If these rumors are true, I would hope that the B1G and Pac-12 would merge, and have USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Utah be the 6 teams added. If something like this were to happen, and Utah doesn’t stay connected with USC AND Oregon, it’s over.
Not sure why anyone would want Cal or Stanford. Both of their fans between the two schools aren’t going to move the needle. Plus Utah is more profitable. The list below doesn’t include Stanford, but I wouldn’t think they’re much better off than Cal. UC has been talking about scrapping athletics altogether. Cal is also in hole financially speaking.
Having said that, if the PAC does split, I think Utah is on the outside.
Remember the B1G and the PAC are a collection of prestigious academic universities. They are run by academic presidents, not athletic directors. In that world, there aren’t many more prestigious universities than Stanford and Cal. And in addition they both have historically solid athletic departments (Stanford being elite). As fanatically biased as I am about the Utes, we aren’t on their brand level no matter how thick of a pair of red goggles I try putting on.
agree. USC is the shiny bauble of the Pac-12 but all of their problems are self-inflicted. Reggie Bush, the admin/scholarship debacle, and the sex abuse scandal have nothing to do with the conference they are in.
Still, it won’t keep them from making excuses to separate from the conference.
I don’t think SC blames the rest of the conference, meaning the other 11 members. I think SC is upset that the PAC has fallen so far behind the other conferences in terms of revenue. Larry Scott signed at the time, the largest media deal in history. Problem was he locked it for 14 years, should’ve been a 6 year term. This allowed the others to sign new deals and leapfrog the PAC by a long shot. To make matters worse, LS convinced the Presidents that the best course was to start and own their own network and we all know what a dismal failure this has ended up being. If the PAC could’ve taken this to the open market and gotten an Amazon to pay huge money for it like LS had always been talking, then ok. But it never happened and I don’t see it ever happening with how things are going. For these reasons I can see why SC is upset with the conference and every conference member should be upset for that matter.
i think the b1g is the one who will get raided. bowlsby is a dork. why in the world would anyone want to join them? $$’s talk but so does common sense. my guess is they will go after some of the g5 teams and attempt to remain relevant.
Outside of money I just don’t see the incentive for those 4 schools to join the B1G. The midwest isn’t exactly a cultural fit with the coast schools, sure theres the AAU thing but 9 out of the 12 PAC 12 schools already check that box. Recruiting? Are Michaigan, Wisconsin and Ohio really furtile recruiting grounds for the coastal schools?
Lets face it SC hasn’t dominated the P12 since the early years of this century, in the PAC 12 era they’ve been to the championship game twice, (the same number as Utah), with one win to show for it. The only team of the 4 I see immeaditately competing with Ohio State, maybe, is Oregon. USC and Washington will get the honor of competing with Michigan to be Ohio States B*itch year in and year out. UCLA will be a perenial mid conference mediocrity, kind of like they are now in the PAC.
All the benefits of this marriage tilt heavily towards the B1G. With the new commish and an expiring media deal why make this move now?
P12 has been falling behind the other P5s for years in terms of revenue, competitiveness, and viewership. They would join the B1G because it gives them more money and it cements their status as part of the CFB elite.
Heard today from several people that B1G only would be interested in adding schools from the AAU (Nebraska no longer, but was when it joined league). Texas is AAU member, along with Pac-12 schools like Cal, Washington, Colorado, USC, UCLA, Oregon, Stanford. Oklahoma is not AAU.
Can’t remember where I read this but…one add to that beautiful model is to make the CCG the Rose Bowl to bring everything back full circle to the roots of the BIG/PAC.
I figured there’s nothing to lose by putting the idea in his head so I went ahead and emailed him the perfect counter to the SEC with the model from @duhwayne. Maybe we should flood his email with this model to help it gain traction. Just don’t let him know it’s coming from Utah fans in case he gets annoyed haha
ASU is not an AAU accredited university. B1G will only consider schools that are. It’s why Oklahoma was a non-starter back when OU/Texas also approached the B1G but was told that the B1G would only be interested in Texas since they are AAU.
Oklahoma is working on AAU membership through beefing up research activities, building out nice research campus, etc, as Utah did.
But this is all moot, because OU and Texas are heading to the SEC; they invited themselves there and for reasons of football $$ and football prestige, the SEC would be really stupid not to accept them. Only one objecting is Texas A&M who would prefer to be the only Texas school in the SEC.
If that’s true about OU, then it’s really too bad the PAC couldn’t land both schools. The PAC doesn’t take a hardline stance on non AAU like the B1G does. And being affiliated with the PAC would certainly accelerate OU’s path to AAU like it did for Utah. But like you said, moot point now unfortunately.
The Pac-12 Network and the relative lack of meaningful revenue from it is the #1, #2 and #3 reason that the Pac-12 is never playing from a position of power in these sorts of discussions. Obviously that was the reason for our new commissioner, but the conference needs to figure out a solution yesterday.
True dat, the P12 network is the biggest albatros Scott hung around the neck of the conference. Combine that with the 12 year media contract and the 9 conference game schedule which put the P12 at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the P5. Then lump on the egregious spending like his salray/bonus and the SF office space. God I’m glad he’s gone.
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