The 2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment refers to extensive changes in conference membership at all three levels of NCAA competition—Division I, Division II, and Division III— beginning in the 2010–11 academic year. Most of these changes involved conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of Division I. Every FBS conference, as well as the ranks of FBS independents, gained and/or lost football members, and the Mid-American Conference was the only FBS conference whose all-sports membership did not change. Most notably, the old Big East Conference split into football-sponsoring and non-football sponsoring conferences in 2013 with the establishment of the American Athletic Conference and the new Big East Conference, while the Western Athletic Conference became the first Division I FBS conference to drop football since the Big West Conference did so in 2000. The Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) also saw major changes, the most significant being the collapse of the Great West Conference, which dropped football after the 2011 season before folding completely in 2013. Additionally, Division I men's ice hockey underwent major realignment with the Big Ten beginning sponsorship of men's hockey, the formation of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, and the demise of the original Central Collegiate Hockey Association. Every men's hockey conference, with the exception of the ECAC, was ultimately affected. Background Rumors of conference expansion began in December 2009, when Big Ten Conference commissioner Jim Delany announced that the league would consider adding one or more teams. Media reports indicated that the Big Ten had two major motives for expansion, the first being the conference's desire to increase the reach and programming schedule of its cable network, the Big Ten Network. At the time, the conference reportedly received as much as 88 cents per month for every subscriber to the network in the Big Ten member states, and in the 2008–09 fiscal year, the Big Ten Network alone distributed $6.4 million to each of the conference's 11 schools. Second, expanding to 12 or more schools would allow the conference to launch a potentially lucrative conference championship game in football. Shortly after the Big Ten announced its intention to explore expansion, the Pacific-10 Conference, under new commissioner Larry Scott, announced similar plans. As with the Big Ten, television played a major role in the Pac-10's efforts. The conference's then-current deal with Fox Sports Net was set to expire at the end of the 2010–11 school year, and