Oregon needs to stay. Sorry. It’s an absolute fish out of water in the SEC. It’s only mildly better in the Big Ten. Uncle Phil needs to screw his head on straight. There’s not a great answer here but we’re talking entire universities worth of athletics here, not just football. These are kids and they go to school.
I don’t care how many people say “it’s all about the money!” It sort of isn’t. Maybe at a few high-profile, Div I football and basketball schools, it is...but, beyond that, it absolutely is not. So we need to be careful.
Also, again, NCAA football is not the NFL. It’s nowhere near the caliber, so we shouldn’t approach it as if it is. If we want the NFL, watch the NFL. I don’t want to watch a younger version of the USFL. At least the USFL is effectively a professional minor league...and very few universities are gonna beat a USFL team.
No, I don’t care if the difference is $28M/yr. Sadly, for a lot of universities, that’s chump change - even some of the mid-sized ones like UO. Heck, UO’s annual budget alone is $1.1B, meaning this amounts to about 2.5% of the total. For UW, it’s WAY less - like 0.5%. All of this assumes that there is no loss in revenue from a conference move - a loss in competitiveness, a diminished brand, harder recruitment (we get lots from CA, HI, and Pacific islands), reduced merchandise and ticket sales, etc. I could easily see this netting out to half this total...which means we need to SLOW. THIS. DOWN.
Because people don’t think beyond the next decision, especially under duress. You’re assuming that they’d definitely *net* $28M. I’m saying they’ll realize less than that due to losses elsewhere. That says nothing of intangibles.
UW’s 2021 revenues were over $6B. $28M is...not significant.
There is nothing rational or otherwise thoughtful or prudent about "stay put" -- there will be no place to stay. The PAC-12's carcas will soon be getting picked clean. It's over.
It's her job to keep the greed of the Duck/Knight sports machine in check. Knight is not the governor, nor is he an elected official. This sports insanity has lost all perspective.
Even if Oregon got a SCREAMING media deal, it would amount to maybe 5-6% of annual revenues. That’s just not worth blowing up all sports. They could raise tuition like 1% to account for that, or the state could fill the gap. OR...an expanded PAC-12 could fill most of it.
Focus regionally, build a brand, build rivalries, make it organic. This money-based stuff is like visiting Las Vegas. Sure, it looks cool up front, but you know it’s a facade.
Let’s say you have a soccer player as a child. You wanna send her to play, say, soccer for UO/UW but have her travel to Newark to play Rutgers on the regular? That’s 3 time zones in either direction, plus a 5- to 6-hour flight. That’s just nuts. It’s not much better visiting State College, Madison, Minneapolis, Lincoln, Lansing, Columbus, Maryland, or Ann Arbor. In only one or two of those do you have a quick-ish direct flight (Maryland from DC, Minn from MSP) to PDX. EUG? Forget it. These require overnights (maybe) and connecting flights (for sure). These are *brutal* travel schedules for everyone involved in the West Coast.
We used to live in FL but had family in MSP and PDX. Those travel days were rough. Really rough. It’s one thing to take a short flight back to Eugene from SF or a quick connection if you’re leaving from LAX. It’s another thing altogether to have to connect through MSP, ORD, SLC, or DEN for basically every contest.
Do you want Oregon to end up in some sort of new Mountain West, with no shot ever at a national title, with every year a widening gulf in revenue and recruits between whatever new power conferences thing develops, and everyone else? With Oregon hanging out with the Utah States and Fresnos of the world?
These are the stakes. The PAC-12 was just shot in the back of the head, so to speak.
Not to mention that we are dealing with a climate crisis fueled by fossil fuel consumption. Talk about throwing fuel on the fire by making way more long distance trips out to the midwest.
At some point we have to come to terms with the damage being caused for our conveniences.
Tell that to Obama and his House in MV, Gore and his 20,000 sq foot house on the beach and John Kerry, Climate Czar, who travels the globe in his private jet. They're not too worried, why should I be?
I hear ya on those examples. Not sure what they are thinking.......but it is within our power collectively to curb fossil fuel consumption. Waiting for politicians and elites to set an example is a fools errand I am afraid.
You don’t even have to make that moral argument, though your point is taken. You can argue this on the basis of opportunity cost alone.
Assume that airplanes, trains, ferries, cars and buses are miraculously able to operate on 100% carbon-free energy. What a world, right? Even in that scenario, the logistics themselves don’t make sense and I don’t do it. It’s a matter of opportunity costs for the teams, players, and coaching staff (all for different reasons). Basically, in order to get X (some more $), they’re giving up Y...and I see Y being pretty significant in many areas - time being the biggest.
Time is 100% carbon-neutral but it’s being used up in this potential scenario at a hefty rate, and the consumers are the athletes and coaches. They can’t get that back and they pay for this travel in blood, sweat, tears, and fatigue...that will manifest itself in frustration (coaches, athletes), lower grades (athletes), decreased job satisfaction and higher coaching turnover (coaches), as well as less time socializing with anyone other than their teammates. For the team/school, the brands just don’t have the same punch in the new conferences. For example, UO made up a lot of its expected revenue shortfalls from 2009-2012 with Californians paying high tuition, and their market research showed that the Oregon brand was a big reason why. Are we sure that Oregon is gonna have that kind of pull when competing against Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, or Wisconsin? I’m incredibly skeptical, having grown up in MN. It needs to pan out to make up for the lost time and academic achievement.
For logistics...Imagine yourself in this alternate reality. You go to school while playing baseball or soccer at UO. There’d be a huge difference between an away game and one at Michigan State. One is a short bus ride and 1:45 flight from SFO-EUG. The other is a 1-hr hop to ORD/DTW or 1.5-hr hop to MSP, then a 2- to 4-hr flight to SLC, DEN, SEA, or PDX; then a hop down to EUG. That’s a world of difference, and that’s one of the better scenarios!
The *best* travel days in the Big Ten would be playing at Northwestern and Minnesota, as they’re very close to major airports with direct flights to PDX in under 4 hours. If you can’t go direct to PDX in that time, then your next-best option is to fly to DEN, SEA, or SLC to connect to EUG in a reasonable period. That *may* get you Madison, Lincoln, Columbus - need to look - and Ann Arbor (short ride to DTW). So, 2 *good* travel days and 4 *OK* travel days depending on available itineraries.
The remaining 8 of the current (14) Big Ten schools are in crap locations for weekend travel. You truly can’t get many - or any - direct flights to PDX, DEN, SEA, or SLC to connect to EUG in a reasonable timeframe from these location because none are located in or near large cities. Most are in places like Eugene:
Champagne, IL
Bloomington, IN
Iowa City, IA
Lafayette, IN
East Lansing, MI
State College, PA
On top of these 6, Maryland (College Park, near DC) and Rutgers (NJ) are on the East Coast. This means that most road games are all-day/all-night travel affairs. If I’m a student athlete, I think twice about this, especially if I have other offers, and especially if I play a non-football sport (many more games).
Not to mention you completely lose any intangibles like tradition, enjoying contests against old friends and foes from HS at conference rivals, as well as alumni connections among schools.
I just hate this money focus and not for “just let them be kids!” reasons. It just doesn’t make sense. I literally don’t think it’ll be a huge boon for schools, either, which leaves the conference and its games less fun to watch. It think that, on net, the money will be less lucrative than the initial reports of gross revenue, and it’ll come with reduced merchandise revenue and lower interest among fans, and the payment will be overworked students and staff that lose more of their weeks due to travel.
Don’t get me started on joining the ACC or SEC, either. Those would be far worse across the board, logistically. That’s literally all-day travel to *PDX*, let alone EUG. Trust me. Did it ALL. THE. TIME. It sucked. Know what DELTA stands for? Directs Every Leg Through Atlanta. Think Clemson/Auburn/Tallahassee-Atlanta-PDX-EUG. Ugh.
Plus, as I’ve said many times this past week, if I want to watch a bunch of businesses scramble for cash while playing sports, why wouldn’t I just watch the pros? They’re far better at the game than collegiate athletes, the athletes actually get paid, the leagues have much more parity (few dynasties), the marketing is better, most leagues literally share revenue, TV schedules are more predictable, the pre- and post-game shows are often less jingoistic but comparable in quality, and the ticket prices aren’t *that* different. Oh, and it’s much easier to get all NFL and NBA games with a single-season TV pass than NCAA games. NFL RedZone o the NFL Sunday Ticket are great here.
PAC-12 seems to be taking the right path so far - consider expanding regionally, renegotiate a better media deal, consider some kind of bi-coastal championship (this is kinda innovative - not gonna lie). I hope UO mostly ignores Phil Knight if he’s bellyaching about the Big Ten. It’s not his call, as much as he’d like it to be. He gets a seat at the table as a large donor and alumnus, but he doesn’t - and shouldn’t - make the call. This is up to the universities, conference and - in the case of state universities - the state governments. Period.
Hard pass on the Big Ten; even harder pass on the ACC or SEC. Sorry.
First, thanks so much for you continued excellent coverage on this! I really hope George is speaking individually to each AD and school president, offering to speak to them and their key boosters, and planning to get all the ADs together to talk about how to play offense. Recruit Norte Dame, even if you strike out, it shows you aren't sitting around waiting to see what else is going to go wrong.
Dear Kate: Please stay out of this, even if you have the authority to do anything about it. Holding schools hostage to a conference by artificially tying them together, isn't a winning strategy. Although it does get you in the news.
Glad someone is awake. Keeping the conference together should be their first priority and the second is expansion or a merger. One thing is that all the Pac-12 schools should refuse to schedule UCLA or USC in any sport. Cal seems to be the loser in these scenarios and I don't think they deserve that.
Wouldn't it figure if this was the action that finally woke up the Pac 12 presidents to pay attention to the football programs. If they had been more proactive over the past decade, this abandonment likely could have been avoided.
Bring in Boise State at a discount. Same with San Diego State to have a toehold in So. California. Get Gonzaga for basketball. Merge with the Big 12. Isolate USC and UCLA and never play them again.
All that needs to happen is the other conferences (besides big 10 and sec) to form a college alliance with their own playoffs and championships and bowl contracts. Let the other two only play each other and why not have two college championships. No one is running the FBS anyway.
I think about this through the lens of 'what if this falls apart and USC and UCLA don't actually leave', what does the Pac-12 extract from them in terms of penalties and assurances? The Premier League was weak, imo, when they let the Super League defectors back in with just a slap on the wrist. No incentive not to try it again. How difficult can he make their lives in the meantime? I'll be interested to hear what you uncover.
As for Brown, that's kinda funny. The UO will do what's best for UO regardless of who's governor. There's way too much old money wrapped up in that institution for a governor to ignore. I'm surprised she'd even comment beyond "I'm here to help both UO and OSU in any way I can."
She's a lame duck governor and probably has no plans to run for office again because she would lose big. I'm not sure she has the power to decree it and we know decisions like this take forever to be made in this state. There will also be the legislature which could kill this idea or even an initiative petition to put it up for a vote of the people. Stupider things have happened here and this could get laughable.
Oregon's Athletic Department is Oregon taxpayer free....which means Kate Brown has no leverage. OSU is heavily indebted to the Oregon taxpayers...Oregon is not.
Let's not go claiming the Oregon athletic department is taxpayer free when PERS is shipping north of $150k/month to former coaches. Everyone working there is a state employee. Any governor would be well within their rights to stick their nose in.
If you wanna know why they won't, ask yourself how many of the governor's top-100 supporters has a connection to UO.
I've been thinking about this also and I like the reference to the Super League but the difference is we won't see (thankfully) USC supporters throwing molotovs to protest the decision by Carol Folt, but I'd be interested to know what usc alumni and students think if Fokt's decision or do they even care?
Speaking of whom I've been reading about her term as Chancellor at UNC and how that ended prematurely and without some controversy.
Her move to USC caused many to raise questions when she didn't want to live in the house that was deeded to USC for their presidents to live in. Instead she wanted to live closer to the ocean and the University bought her an $8 million house in Santa Monica....not even close to the campus.
I’m an alumni of USC Class of ‘79…I’ve been involved at University in various capacities throughout the last 40+ years…I’ve been a donor, season ticket holder and have traveled to more games than I can count…even during the post Robinson 1 days when we lost 13 in a row to Notre Dame and 8 in a row to the bruins…as bad as it was during these times, we always hung on to the History, Tradition and Culture that defined USC…all that ended with Max Nikias and Pat Haden at the end of the Carroll era…they literally destroyed everything that had been built and accomplished up to that point…Carol Folt has just finished the job that they started…USC is among the most WOKE environments in America…Folt and Rick Caruso have erased our history, trampled and demeaned our traditions, and irreversibly replaced our culture…Folt had probably never stepped on the USC campus until she was hired by Caruso…and immediately went about changing everything…renaming buildings, promoting the DEI agenda…she even had a John Wayne exhibit (he was an alumni) removed from campus…Bohn is a small market AD that’s been handed the keys to a Ferrari…Lincoln Riley was enticed to come to USC by our pedigree and a boat load of $$$$$…the Football program he inherits was on life support…nobody can ever justify the reign of Clay Helton….while the move to the Big Ten makes a ton of business and economic sense, those who made the decision were never influenced by the History, Traditions or Culture that made USC…because it’s completely foreign to them…
Perhaps you didn’t read what I wrote…I torched Nikias and Haden, and by default Lynn Swann…Folt is a disaster and has no business at USC…Bohn is a big improvement over both Haden and Swann, but is he really the best we should expect at a place like USC???…so far, he’s proven to be a good soldier and an expert butt kisser…we’ll see what he can do without Brandon Sosna to lean on…
I totally get the “goof” comment. But, I believe the way he was able to orchestrate hiring Lincoln Reilly and moving to the B1G without a leak shows some pretty savvy management skills.
Yes, thank you John for your reporting on this. You're really the only one who has done a damned thing to try to save the PAC from self-destruction. I was hoping to hear that the West Coast governors and legislators would get involved in this to somehow preserve the PAC and all it stands for (After all, why should only two institutions be able to ruin it for the rest of us without so much as a conversation?). Then Kate Brown jumps comes along to only make things WORSE for UO. So much for leadership. It seems like everyone's accepted the defections as a fait accompli without any formal objection whatsoever. That just doesn't seem right.
Since both Oregon and Washington are public schools I am sure the Governor and legislature of both states will have a lot to say about them leaving Oregon State and Washington State behind. Just not going to happen I would imagine.
Big 10 teams traveling to L.A. and vice versa is difficult enough. Imaging traveling to Eugene on a regular basis. I don't see the incentive for the Big 10 to include Oregon.
It's both fascinating and nerve-racking to watch this all play out.
I don't think Kate Brown can do anything on her own to stop UO. It would require the legislature, which is currently out of session until next year. Brown could always call for a special session, but that seems unlikely to me.
Do they have a choice, if the opportunity presents itself?
Also, I don't want to be hard on George, as he sounds like a nice guy, but USC and UCLA obviously evaluated his work in the last year and his reporting on what was likely coming from his efforts in terms of media numbers in the coming years and must not have been impressed.
By the way-good reporting on this issue.
In fact, just about the only decent reporting on this issue.
Oregon needs to stay. Sorry. It’s an absolute fish out of water in the SEC. It’s only mildly better in the Big Ten. Uncle Phil needs to screw his head on straight. There’s not a great answer here but we’re talking entire universities worth of athletics here, not just football. These are kids and they go to school.
I don’t care how many people say “it’s all about the money!” It sort of isn’t. Maybe at a few high-profile, Div I football and basketball schools, it is...but, beyond that, it absolutely is not. So we need to be careful.
Also, again, NCAA football is not the NFL. It’s nowhere near the caliber, so we shouldn’t approach it as if it is. If we want the NFL, watch the NFL. I don’t want to watch a younger version of the USFL. At least the USFL is effectively a professional minor league...and very few universities are gonna beat a USFL team.
No, I don’t care if the difference is $28M/yr. Sadly, for a lot of universities, that’s chump change - even some of the mid-sized ones like UO. Heck, UO’s annual budget alone is $1.1B, meaning this amounts to about 2.5% of the total. For UW, it’s WAY less - like 0.5%. All of this assumes that there is no loss in revenue from a conference move - a loss in competitiveness, a diminished brand, harder recruitment (we get lots from CA, HI, and Pacific islands), reduced merchandise and ticket sales, etc. I could easily see this netting out to half this total...which means we need to SLOW. THIS. DOWN.
Seriously.
Totally agree with this comment.
Time to slow down and think more rationally about things.
We don't need the B1G or the SEC. Cut them loose and let's go our own way out here in the West.
It is all about the money. Watch universities' actions, not words to see what they value.
"Only" $28M/yr difference? If that were a minor thing then why are the schools jockeying like crazy?
Because people don’t think beyond the next decision, especially under duress. You’re assuming that they’d definitely *net* $28M. I’m saying they’ll realize less than that due to losses elsewhere. That says nothing of intangibles.
UW’s 2021 revenues were over $6B. $28M is...not significant.
"Oregon needs to stay."
There is nothing rational or otherwise thoughtful or prudent about "stay put" -- there will be no place to stay. The PAC-12's carcas will soon be getting picked clean. It's over.
Thanks for your reporting on this, John.
This is some of the biggest sports news of my lifetime. JC is my go to source.
Kate Brown needs to stay in her lane. 💯
It's her job to keep the greed of the Duck/Knight sports machine in check. Knight is not the governor, nor is he an elected official. This sports insanity has lost all perspective.
Even if Oregon got a SCREAMING media deal, it would amount to maybe 5-6% of annual revenues. That’s just not worth blowing up all sports. They could raise tuition like 1% to account for that, or the state could fill the gap. OR...an expanded PAC-12 could fill most of it.
Focus regionally, build a brand, build rivalries, make it organic. This money-based stuff is like visiting Las Vegas. Sure, it looks cool up front, but you know it’s a facade.
Let’s say you have a soccer player as a child. You wanna send her to play, say, soccer for UO/UW but have her travel to Newark to play Rutgers on the regular? That’s 3 time zones in either direction, plus a 5- to 6-hour flight. That’s just nuts. It’s not much better visiting State College, Madison, Minneapolis, Lincoln, Lansing, Columbus, Maryland, or Ann Arbor. In only one or two of those do you have a quick-ish direct flight (Maryland from DC, Minn from MSP) to PDX. EUG? Forget it. These require overnights (maybe) and connecting flights (for sure). These are *brutal* travel schedules for everyone involved in the West Coast.
We used to live in FL but had family in MSP and PDX. Those travel days were rough. Really rough. It’s one thing to take a short flight back to Eugene from SF or a quick connection if you’re leaving from LAX. It’s another thing altogether to have to connect through MSP, ORD, SLC, or DEN for basically every contest.
Nope.
Raise tuition to pay for sports? You're kidding.
Do you want Oregon to end up in some sort of new Mountain West, with no shot ever at a national title, with every year a widening gulf in revenue and recruits between whatever new power conferences thing develops, and everyone else? With Oregon hanging out with the Utah States and Fresnos of the world?
These are the stakes. The PAC-12 was just shot in the back of the head, so to speak.
Not to mention that we are dealing with a climate crisis fueled by fossil fuel consumption. Talk about throwing fuel on the fire by making way more long distance trips out to the midwest.
At some point we have to come to terms with the damage being caused for our conveniences.
Tell that to Obama and his House in MV, Gore and his 20,000 sq foot house on the beach and John Kerry, Climate Czar, who travels the globe in his private jet. They're not too worried, why should I be?
I hear ya on those examples. Not sure what they are thinking.......but it is within our power collectively to curb fossil fuel consumption. Waiting for politicians and elites to set an example is a fools errand I am afraid.
Dear God, just stop with the nitpicking.
You don’t even have to make that moral argument, though your point is taken. You can argue this on the basis of opportunity cost alone.
Assume that airplanes, trains, ferries, cars and buses are miraculously able to operate on 100% carbon-free energy. What a world, right? Even in that scenario, the logistics themselves don’t make sense and I don’t do it. It’s a matter of opportunity costs for the teams, players, and coaching staff (all for different reasons). Basically, in order to get X (some more $), they’re giving up Y...and I see Y being pretty significant in many areas - time being the biggest.
Time is 100% carbon-neutral but it’s being used up in this potential scenario at a hefty rate, and the consumers are the athletes and coaches. They can’t get that back and they pay for this travel in blood, sweat, tears, and fatigue...that will manifest itself in frustration (coaches, athletes), lower grades (athletes), decreased job satisfaction and higher coaching turnover (coaches), as well as less time socializing with anyone other than their teammates. For the team/school, the brands just don’t have the same punch in the new conferences. For example, UO made up a lot of its expected revenue shortfalls from 2009-2012 with Californians paying high tuition, and their market research showed that the Oregon brand was a big reason why. Are we sure that Oregon is gonna have that kind of pull when competing against Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, or Wisconsin? I’m incredibly skeptical, having grown up in MN. It needs to pan out to make up for the lost time and academic achievement.
For logistics...Imagine yourself in this alternate reality. You go to school while playing baseball or soccer at UO. There’d be a huge difference between an away game and one at Michigan State. One is a short bus ride and 1:45 flight from SFO-EUG. The other is a 1-hr hop to ORD/DTW or 1.5-hr hop to MSP, then a 2- to 4-hr flight to SLC, DEN, SEA, or PDX; then a hop down to EUG. That’s a world of difference, and that’s one of the better scenarios!
The *best* travel days in the Big Ten would be playing at Northwestern and Minnesota, as they’re very close to major airports with direct flights to PDX in under 4 hours. If you can’t go direct to PDX in that time, then your next-best option is to fly to DEN, SEA, or SLC to connect to EUG in a reasonable period. That *may* get you Madison, Lincoln, Columbus - need to look - and Ann Arbor (short ride to DTW). So, 2 *good* travel days and 4 *OK* travel days depending on available itineraries.
The remaining 8 of the current (14) Big Ten schools are in crap locations for weekend travel. You truly can’t get many - or any - direct flights to PDX, DEN, SEA, or SLC to connect to EUG in a reasonable timeframe from these location because none are located in or near large cities. Most are in places like Eugene:
Champagne, IL
Bloomington, IN
Iowa City, IA
Lafayette, IN
East Lansing, MI
State College, PA
On top of these 6, Maryland (College Park, near DC) and Rutgers (NJ) are on the East Coast. This means that most road games are all-day/all-night travel affairs. If I’m a student athlete, I think twice about this, especially if I have other offers, and especially if I play a non-football sport (many more games).
Not to mention you completely lose any intangibles like tradition, enjoying contests against old friends and foes from HS at conference rivals, as well as alumni connections among schools.
I just hate this money focus and not for “just let them be kids!” reasons. It just doesn’t make sense. I literally don’t think it’ll be a huge boon for schools, either, which leaves the conference and its games less fun to watch. It think that, on net, the money will be less lucrative than the initial reports of gross revenue, and it’ll come with reduced merchandise revenue and lower interest among fans, and the payment will be overworked students and staff that lose more of their weeks due to travel.
Don’t get me started on joining the ACC or SEC, either. Those would be far worse across the board, logistically. That’s literally all-day travel to *PDX*, let alone EUG. Trust me. Did it ALL. THE. TIME. It sucked. Know what DELTA stands for? Directs Every Leg Through Atlanta. Think Clemson/Auburn/Tallahassee-Atlanta-PDX-EUG. Ugh.
Plus, as I’ve said many times this past week, if I want to watch a bunch of businesses scramble for cash while playing sports, why wouldn’t I just watch the pros? They’re far better at the game than collegiate athletes, the athletes actually get paid, the leagues have much more parity (few dynasties), the marketing is better, most leagues literally share revenue, TV schedules are more predictable, the pre- and post-game shows are often less jingoistic but comparable in quality, and the ticket prices aren’t *that* different. Oh, and it’s much easier to get all NFL and NBA games with a single-season TV pass than NCAA games. NFL RedZone o the NFL Sunday Ticket are great here.
PAC-12 seems to be taking the right path so far - consider expanding regionally, renegotiate a better media deal, consider some kind of bi-coastal championship (this is kinda innovative - not gonna lie). I hope UO mostly ignores Phil Knight if he’s bellyaching about the Big Ten. It’s not his call, as much as he’d like it to be. He gets a seat at the table as a large donor and alumnus, but he doesn’t - and shouldn’t - make the call. This is up to the universities, conference and - in the case of state universities - the state governments. Period.
Hard pass on the Big Ten; even harder pass on the ACC or SEC. Sorry.
Fine, but you’d also be pissed if she tried nothing.
I honestly would not be pissed off, I would be happy.
First, thanks so much for you continued excellent coverage on this! I really hope George is speaking individually to each AD and school president, offering to speak to them and their key boosters, and planning to get all the ADs together to talk about how to play offense. Recruit Norte Dame, even if you strike out, it shows you aren't sitting around waiting to see what else is going to go wrong.
Dear Kate: Please stay out of this, even if you have the authority to do anything about it. Holding schools hostage to a conference by artificially tying them together, isn't a winning strategy. Although it does get you in the news.
Glad someone is awake. Keeping the conference together should be their first priority and the second is expansion or a merger. One thing is that all the Pac-12 schools should refuse to schedule UCLA or USC in any sport. Cal seems to be the loser in these scenarios and I don't think they deserve that.
Wouldn't it figure if this was the action that finally woke up the Pac 12 presidents to pay attention to the football programs. If they had been more proactive over the past decade, this abandonment likely could have been avoided.
Bring in Boise State at a discount. Same with San Diego State to have a toehold in So. California. Get Gonzaga for basketball. Merge with the Big 12. Isolate USC and UCLA and never play them again.
Yep.....all of this.
The PAC-12 tried to kill the BIG-12 not too long ago. I expect the BIG-12 to return the favor, but not miss.
People here don't seem to have come to grips with just how imperiled the PAC-12 is. They're living in a fantasy land.
Colorado State, SJSU, Hawai’i, and Fresno State.
...as well as BSU and the USAFA.
All that needs to happen is the other conferences (besides big 10 and sec) to form a college alliance with their own playoffs and championships and bowl contracts. Let the other two only play each other and why not have two college championships. No one is running the FBS anyway.
You're describing essentially a new Div 1AA. The non-Big-10/SEC championship will be second tier.
"'George is kicking ass,' caught my eye..."
I think about this through the lens of 'what if this falls apart and USC and UCLA don't actually leave', what does the Pac-12 extract from them in terms of penalties and assurances? The Premier League was weak, imo, when they let the Super League defectors back in with just a slap on the wrist. No incentive not to try it again. How difficult can he make their lives in the meantime? I'll be interested to hear what you uncover.
As for Brown, that's kinda funny. The UO will do what's best for UO regardless of who's governor. There's way too much old money wrapped up in that institution for a governor to ignore. I'm surprised she'd even comment beyond "I'm here to help both UO and OSU in any way I can."
She's a lame duck governor and probably has no plans to run for office again because she would lose big. I'm not sure she has the power to decree it and we know decisions like this take forever to be made in this state. There will also be the legislature which could kill this idea or even an initiative petition to put it up for a vote of the people. Stupider things have happened here and this could get laughable.
Oregon's Athletic Department is Oregon taxpayer free....which means Kate Brown has no leverage. OSU is heavily indebted to the Oregon taxpayers...Oregon is not.
It’s all the same budget. UO Athletics is *self-sustaining* but it isn’t *independent*. The taxpayers definitely have a say in the $.
Let's not go claiming the Oregon athletic department is taxpayer free when PERS is shipping north of $150k/month to former coaches. Everyone working there is a state employee. Any governor would be well within their rights to stick their nose in.
If you wanna know why they won't, ask yourself how many of the governor's top-100 supporters has a connection to UO.
I've been thinking about this also and I like the reference to the Super League but the difference is we won't see (thankfully) USC supporters throwing molotovs to protest the decision by Carol Folt, but I'd be interested to know what usc alumni and students think if Fokt's decision or do they even care?
Speaking of whom I've been reading about her term as Chancellor at UNC and how that ended prematurely and without some controversy.
Her move to USC caused many to raise questions when she didn't want to live in the house that was deeded to USC for their presidents to live in. Instead she wanted to live closer to the ocean and the University bought her an $8 million house in Santa Monica....not even close to the campus.
It seems she has ended another USC tradition.
I’m an alumni of USC Class of ‘79…I’ve been involved at University in various capacities throughout the last 40+ years…I’ve been a donor, season ticket holder and have traveled to more games than I can count…even during the post Robinson 1 days when we lost 13 in a row to Notre Dame and 8 in a row to the bruins…as bad as it was during these times, we always hung on to the History, Tradition and Culture that defined USC…all that ended with Max Nikias and Pat Haden at the end of the Carroll era…they literally destroyed everything that had been built and accomplished up to that point…Carol Folt has just finished the job that they started…USC is among the most WOKE environments in America…Folt and Rick Caruso have erased our history, trampled and demeaned our traditions, and irreversibly replaced our culture…Folt had probably never stepped on the USC campus until she was hired by Caruso…and immediately went about changing everything…renaming buildings, promoting the DEI agenda…she even had a John Wayne exhibit (he was an alumni) removed from campus…Bohn is a small market AD that’s been handed the keys to a Ferrari…Lincoln Riley was enticed to come to USC by our pedigree and a boat load of $$$$$…the Football program he inherits was on life support…nobody can ever justify the reign of Clay Helton….while the move to the Big Ten makes a ton of business and economic sense, those who made the decision were never influenced by the History, Traditions or Culture that made USC…because it’s completely foreign to them…
Ah, yes. We should definitely have people like Lynn Swann and Pat Haden in leadership positions that “get USC”.
Perhaps you didn’t read what I wrote…I torched Nikias and Haden, and by default Lynn Swann…Folt is a disaster and has no business at USC…Bohn is a big improvement over both Haden and Swann, but is he really the best we should expect at a place like USC???…so far, he’s proven to be a good soldier and an expert butt kisser…we’ll see what he can do without Brandon Sosna to lean on…
We are thrilled with President Folt and AD Bohn for making a power move.
Bohn was a goof at CU and it appears nothing much changed.
I totally get the “goof” comment. But, I believe the way he was able to orchestrate hiring Lincoln Reilly and moving to the B1G without a leak shows some pretty savvy management skills.
Yes, thank you John for your reporting on this. You're really the only one who has done a damned thing to try to save the PAC from self-destruction. I was hoping to hear that the West Coast governors and legislators would get involved in this to somehow preserve the PAC and all it stands for (After all, why should only two institutions be able to ruin it for the rest of us without so much as a conversation?). Then Kate Brown jumps comes along to only make things WORSE for UO. So much for leadership. It seems like everyone's accepted the defections as a fait accompli without any formal objection whatsoever. That just doesn't seem right.
Since both Oregon and Washington are public schools I am sure the Governor and legislature of both states will have a lot to say about them leaving Oregon State and Washington State behind. Just not going to happen I would imagine.
I don't think they can legally do anything about it.
So the answer is to destroy Oregon and Washington's ability to thrive because OSU and WSU cannot.
Big 10 teams traveling to L.A. and vice versa is difficult enough. Imaging traveling to Eugene on a regular basis. I don't see the incentive for the Big 10 to include Oregon.
Thank you for the update. it is so refreshing to hear some real news, John
Oh to have been a fly on the wall when GK heard the news. Seems like a gentle but intense dude. Don't sleep on him.
Thank you for continual due diligence! 😎
It's both fascinating and nerve-racking to watch this all play out.
I don't think Kate Brown can do anything on her own to stop UO. It would require the legislature, which is currently out of session until next year. Brown could always call for a special session, but that seems unlikely to me.
I am sooooo disappointed at the thought of Oregon defecting. Nothing stays the same, especially in sports. MONEY Dictates EVERYTHING. Disgusting.
I'm not sold Oregon will defect.
Do they have a choice, if the opportunity presents itself?
Also, I don't want to be hard on George, as he sounds like a nice guy, but USC and UCLA obviously evaluated his work in the last year and his reporting on what was likely coming from his efforts in terms of media numbers in the coming years and must not have been impressed.
By the way-good reporting on this issue.
In fact, just about the only decent reporting on this issue.
If we want to watch sports where money is the name of the game, watch the NFL, NBA, or MLB, not the NCAA.
All these colleges need to take a deep, cleansing breath.