Pac-12/Big 10/Big 12 Realignment

[pezsez1]

I've long been opposed to taking a massive haircut to join the B1G, but I want nothing to do with the Big-12 so if a chance to get to the B1G presents itself I'm here for it.

That said, I've still seen nothing credible to suggest that's a possibility right now. Our options appear to either be the Apple TV deal or Big-12 purgatory, and between those I'd choose Apple TV. I just don't think an extra few mil per year is worth being stuck in the Big-12 forever.

[duckfan22]

The problem is if the az schools
and Utah leave then its The pac 6.
Then the pac is history in my opinion

[Everythingsducky]

ESPN is saying that Apple won’t produce any of the TV product. Is it safe to assume the PAC12 network would continue to do so? There are a lot of PAC12 network haters. And how much more of the Apple revenue would be sucked out of the PAC’s overall production costs? Seems like that would be an awfully big chunk the PAC would have to cover. At least now, it doesn’t seem to pencil out, albeit purely speculatively on future revenues. This could be fine, could be a massive loser. No guaranteed money? Yikes.

[Everythingsducky]

The problem is if the az schools
and Utah leave then its The pac 6.
Then the pac is history in my opinion

Wouldn’t that disqualify the conference from the playoffs? I think there is a minimum amount of schools per conference to be in the Power 5.

[pezsez1]

I think the only real loss would be Utah leaving. Would love to keep the AZ schools but they haven't really added value to the conference in a while.

With a deal that's not dependent upon the largest-possible household footprint, we could have a conference lineup that looks like:

Oregon
Utah
Washington
Oregon State
Washington State
Cal
Stanford
Boise State
San Diego State
Colorado State
UNLV
SMU

That lineup would turn off a lot of the purists, but it's probably an upgrade in competitiveness through the middle of the lineup and would create lots of enthusiasm by bringing in Dallas and Las Vegas. The top of the linup is just as good as the Big 12 or ACC and arguably just as good as the B1G. Boise State and San Diego State would be competitive right off the bat. Colorado State would bring back one of our two lost markets assuming both AZ schools leave.

Again, pundits would shake their fists about the Pac-12 being dead, but that has the makings of a solid conference. If you wanted to give SOS a little more oomph you could maybe even substitute UNLV with Fresno State, although Vegas is one of the nation's biggest emerging sports markets and it feels like there's opportunity there.

So, yeah... different for sure, but this doesn't have to be doom and gloom. There's a path forward here that would actually be pretty interesting and plenty competitive.

[greenyellow]

Solid article by Ross Dellenger that provides a detailed account of where things stand for the Pac-12 and further realignment. It's not a pretty read for anyone hoping the conference remains as it paints a bleak financial picture of the likely deal and shows how badly Kliavkoff and the conference outthought themselves while getting outmaneuvered by the Big 12.

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The more I read about where things are headed, the more it seems all of this could have been avoided with better leadership and cooperation between the NCAA, the conference commissioners, and school presidents/ADs. SEC commissioner Sankey has said CFB is better if there's a strong West Coast conference but he helped start this whole situation by taking OU and Texas so the SEC could get another massive payday. That led the Big Ten to take the LA schools to keep up. Those two conferences have thus eaten up the vast majority of media money and linear TV slots, leaving the Big 12, Pac-12, and ACC to scrounge for scraps. If they'd not started the realignment ball rolling or sacrificed a little so the other P5 schools could eat/survive, the long-term health of major college athletics across much of the country wouldn't be so bad.

[DuckBomb2]

Legacy media / ATN is dead. We need to sign with GoJo before they get too big. I mean Apple. We need to sign with Apple. Seriously though, I think we're looking at this incorrectly. Streaming services are losing millions -- that's great. Give the Pac-12 some of those millions. I just hope they don't sign a deal tied heavily to subscriber numbers. For Apple, streaming is all about establishing the Apple infrastucture. Like pez said, it's about being a loss leader. So, why should we take a deal tied to subscriber numbers when AppleTV is happy to lose money on streaming if it helps make money on iPhones and iPads? Also, I wouldn't mean seeing some extra revenue from a sweet Apple patch on the jersey, or every kid in America with iPhone seeing the latest Oregon highlights in his newsfeed. If done right, this could be a real boost.

[greenyellow]

Big Ten might be looking to expand with the Pac-12 about to implode.

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[UOducksTK1]

Big 10 with USC/UCLA/Cal/Stanford/Washington works for me. Keeps half of the Pac-12 culture and keeps us in a competitive conference. The way that SEC and Big 10 are stacking up, they will be sending probably 3 teams to the playoffs every year.

If there was only a 4 team playoff, I would hate the idea of going into the Big 10, but with 12 teams soon I feel like Oregon should still make it every 3-5 years.

[StevensTechU]

If you're the Big 10, which two schools would you want between Stanford, Cal, and Arizona State? I'm sort of surprised that third school doesn't get brought up in conversations regarding the B1G. It's an absolutely massive school in a large metro that will continue to grow until they run out of water.

[greenyellow]

If you're the Big 10, which two schools would you want between Stanford, Cal, and Arizona State? I'm sort of surprised that third school doesn't get brought up in conversations regarding the B1G. It's an absolutely massive school in a large metro that will continue to grow until they run out of water.

And there are massive amounts of Big Ten alums in AZ.

[squintsdd]

If you're the Big 10, which two schools would you want between Stanford, Cal, and Arizona State? I'm sort of surprised that third school doesn't get brought up in conversations regarding the B1G. It's an absolutely massive school in a large metro that will continue to grow until they run out of water.

ASU would make more sense. Only one bay area school is needed to capture that market.

[pezsez1]

Adding four additional schools to the B1G would be a game-changer for people with my mindset. I really didn't like the idea of having one of the nation's toughest road schedules simply by virtue of having to travel so far for every away game. But if we were part of six west-coast teams in the conference, that's far more doable and also cuts down on travel costs that would eat into our sure-to-be discounted membership rate.

Also, yes, ASU would make more sense from a #s perspective, but I'd bet Fox would prefer to take both Bay Area schools just as it wanted both LA schools. Would be the ultimate power move to shut ESPN out of CA.

[greenyellow]

Just have to remember not to get our hopes too high since this could easily result in the Big Ten not taking anyone at all.

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[pezsez1]

Conversely, I wonder how these conversations might also affect the actions of Utah, AZ and ASU. Kind of like a trust fall, only instead of catching the person the goal is for nobody to try to save anyone.