Pac-12/Big 10/Big 12 Realignment

[pezsez1]

Or the Pac-12 will front the money to effectively buy out SDSU. The Aztecs can still leave, they'd just have to pay more out the door. I'd still easily put my money on the Pac-12 staying together with SDSU and SMU joining.

[greenyellow]

Or the Pac-12 will front the money to effectively buy out SDSU. The Aztecs can still leave, they'd just have to pay more out the door. I'd still easily put my money on the Pac-12 staying together with SDSU and SMU joining.

I'd say it's not happening until 2025 or 2026 now. That puts the Pac-12 in a bit of a deficit when it come to game inventory, which will likely affect the overall totals the conference gets during that time.

[buckmarkduck]

Come on Wilner wr Pez, the pac isn’t paying for sdsu to get out of the MWC. They aren’t worth the i buyout if they got out today, much less the double it will be tomorrow.

[pezsez1]

If the Pac doesn't buy out SDSU then it might just wait a year to bring them into the fold. The first year of the media deal would likely be less lucrative but only split 10 ways instead of 12. Also wonder if we could bring in SMU by itself for the first year.

However it works out, I still fully expect SDSU to be in the Pac-12 and for the Pac-12 schools to sign a deal for this media rights cycle. There aren't any better options right now.

[greenyellow]

Embedded Tweet

[duck92]

Does the merger of the PGA and Liv golf affect the negotiations in any way? Does the CW have more or less money because of this merger?

[greenyellow]

Seems San Diego State has sort of gotten the extension they were hoping for to see if they wanted to leave the MWC or not. Now it may just be contingent on the Pac-12 getting a media deal done for it to have worked out in their favor of joining by 2024.

Embedded Tweet

[Duck07]

However, SDSU claimed on June 30 it did not officially notify league it was withdrawing. League’s Board of Directors will meet July 17 to discuss the matter

This would seem to indicate that SDSU is not looking to leave, especially if 6M being withheld over a 17M total buyout is that much of a problem for them.

[DuckzRule]

Am I the only one who believes the Pac-12's deal will be horrible enough to cause it's collapse? I'm not trying to say this just to troll everyone here, most people in other places I'm in like r/CFB and some insiders in Twitter have said that the deal won't be anything close to the Big 12's deal (which is still a very low numbered one) and I feel that due to it's possible focus in streaming it won't be as good as people like Canzano say.

I'm completely aware that us going to the Big Ten is not a 100% possible move but seriously, everywhere I go I see different opinions, Reddit and Twitter say that the Pac-12's deal will be awful, while Oregon forums like here and Our Beloved Ducks say it will be decent enough for it's survival, I'm really confused now.

[UOducksTK1]

Embedded Tweet

ACC, interesting...

[pezsez1]

I'm really confused now.

Don't trust Twitter or even most tweets. The big problem with Twitter -- even tweets from reputable sources -- is that tweets are often the first-blast tidbits/reactions/etc with the minimal amount of scrutiny/vetting/editing/etc.

Newspapers owned journalism back in ye olden days not just because they were staffed by actual trained & experienced journalists, but because there wasn't pressure to blast out new information in real-time. Fast forward to now, and pretty much all journalists/bloggers/etc. of every medium are constantly working against that pressure, and Twitter is basically the release valve.

Patience is always best when evaluating news. The most reliable/accurate reports are likely to be those that aren't blasted out on Twitter and are produced by journalists/bloggers who are honest about their sourcing, have been covering this religiously, and haven't already been constantly wrong. (i.e. the many reports over the past several months about how the Pac-12 was just two weeks away from collapsing/four-corners bolting to the Big-12/etc.)

I won't tell you what to believe beyond that because nobody really knows except for the Pac-12 presidents. My own opinion though is if the upcoming Pac-12 deal were really that bad then at least one school would have left the conference already.

[wepto]

The June 30th deadline has passed so the Pac-12 survives another year.

Oregon and Washington still haven't agreed to a Pac-12 media deal.

Nebraska's president (see my post a couple pages back) still signaled that the B1G intends to expand again within the next 2-3 years. NU's president also said that the powers that be within the B1G don't want it to look like they were responsible for the collapse of the Pac-12.

Colorado is reportedly considering the Big 12.

The B1G's payout is nearly double the Pac-12's; likely any school that gets an offer with jump ship.

Someone within the Pac-12 convinced SDSU that it was a good idea to publicly announce that they were leaving the MWC. They immediately had to backtrack on this announcement and claimed it wasn't binding. This suggests that parties within the Pac-12 are not being honest with one another.

How anyone can look at this set of facts and come to the conclusion that there is only a low probability of the Pac-12's collapse is beyond me. Granted, the name will probably live on as the upper half of the MWC will join the remaining lower half 'Pac-12' schools.

If Oregon, Washington, Stanford and Cal sign a long term grant of rights that doesn't include an option to exit the conference, then we can say that the conference is stable. Until/Unless that happens, the conference's future is in question.

Canzano and Wilner's sources are still presidents of lower tier institutions that have very little leverage in these negotiations. That doesn't necessarily make them wrong, but I'd bet good money it was one of them that convinced SDSU to leave prematurely.

To sum it up, nothing has really changed, except that we found out that the Pac-12 wasn't going to implode this year (June 30 deadline). Any news besides a media deal being signed, or a school leaving the Pac-12 is practically clickbait at this point.

[pezsez1]

Oregon and Washington still haven't agreed to a Pac-12 media deal.

Nebraska's president (see my post a couple pages back) still signaled that the B1G intends to expand again within the next 2-3 years. NU's president also said that the powers that be within the B1G don't want it to look like they were responsible for the collapse of the Pac-12.

Colorado is reportedly considering the Big 12.

The B1G's payout is nearly double the Pac-12's; likely any school that gets an offer with jump ship.

All the Pac-12 schools have agreed on a Grant of Rights framework. The media deal isn't here yet so literally no schools have agreed to it because they can't yet.

The B1G will likely expand later. So what? That isn't relevant to the Pac-12 deal on the verge of being released right now. It just means that Pac-12 realignment could come back in 3-5 years.

Colorado, according to "sources," has been two weeks away from bolting to the Big 12 for like six months now. The more likely reality is that they're not actually on the verge of bolting. All Pac-12 schools probably have back-up plans in the event the upcoming media deal absolutely sucks -- which it almost certainly won't, hence why nobody is leaving.

The B1G schools don't want to take pay cuts to rescue other schools from lower-paying conferences. The B1G isn't a charity.

And SDSU didn't give intent of its desire to leave because a Pac-12 school told it to. It was because of a specific June 30 deadline affected when SDSU could play for another conference while saving more than $10 million. SDSU can still join the Pac-12 but will have to wait a year to start playing football.

All of your concerns have completely viable answers. If there were one compelling thing to worry about, I'd say it's the sheer length of time being taken to get this done, but that's reportedly more a result of working with streaming partners who are brand new to the space in addition to ESPN partnerships during a time of layoffs/constriction (optics matter).

At this point, the only way Oregon gets a B1G invite right now is if the Pac-12 deal is so bad that the B1G could offer us a discounted payout that covers additional travel expenses and STILL comes in above the Pac-12's numbers while not detracting from the bottom lines of other member schools -- and, frankly, it's difficult to imagine that working out mathematically. The most likely outcome is the Pac-12 sticks together and realignment resumes later in the decade.

Don't sleep on the Pac-12's ability though to salvage something that buys us some time until then.

[wepto]

The B1G will likely expand later. So what? That isn't relevant to the Pac-12 deal on the verge of being released right now. It just means that Pac-12 realignment could come back in 3-5 years.

It is relevant. The schools with a realistic shot at getting a B1G offer aren't going to sign an agreement with the Pac-12 that reduces their chances of later receiving a B1G offer. The money is doubled in the B1G.

So at least Oregon and Washington (Cal, Stanford possible as well) will demand a clause that allows them to leave for greener pastures. The TV partners have clearly been balking at this, because they want the more valuable Pac-12 brands, not the bottom feeders. If UO/UW/Cal/Furd leave, the Pac-12 will get a deal with numbers closer to what the MWC is making.

The only group with leverage in this situation is the B1G. It doesn't really matter what any of the Pac-12 schools want. Any Pac-12 school would jump at the chance to join the B1G, and the B1G has indicated that this will happen in 2-3 years.

So yeah, the Pac-12 is more or less a dead conference on its last legs.

[Duck07]

If I was a small fish in the B1G I'd sure be worried that in the future the big fish don't have the Network come to them and say we aren't paying the minnows the same as the sharks, so we're going to get rid of them to simply add other big fish and keep the pool the same size.

There are enough smart people in Eugene and Seattle to read the long term paths to see that operating from the best financial path forward, regardless of conference affiliation, is the only option.

I'm not real hopeful about the future of the Pac at this point, which ultimately is a bummer and a failure of leadership.