the Burlington Free Press had full page color spreads on
UVM hockey every weekend during the season.  This year, Middlebury got more
coverage than UVM....  Mind you, UVM still out-drew Middlebury, still
generated more revenue, etc, but Burlington is at least 10 times the size
of Middlebury, too.  The point is, winning programs attract more attention
than losing ones.
 
Put 1 and 2 together and you see that winning programs at rich schools will
continue to be at the top of the leagues, and losing programs at poor
schools will have a hard time climbing the ranks - they're probably better
off changing to a different league/division where they can compete.
 
I guess to sum up my thoughts:
 
Programs will tend to gravitate to their comfort level.  By this I mean
that each athletic administration has an idea of what it wants to get out
of the program (what win % is acceptable, what post season results,
national exposure, etc - oh, yes, and the personal development of it
student athletes) for what they're willing to put into the program ($$$,
$$$, and did I mention $$$).  If the AD feels that they're not getting
their bang for their buck, they will seek change, whether that be changing
conferences, changing recruiting patterns, changing coaches, etc.  When
major changes occur (such as new conferences forming), it is because the
dissatisfaction levels of many programs happen to reach a breaking point at
the same time, and they can all use each other to try to achieve individual
nirvana.
 
Anyway,
 
Robb Newman
 
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