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Realignment talk not going away


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12 minutes ago, Richard Kimball said:

That's one of the reasons these negotiations go until the last minute. Oregon and Washington will be getting about what they would have gotten joining the B12 during the first contract. Pretty sure they were holding out for a higher share, and kept waiting for B1G to blink. B1G didn't blink, so when they had the meeting to sign the PAC grant of rights, Oregon and Washington folded. 

BTW, @bullet thanks for posting those attendance numbers. 

I was surprised that Iowa St. was tops in the new Big 12.

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8 minutes ago, Sandbagging Steve said:

Wilner knew all along what was going to happen IMO. That is what's wrong with our media.

Wilner delivered a story that kept his agenda driven sources happy. He knew the full story and never told it.

It's the plain-pleasure principle. Wilner delivered a story within the worldview of a large list of subscribers out West. In other words, his subscriber base has gone way up since this all started.

He has no integrity. It's all about making money at the cost of telling the truth. There are very few real journalists and media members left in our society today.

He did tell some of the truth after his initial run of Pac Kool-Aid.  He said the Pac would blow up after this contract around 2030 and the Washington, Oregon and maybe Cal and Stanford would go to the Big 10.  He viewed it as inevitable.  He just said it wouldn't happen this year and that Oregon and Washington would not get into the Big 10 now.

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5 minutes ago, Satchel said:

You never get the cigars to admit it, but they’d much rather have Texas hobsnobbing  with their academic and cultural peers in the B1G while pulling in a cool 67 million to do it. 

Our peers have always been in the SEC. You’re delusional to think we have more in common with the B1G than the SEC.

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Just now, Macklemore said:

Our peers have always been in the SEC. You’re delusional to think we have more in common with the B1G than the SEC.

This pretty much. SEC was 100% the right place to go as well. All teams reside in the most talent rich areas of the country.

Edited by BurntOrange&White
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46 minutes ago, Sandbagging Steve said:

Just wait until the ACC explodes like a supervolcano. There are potentially 11 schools with Big 3 criteria. This will be the current NCAA's last stand. Whether the NCAA survives in name or not is anyone's guess. What's not up for debate is there's going to be a major overhaul in the rules and the way they are formed.

I look forward to it.  But I need to reintroduce the concept of productivity back into my life, so hopefully it either all blows up this month if FSU goes rogue and starts a chain reaction, or it doesn't happen for 5-10 years.😂

Interesting that 2010 was the failed PAC16 merger and Nebraska going BIG, which was the beginning of the end for both the B12 and the PAC to be able to stay at the same level as the BIG/SEC.

13 years later we have the official death of the PAC in 2023.

13 years from now ?  The end of the ACC GOR.

I'm sure it will happen sooner, but if it doesn't happen in the next few years, the closer it gets to the end, the easier it becomes for a school to jump.

Either way, by 2036 at the latest, we'll be in a superBIG/superSEC world, with a pumped up B12 firmly established as the best of the rest  conference.

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5 minutes ago, bullet said:

He did tell some of the truth after his initial run of Pac Kool-Aid.  He said the Pac would blow up after this contract around 2030 and the Washington, Oregon and maybe Cal and Stanford would go to the Big 10.  He viewed it as inevitable.  He just said it wouldn't happen this year and that Oregon and Washington would not get into the Big 10 now.

Wilmer isn’t intentionally spewing falsehoods.  He’s always tried to put the best pro pac spin he can, but typically gives up what he knows.  

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4 minutes ago, bullet said:

He did tell some of the truth after his initial run of Pac Kool-Aid.  He said the Pac would blow up after this contract around 2030 and the Washington, Oregon and maybe Cal and Stanford would go to the Big 10.  He viewed it as inevitable.  He just said it wouldn't happen this year and that Oregon and Washington would not get into the Big 10 now.

It's always good business to eventually tell truths/partial truths and then go right back to rallying the subscriber base. You need something to fall back on when the shit hits the fan.

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3 minutes ago, bullet said:

Big 10 sure didn't fool around once they decided to go.  1 day.  They beat Arizona to the announcement.

In hindsight, it's easy to see that Oregon and Washington knew this was coming.  The vetting and details were already done.  That's why Phil Knight stopped chirping about realignment a year ago.  The B1G dragged this out an entire unnecessary extra year so that they could tell themselves that the Big 12 is the one who really killed the PAC, or that the PAC killed itself. 

McMurphy should win some awards for his coverage of this realignment cycle. 

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1 hour ago, USC Traveler said:

You sure PA is an exception ?

PSU is a good school, but it's not in Penn's league (figuratively or literally.)

PSU is a much bigger school, so I guess it has more physical assets, but the value of a Wharton MBA vs a PSU MBA ?  Not close.

Without looking, I would assume Penn has a much bigger endowment also.

And how many UPenn athletics events have you watched on television in the past ten years?

I mean, if we want to talk about academics, well, duh. But this isn't about academics. ESPN isn't signing away big money for kids to play school, here. Otherwise, we'd see UAB replacing Bama in the SEC, Rice would be a top-tier team, and Cal and Stanford sure as shit wouldn't be out in the cold like they are now.

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Screenshot_2023-08-04-19-51-04_kindlephoto-13438831.thumb.png.619f5bb6fb62875502d61bb149f43abe.png

 

Quote

The Pac-12 CEO Group met on Friday morning. Each of the nine remaining members joined the meeting. The conference’s objective was to get its Grant of Rights signed and for a spell it appeared the Pac-12 might save itself.

Apple TV+ should have streamed it.

I’d have subscribed.

The dramatic twist came when University of Oregon president John Karl Scholz informed the conference that his school was having second thoughts and intended to accept an invitation to join the Big Ten. Washington president Ana Mari Cauce did the same.

Two bitter Pacific Northwest rivals banded together in a surreal ‘going and going’ moment which left the Pac-12 essentially gone. A second meeting of the Pac-12 CEO Group is scheduled for later on Friday. One involved source told me: “We need to come up something very quickly.” Regardless, it appears the Ducks and Huskies have their minds made up and bags packed for the Big Ten.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The Big Ten made a late push this week to expand to 18 teams and apparently peeled Oregon and Washington away from the Pac-12 at a reduced distribution. I’m told that the Ducks examined the decision from all angles, poring over the implications through a long-range lens.

Not a two-year window, but a 20-year view.

“Tons of implications either way,” said one involved UO source.

• The Pac-12 believed earlier in the week that it had staved off the Big 12’s latest attack and would survive. The presidents at Arizona and ASU were privately telling their Pac-12 peers they’d stay as long as Oregon and Washington did, too.

Late this week the Pac-12’s primary focus turned from fighting off the Big 12 to battling another Fox-television fueled conference. Said one member of the CEO Group on Thursday morning: “Now we have to fend off the Big Ten.”

• With USC and UCLA gone to the Big Ten, Oregon viewed itself as the big dog in the Pac-12. The Ducks weighed whether they would be better off remaining in a weakened 108-year old conference or move alongside Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State and company. There had also been some reluctance from Big Ten members, who wouldn’t be guaranteed more revenue with Oregon and Washington joining.

• Staying in the Pac-12 provided a clear path to the expanded College Football Playoff for Oregon. But was that enough? UO athletic director Rob Mullens told me recently that playoff access was a huge factor to his school, but he also mentioned visibility, revenue and exposure as important things. Those things appear to have won the tug-of-war.

• Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, have given $1 billion in gifts to his alma mater. Oregon wants to get him a return on that investment, but it’s not totally about getting to the playoff for Knight. He thinks about long-range success. He’s visionary. Knight, 85, would cave to the Big Ten decision if he was convinced it’s what’s best for Oregon long term.

• There was some question about whether the University of Washington could handle the financial burden of travel in the Big Ten while receiving a reduced distribution. The Huskies and Ducks are making the same conference move as UCLA/USC, but at a discount. An up-front payment against future distributions? Some other subsidy? We’ll soon find out how that will work.

• The Apple deal with the Pac-12 included risk in the early years. It had some upside, though. The projections presented to the CEO Group included a model in which the Pac-12 could pass the Big 12’s $31.6 million annual distribution in the first year if subscriptions went well and passed the ACC in year No. 2.

Again, “if” all went well.

• There were concerns about the Apple deal in Eugene. If the model wasn’t executed properly it would threaten revenue and Oregon’s visibility. There was no guarantee of a linear element. There’s a cost to staying relevant, right? In a worse-case scenario the Ducks could have faced additional costs that Pac-12 fans weren’t thinking about (i.e. additional marketing, NIL, recruiting increases, etc.).

• Apple cut a 10-year, $2.5 billion deal with MLS. Apple layered in a bonus structure for star Lionel Messi, who will reportedly receive a revenue share of subscriptions to MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+. There was some late discussion at Oregon, I’m told, about whether Apple might add a layer of Messi-like upside for the Ducks.

• Without Oregon and Washington what happens to the rest of the Pac-12? It feels gone as you knew it. Dead. Over. Apple won’t pay $25 million per school for what’s left of the Pac-12.

Arizona and ASU would likely seek shelter in the Big 12. Utah, Stanford and Cal could make a run at joining the Big Ten or try to be tentpoles in a new-world Pac-12. The Mountain West Conference may choose to absorb Washington State and Oregon State at some point. Or the Cougars and Beavers could join forces with the Bay Area schools.

It amounts to a sobering ending to a conference that had rich tradition and solid rivalries. The Pac-12 was founded in a downtown-Portland hotel in 1915.

• Will someone please check on Bill Walton?

• How about expansion candidates SMU and San Diego State? They were both on standby on Friday morning, hoping for the phone to ring with good news from the Pac-12. One or both was expected to be announced as a new member. They may still be included in a new version of the Pac-12, if there’s one out there.

• Who do you blame for the death of the Pac-12? Greed. Television. Ex-commissioner Larry Scott, who put the conference on the road to destruction. Commissioner George Kliavkoff, who lost USC in his first 366 days on the job and struggled to get a media-rights deal done. The Pac-12 presidents themselves get a pile of blame too. In the end, the academics in charge could not trust each other. That much was evident.

• Can we place a moratorium on anyone involved calling them “student athletes”?

Is there an antitrust issue here? If someone can find evidence that the Big Ten and Big 12 — together with Fox — have been working in concert to blow up the Pac-12’s negotiations over the past year leaving the conference with less money and, thus, vulnerable to poaching, there may be a problem. That wouldn’t put the Pac-12 back together, but I can’t be the only one thinking about it.

• How about the upcoming Pac-12 football and men’s basketball seasons? They get really weird for a lot of people. You not only have a bunch of awkward ‘goodbyes’ at the stadiums and arenas, but also questions about whether the Pac-12 could operationally staff the upcoming seasons with employees all out job hunting.

Also, you have the splintering of the Pac-12 overshadowing what is expected to be a tremendous college football season.

Stay tuned.

I’ll have more.

 

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26 minutes ago, Satchel said:

You never get the cigars to admit it, but they’d much rather have Texas hobsnobbing  with their academic and cultural peers in the B1G while pulling in a cool 67 million to do it. 

Florida, Georgia, and Vandy are all more or less academically equal or greater than everyone in the Big 10 not named Michigan and maybe Purdue. Culturally, like it or not we are in the middle of a red ass state and right where we should be.

Edited by Hank_Hill
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3 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

Wilmer isn’t intentionally spewing falsehoods.  He’s always tried to put the best pro pac spin he can, but typically gives up what he knows.  

This entire round of realignment was pretty much done a long time ago. It was just a matter of letting it play out. Wilner and the rest of the West Coast media are the only reasons it looks like a circus. Well, that and a couple of presidents over their heads. But those presidents had no leverage.

Wilner reported half-truths from only certain sources to feed his minions. This is not journalism. It is not "giving you what he knows." He had the ability to vet all sources from various sides and then figure out who had an agenda. Report it. That's journalism. You shouldn't report one side of a story and ignore everyone else. That's why McMurphy is a good reporter. 

 

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1 hour ago, Okie State said:
1 hour ago, BachelorTrek said:
And as soon as the ratings aren't what they hoped for (yes, they'll be your narcissists that watch so the ratings will be non-zero), the pie for the have-nots shrinks, and I wouldn't be surprised if that could happen during the contract since ESPN won't take a bath on this.

If you're one of the haves, why would you even care about this? I don't get the obsession. We're irrelevant to you yet you can't help but hope we become...more irrelevant. Or something. Strange way to live.

 

1 hour ago, Okie State said:
1 hour ago, BachelorTrek said:
And you're on a TEXAS board complaining about it.  Lulz.

Oh, right. Only Texas fans post here. Forgot that rule.

 

Moose out front should've told ya

 

39 minutes ago, bullet said:

Well Penn is private so I wasn't counting them.

 

Oh, yeah. That, too. It's neither a state university nor a land-grant college.

 

12 minutes ago, Biggus Duckus said:

Happy we're not left behind.

Sad about literally everything else regarding the Pac-12.

 

image.gif.cac14b3eaaeea1f84dd6b0ca0dcd3632.gif

 

21 minutes ago, Deej said:

Baylor has more in common with the Big 10. 

 

At first I was all ??? and then I got it.

Oof.

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If money wasn't an issue, we should have gone to the PAC 12 years ago with OU. It would have been a lot more fun playing Oregon, UW, USC and visiting those places vs. going to whatever shit hole towns our SEC peers reside in. 

c'est la vie

Edited by redswingline
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2 hours ago, Saint Austin said:

So realistically, what is the Leftovers' best move? Invite four-to-six more to keep the Pac brand?

Cal
Stanford
Oregon St.
Wash St.
SDSU
SMU
Colorado St.
UNLV
Boise St.
Tulane

??
 

Cal

Stanford

Oregon St.

Wash St.

SDSU

Boise St.

Fresno St.

Colorado St.

UNLV

Wyoming

Why stretch across the country? You're a second tier league, don't be silly. Decide between Air Force, Hawaii, and Wyoming for the last spot. Try to be a regional conference and work for long term stability that way. Develop rivalries (that's why I went with Wyoming for Colorado State).

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beaver and cougar should abruptly end all sports and release all of their student athletes on scholarship effective immediately

announce that they will restart select sports after careful consideration over a period of years

then sue espn and fox using a chewbacca attack

stir the shitshow

make this as difficult and painful as possible for all involved

 

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6 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Cal

Stanford

Oregon St.

Wash St.

SDSU

Boise St.

Fresno St.

Colorado St.

UNLV

Wyoming

Why stretch across the country? You're a second tier league, don't be silly. Decide between Air Force, Hawaii, and Wyoming for the last spot. Try to be a regional conference and work for long term stability that way. Develop rivalries (that's why I went with Wyoming for Colorado State).

I agree they should keep it regional. An obstacle for MWC teams are the massive exit fees

Edited by redswingline
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33 minutes ago, USC Traveler said:

I look forward to it.  But I need to reintroduce the concept of productivity back into my life, so hopefully it either all blows up this month if FSU goes rogue and starts a chain reaction, or it doesn't happen for 5-10 years.😂

Interesting that 2010 was the failed PAC16 merger and Nebraska going BIG, which was the beginning of the end for both the B12 and the PAC to be able to stay at the same level as the BIG/SEC.

13 years later we have the official death of the PAC in 2023.

13 years from now ?  The end of the ACC GOR.

I'm sure it will happen sooner, but if it doesn't happen in the next few years, the closer it gets to the end, the easier it becomes for a school to jump.

Either way, by 2036 at the latest, we'll be in a superBIG/superSEC world, with a pumped up B12 firmly established as the best of the rest  conference.

It's coming soon. It could be next week. It could be a few years. But it's not making it to 2030.

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Just now, redswingline said:

I agree they should keep it regional. An obstacle to some of those teams joining is that the MWC has massive exit fees, which would prevent a school like SDSU from joining until their deal with the MWC expires.

6 teams teams leaving doesn't trigger anything contractually? Then add Air Force and Hawaii and become a 12 team league.

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I hope the ACC keeps it together I don’t know why anyone wants 20 plus teams in the SEC.   Hopefully the madness stop at the implosion of the the PAC 12.  I’m not sure we get a set rotating schedule in the SEC after next year even.   Sankey will do everything he can to keep picking and choosing the schedule to benefit teams as long as he can just watch.  

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1 hour ago, bullet said:

Tennessee could sure stand to lose a few thousand seats.  Its really tight in Knoxville and none of us are that big.

Sat in one of the upper corners in 2010. It was down right scary, tight and I swear that if someone fell, they'd just roll over the edge.

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7 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Cal

Stanford

Oregon St.

Wash St.

SDSU

Boise St.

Fresno St.

Colorado St.

UNLV

Wyoming

Why stretch across the country? You're a second tier league, don't be silly. Decide between Air Force, Hawaii, and Wyoming for the last spot. Try to be a regional conference and work for long term stability that way. Develop rivalries (that's why I went with Wyoming for Colorado State).

10 is not enough when there is no cash to share

add: hawaii, air force, nevada, idaho*, montana and montana state

16 with pods

* yes i know they went back down to fcs in '16

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1 minute ago, Deej said:

aggy seems like a better fit for the new Big 12. Historically underachieving. Inflated sense of self worth. 

aggy is a better fit as an independent. They would be genuinely excited to find someone willing to play them and they can  fuck sheep at the same time.

It's a win-win

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2 minutes ago, 'stache said:

And there it is, officially official.

 

IMG_1902.jpeg

 

And only 14 teams for baseball since IA St. and CU don't play baseball.

That'll be a weird yearly conference baseball schedule to work out, and add to that the BYU series must start on Thursday since they won't play games on Sundays.

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7 minutes ago, Hook1997 said:

I hope the ACC keeps it together I don’t know why anyone wants 20 plus teams in the SEC.   Hopefully the madness stop at the implosion of the the PAC 12.  I’m not sure we get a set rotating schedule in the SEC after next year even.   Sankey will do everything he can to keep picking and choosing the schedule to benefit teams as long as he can just watch.  

I'm not a fan of anything but regional conferences. It seems like each time there is a major realignment, it is getting harder to see away games.

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