College Football, 2021-22

[PDH]

Well, the only good news in being a fan of an irrelevant team is that this standing will not change.

[grumbler]

These are universities, that are nonprofits dedicated to education and instilling life skills for its students. I don't think they would make major institutional decisions just for the $$$.

Yes, but I don't think that deciding which conference their athletic teams play in is a "major institutional decision." 

Big Five schools expect their athletic departments to be self-financing.  The Pac 12 is the least supportive Big Five conference, expecting to pass about $38 million to each school in 2023, while the Big Ten is expected to pass $61 to each school.  Both will renew their TV contracts for 2024, but the Pac 12 is expected to bump their per-school share to only $39 million, while the Big Ten is expected to bump its per-school payout to $87 million (and that's before adding USC and UCLA).  That's not an insignificant difference when the UCLA athletic budget last year was $110 million (which was $62 million more than revenue, due to COVID - but the UCLA athletic department had also lost money in 2020 and 2019).

The Pac 12 turns over 74% of its revenue to the schools. The Big Ten 92%.

It's the $$$ and it makes perfect sense.  For the Big Ten, it also makes sense because the added value to the next TV contract (big new market) more than offsets the added travel costs.

[grumbler]

The Big 12 has nothing to offer the Pac 12 remnant that they cannot easily do for themselves thanks to UT and OU leaving. The whole situation is a disaster IMO. I feel like College Football is turning itself from a nationwide obsession to a regional NFL-lite.

The NIL stuff will do even more damage than the destruction of football traditions that comes with conference realignment.  This is especially true because different states impose different standards for what a school can do. Ohio State's AD is attempting to arrange a $14 million/year deal with boosters that will allow him to choose the players on whom to bestow NIL contract.  In Michigan, universities cannot do anything to help arrange NIL deals.

[Valmy]

The Big 12 has nothing to offer the Pac 12 remnant that they cannot easily do for themselves thanks to UT and OU leaving. The whole situation is a disaster IMO. I feel like College Football is turning itself from a nationwide obsession to a regional NFL-lite.

The NIL stuff will do even more damage than the destruction of football traditions that comes with conference realignment.  This is especially true because different states impose different standards for what a school can do. Ohio State's AD is attempting to arrange a $14 million/year deal with boosters that will allow him to choose the players on whom to bestow NIL contract.  In Michigan, universities cannot do anything to help arrange NIL deals.

Definitely. It is becoming something different. Something that seems like it will suck.

But nothing to do but wait and see.

[Berkut]

Man, this sucks.

I mean...I get it. You have to follow the money, and the money for them just doesn't make sense where they are now, and isn't likely to materially change.

But the Pac-12 was a cool conference. 

[PDH]

It's gonna get worse.  The little fish, like Wyoming, will be left outside to die in the cold.

[Berkut]

It's gonna get worse.  The little fish, like Wyoming, will be left outside to die in the cold.

Well, I don't know if they will die, but they are definitely going to become even littler fish, as the big fish suck up more of the sweet, sweet cash for themselves.

I just hope Arizona can figure out how to be part of the "big fish" ocean, instead of the little fish pond.

It seems unlikley that the Big10 is done gorging itself. But if they want more Pac12 schools to get some geographic balance to their new West Coast league in the new Super Conference, I don't think grabbing Arizona is likely to make sense. More likely they go after Cal, Stanford, Washington, and Oregon.

[PDH]

Perhaps overly dramatic, and the dying has been going on for some time, but the little guys get left out more and more this will just be another big step into the exclusion.

You should pray that one of the big conferences wants Arizona, or they will be back to playing Wyoming every year like in the old WAC.

[grumbler]

Latest news is that Oregon and Washington also requested to join the Big Ten, but were told that they need to wait for Notre Dame to definitively accept or reject their longstanding invitation to join.  The B10 is clearly going to accept either two or four new members beyond USC and UCLA.  Four actually makes more sense because two ten-team divisions (or four five-team pods, which I think more likely) would eliminate the distortions caused by crossover games. 

[PDH]

The Pac-12 is eating itself.

[grumbler]

To be fair, the Pac 12 was eating itself pretty much full time when Larry Scott was commissioner.  He turned down the addition of Texas and Oklahoma (not that they necessary would have joined, but he nixed the possibility), he set up a dreadful, money-losing Pac 12 network, he vastly expanded the conference payroll at the expense of the schools, and he moved a lot of games to Friday nights, when not even the West Coast fans wanted to watch.  And the conference kept him on for 12 years!

The financial fragility of Pac 12 schools is pretty much 95% his fault.

It really is a pity that a century of football tradition was wrecked by one guy.  I still think football was better when the Big Ten and Pac Ten played for a trip to the Rose Bowl and any other bowl was just a consolation prize.

[Valmy]

Then UT President Powers desperately wanted in the PAC. The only reason Texas and its five regional partners did not move over in 2010 was because Texas A&M said no and Texas didn't want to divorce itself with its main in-state partner/frenemy/rival.

I was never clear why the PAC 16 in 2011 didn't happen. Was it the LHN? Was it not enough money for the Big 12 4? I guess it was Larry Scott.

All ancient history now. But Texas was never going without many regional partners, because of the time zone thing.

[Berkut]

The Pac-12 is eating itself.

Not really.

The Big10 and the SEC are going to be the super conferences, and UCLA and USC saw where the money was, and fucked the Pac12.

I can't really blame them, but I don't think they are any kinds of victims.

[grumbler]

Not really.

The Big10 and the SEC are going to be the super conferences, and UCLA and USC saw where the money was, and fucked the Pac12.

I can't really blame them, but I don't think they are any kinds of victims.

They are no more victims of the Pac 12's incompetence than any other school, true, but they are victims.  They fucked the Pac 12 after the Pac 12 fucked them.  You just can't ignore the conference's weaknesses as a conference.

[grumbler]

Absolutely brutal Nebraska loss after an appalling Scott Frost decision to onside kick up 28-17 late in the third quarter.  Northwestern wasn't going to beat them in the air, so the key for Nebraska was avoiding giving NW a short field.  Scott Frost thought that giving them a short field was a good thing, and I'm surprised the team didn't leave him on the tarmac in Ireland.

I don't think Frost will make it to game 5 this year.  He's just not a good coach.