Oh, I'm certain it's not good for *any* NCAA sport. When you have naked power plays by media companies that dangle millions more dollars in front of athletic departments, it kind of ceases to be about the sport any longer, yeah? So, if it's *literally* just about the money (but not really because it's college - wink wink), I'll watch p…
Oh, I'm certain it's not good for *any* NCAA sport. When you have naked power plays by media companies that dangle millions more dollars in front of athletic departments, it kind of ceases to be about the sport any longer, yeah? So, if it's *literally* just about the money (but not really because it's college - wink wink), I'll watch professional sports instead. At least there I *know* it's all about the money.
The worst part is that, in the grand scheme, it really isn't *that* much money for these universities. I mean, USC alone has an annual budget of about $6.5B. You're gonna tell me that an extra ~$30M is really that big of a deal for them? Hell, for Oregon it's not even all that big of a deal! So, these two schools are departing the PAC-12 for what amounts to about 0.5% of their annual budgets. They saw an 8-figure pay day and figured they were golden but their budgets are well into 10 figures, so it's just...not that much money in the end.
Even if you ignore the money - bear with me - the logistics of these moves are just awful. For football, they're bad. For non-football sports, they're *terrible*. Getting from LAX to SFO, SEA, PHX, SLC, or DEN is easy peasy. Getting to Tucson, EUG, and Pullman is a touch harder but still pretty easy. PAC-12 travel was a 4-5 hour affair, tops. But now you get to travel from LAX to the Midwest or East Coast, where your *closest* away game is in Lincoln. Their *best* travel days will be to Minnesota (MSP), Northwestern (ORD), or Wisconsin (MSN), as those are close to airports with non-stops to LAX and the flights only about 3.5 hours. It's a little longer to get to Michigan (DTW) or Ohio State (CMH) - about 4.5 hours - though the latter only has a single airline (Spirit) that goes non-stop to LAX. Detroit has multiple non-stops to LAX.
Beyond these, though, all travel days are a minimum of 5 hours, often requiring 2 flights or, at the very least, a long bus ride and 1 flight; and the travel days are more like 7-8 hours. Getting from LAX to DC and Newark means non-stops that are 5 to 6 hours. State College (Penn State), Bloomington (Indiana), Iowa City (Iowa), Champaign (Illinois), East Lansing (Mich St.), Lincoln (Nebraska), or West Lafayette (Purdue) are much messier. Purdue and Bloomington are both roughly a 1-hr ride to IND, which has a couple of non-stops to LAX (~4 hrs). You have to travel 30 minutes from Iowa City to CID (Cedar Rapids) to get a 1-stop to LAX (5-7 hrs). State College is a 1-stop to LAX (~6-8 hrs). East Lansing is 20 minutes from LAN, which has 1-stops to LAX (6-9 hrs). Champaign has 1-stops to LAX (6-7 hrs). Lincoln has 1-stops to LAX (5-8 hrs).
So, bare minimum, you've at least doubled your travel times in either direction, often tripling them. Like it or not, playing in the PAC-12 is convenient. The longest flight is SEA-LAX and that's only 3 hrs non-stop.
Fortunately for USC non-football teams once in the Big Ten they will not be flying commercial airlines. USC already uses charter air for football and basketball. This will be expanded to all teams using a fraction of the additional $40 million it will be getting its first year in the Big Ten. I wouldn't be surprised if USC enters into a long term lease for a midsized aircraft - a retired airplane leasing company executive post online "Depends on their age, and maintenance condition, and demand at the time. But broadly speaking, a 737–800 on operating lease would cost in the range of $150–$350k per month. A 767 at around $100k-250/300k per month." A $4 million a year travel budget will buy USC a lot of charter/leased aircraft. I've flown on both and its the best way to move a group to some of the smaller destinations in the Big Ten - all would be direct flights and no stops.
Also I'm on my company's quick incident response team and we fly from California to the east coast a couple times a year on charter aircraft. An eight to ten passenger jet, with all our gear for a 4 1/2 hour flight, then return a few days later is around $40,000 total cost. What I discovered a few years ago that was interesting is the crew (usually just a pilot and copilot) and airplane will just stay on the east coast with us until we're ready to leave... if the weather is good they'll spend their waiting days on the various golf courses in the area.
Disclaimer: I’m the progeny of an airline pilot (NWA) and the brother of one (DAL), and spent 12 years in the aviation industry as a CFI. I’m not coming at this naïve.
Chartering saves you time at the expense of $, so right there you’re eroding your media gains. At $4M/yr - which, given the number of flights, sounds really low at today’s fuel costs (please post a link so we can see the details - I can’t imagine this is fixed cost) - you’re taking a chunk out of those revenues. A football team will require at least 100 seats, and you wouldn’t use those for smaller teams (and there are many). If you have to charter half your flights, that’s expensive.
Even if you ignore costs, cross-country travel in the USA is exhausting. My family did it for 12 years in FL - my family lives in MN but my wife’s in OR. It just hurts and takes a couple of days to adjust. For student-athletes that have school obligations, that can be really disruptive. Cross-country flights are 5-6 hours on modern jets, whereas LAX (or Long Beach/Van Nuys) to places like SEA/BFI are maybe 2.5-3. When I was at CU, they used a turboprop charter aircraft to get to places like KU. Good for short distances but wouldn’t make it across the country.
So, while I’m sure they can afford it, how they do so begins to erode those sweet dollars, and the non-monetary costs are real.
...and if you take this line of thinking through to UO or UW, the logistics are FAR worse. At least LAX is a major destination for just about any decent-sized airport in the USA. SEA is less so, but still pretty decent in terms of accessibility.
But EUG? Oh. My. God. I just searched for a 8/26-8/27 roundtrip from EUG to State College, PA. The *best* itinerary I could find leaves EUG at about 0530, connects *twice* (DEN, ORD), and gets there in about 9 hours. The rest are 13-14 hours.
UO should run screaming from any mention of the Big Ten.
Oh, I'm certain it's not good for *any* NCAA sport. When you have naked power plays by media companies that dangle millions more dollars in front of athletic departments, it kind of ceases to be about the sport any longer, yeah? So, if it's *literally* just about the money (but not really because it's college - wink wink), I'll watch professional sports instead. At least there I *know* it's all about the money.
The worst part is that, in the grand scheme, it really isn't *that* much money for these universities. I mean, USC alone has an annual budget of about $6.5B. You're gonna tell me that an extra ~$30M is really that big of a deal for them? Hell, for Oregon it's not even all that big of a deal! So, these two schools are departing the PAC-12 for what amounts to about 0.5% of their annual budgets. They saw an 8-figure pay day and figured they were golden but their budgets are well into 10 figures, so it's just...not that much money in the end.
Even if you ignore the money - bear with me - the logistics of these moves are just awful. For football, they're bad. For non-football sports, they're *terrible*. Getting from LAX to SFO, SEA, PHX, SLC, or DEN is easy peasy. Getting to Tucson, EUG, and Pullman is a touch harder but still pretty easy. PAC-12 travel was a 4-5 hour affair, tops. But now you get to travel from LAX to the Midwest or East Coast, where your *closest* away game is in Lincoln. Their *best* travel days will be to Minnesota (MSP), Northwestern (ORD), or Wisconsin (MSN), as those are close to airports with non-stops to LAX and the flights only about 3.5 hours. It's a little longer to get to Michigan (DTW) or Ohio State (CMH) - about 4.5 hours - though the latter only has a single airline (Spirit) that goes non-stop to LAX. Detroit has multiple non-stops to LAX.
Beyond these, though, all travel days are a minimum of 5 hours, often requiring 2 flights or, at the very least, a long bus ride and 1 flight; and the travel days are more like 7-8 hours. Getting from LAX to DC and Newark means non-stops that are 5 to 6 hours. State College (Penn State), Bloomington (Indiana), Iowa City (Iowa), Champaign (Illinois), East Lansing (Mich St.), Lincoln (Nebraska), or West Lafayette (Purdue) are much messier. Purdue and Bloomington are both roughly a 1-hr ride to IND, which has a couple of non-stops to LAX (~4 hrs). You have to travel 30 minutes from Iowa City to CID (Cedar Rapids) to get a 1-stop to LAX (5-7 hrs). State College is a 1-stop to LAX (~6-8 hrs). East Lansing is 20 minutes from LAN, which has 1-stops to LAX (6-9 hrs). Champaign has 1-stops to LAX (6-7 hrs). Lincoln has 1-stops to LAX (5-8 hrs).
So, bare minimum, you've at least doubled your travel times in either direction, often tripling them. Like it or not, playing in the PAC-12 is convenient. The longest flight is SEA-LAX and that's only 3 hrs non-stop.
Someone isn't thinking this through.
Excellent comment. Money grubbing Big Ten short sightedness. When everything was in balance before.
Fortunately for USC non-football teams once in the Big Ten they will not be flying commercial airlines. USC already uses charter air for football and basketball. This will be expanded to all teams using a fraction of the additional $40 million it will be getting its first year in the Big Ten. I wouldn't be surprised if USC enters into a long term lease for a midsized aircraft - a retired airplane leasing company executive post online "Depends on their age, and maintenance condition, and demand at the time. But broadly speaking, a 737–800 on operating lease would cost in the range of $150–$350k per month. A 767 at around $100k-250/300k per month." A $4 million a year travel budget will buy USC a lot of charter/leased aircraft. I've flown on both and its the best way to move a group to some of the smaller destinations in the Big Ten - all would be direct flights and no stops.
Also I'm on my company's quick incident response team and we fly from California to the east coast a couple times a year on charter aircraft. An eight to ten passenger jet, with all our gear for a 4 1/2 hour flight, then return a few days later is around $40,000 total cost. What I discovered a few years ago that was interesting is the crew (usually just a pilot and copilot) and airplane will just stay on the east coast with us until we're ready to leave... if the weather is good they'll spend their waiting days on the various golf courses in the area.
Disclaimer: I’m the progeny of an airline pilot (NWA) and the brother of one (DAL), and spent 12 years in the aviation industry as a CFI. I’m not coming at this naïve.
Chartering saves you time at the expense of $, so right there you’re eroding your media gains. At $4M/yr - which, given the number of flights, sounds really low at today’s fuel costs (please post a link so we can see the details - I can’t imagine this is fixed cost) - you’re taking a chunk out of those revenues. A football team will require at least 100 seats, and you wouldn’t use those for smaller teams (and there are many). If you have to charter half your flights, that’s expensive.
Even if you ignore costs, cross-country travel in the USA is exhausting. My family did it for 12 years in FL - my family lives in MN but my wife’s in OR. It just hurts and takes a couple of days to adjust. For student-athletes that have school obligations, that can be really disruptive. Cross-country flights are 5-6 hours on modern jets, whereas LAX (or Long Beach/Van Nuys) to places like SEA/BFI are maybe 2.5-3. When I was at CU, they used a turboprop charter aircraft to get to places like KU. Good for short distances but wouldn’t make it across the country.
So, while I’m sure they can afford it, how they do so begins to erode those sweet dollars, and the non-monetary costs are real.
...and if you take this line of thinking through to UO or UW, the logistics are FAR worse. At least LAX is a major destination for just about any decent-sized airport in the USA. SEA is less so, but still pretty decent in terms of accessibility.
But EUG? Oh. My. God. I just searched for a 8/26-8/27 roundtrip from EUG to State College, PA. The *best* itinerary I could find leaves EUG at about 0530, connects *twice* (DEN, ORD), and gets there in about 9 hours. The rest are 13-14 hours.
UO should run screaming from any mention of the Big Ten.