John Canzano. Articles like this are not found anywhere else in print or online media. I’m lucky to have found you and appreciate your coverage of west coast and PAC-12 sports like no other writer. (Ok, your podcast partner Jon Wilner is up there with you!).
Living in Seattle, sports stories stop at the Oregon border. You bring it all home for a Beav/Duck fan in Seattle. Thanks so much!
As a lifelong PAC fan this conference realignment is a massive disruption to the foundation of the conference. When I think of PAC schools, UCLA is at the the heart of the conference. It just seems wrong for them to be anywhere else. I wish the 5-10% chance was enough and they could find a way to make it work. USC and a grip of their fans have always felt as if they saw themselves as better than the rest of us. They needed to be babied and coddled and reaffirmed constantly. So, USC leaving kind of felt like an inevitability and a relief as much as it feels wrong. If you don’t want to be here, then stop whining and go. UCLA won’t stay, but they will be missed. It’s truly sad they have to go for money. Larry Scott literally killed the PAC 12 as we know it, and a list of presidents and chancellors share in the blame for giving him the power to do it. What an awful, self-absorbed failure he was to dig the conference into this massive hole.
I kinda hope they stay. But since it’s all but certain they are leaving. With the 12 team playoff they will have a hard time even sniffing Big 10 title game let alone FBS playoffs. They will look at this move with regret.
Love college sports, not the professional leagues of football and basketball. Move them out of the universities. Let some students lace-up and get on the field... Ducks vs. Huskies.
And the fact that those of us in Los Angeles have no clue which way this turns is an indictment of the local media. The LA Times has the reporting chops to be out front in this, to know what regents are thinking, what information they consider critical, to assess the politics in a state where, counter-intuitively, the Bay Area has always had more clout than Southern California.
Instead we wait for the magician to pull back the curtain at a meeting. The Times is doing nothing, hoping its unethical silence will result in approval.
UCLA has presented a budget for the move that includes spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in mental health counselors for their athletes.
Think about that for a minute. Then tell me why this is a good thing for student athletes? As for fans, I have exactly zero UCLA alumni friends who want this to happen.
Does expansion seem like less of a priority now that the new playoff system is in place?
4 conference champs will get 1st round byes. With a Pac-10 with every team playing each other and thus no need for a conference championship I question how much value San Diego St really offers? The new playoff system seems to disadvantage large conferences vs small conference in my view. I also think USC and UCLA going it alone as the sole West coast reps to the B1G will ultimately be a spectacular failure that collapses in their faces but time will tell.
The Pac 12 should do everything possible to keep UCLA. If they leave its because the Pac 12 failed them in revenue. Its time to update the The Rose Bowl and expand to San Diego. Send money toward Colorado and the Arizona schools too. Oregon State is on the right track. It's time to reinvest in our beloved conference.
I keep thinking about how poorly run the UCLA athletic department must be to get in such financial trouble. They have a massive (and very wealthy) alumni base, a robust and successful collection of sports and are located in one of the largest and wealthiest communities in the country.
The deficits they run are fairly easy to understand. They don’t earn enough ticket revenues (low attendance for football and MBB) and they don’t own a football stadium. But those were problems years ago as well.
The UCLA administration did not break any UC Regent rules. It clearly states that each university can make their own decisions when it comes to their athletic departments finances, hiring coaches, etc... The UC Regents changed their rules after UCLA decided to leave for the BIG 10. I think the regents will require UCLA to share a portion of their revenue with CAL. If the regents decide to block the move, there is a possibility of a 500 million dollar lawsuit from the Big 10. The new media rights deal included USC and UCLA. I also think the Big Ten will eventually invite Cal and Stanford being that the Bay Area is the 5th largest media market.
They made a selfish strategic choice to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. If the Regents had been involved they would have asked for Cal to be included as a package.
these comments are comical. It all makes sense if we accept that NONE of most programs care one %$#@&* about the general health of college football. So Stanford is equal to UCLA? And YOU have no doubt you know exactly the BIG 10 and Stanford would do. I hoped UCLA wouls stay simply because it would screw USC a little. I lke the PAC and am fine. I will miss reading know everthing types predicting everything and being off target mostly. So UCLA gets more money and returns to sub .500 status where they have been for 8 of the last 10 seasons.
Transfer portal for players
Transfer portal for coaches
Transfer portal for college teams
Transfer portal for broadcast rights
Transfer portal for fans? Roller Derby has more loyalty!
I can’t understand how the UCLA AD didn’t square this away with the UC Chancellors before publicly committing to the move...this makes no sense
I don’t particularly care either way, but it’ll be very weird without them in the conference
John Canzano. Articles like this are not found anywhere else in print or online media. I’m lucky to have found you and appreciate your coverage of west coast and PAC-12 sports like no other writer. (Ok, your podcast partner Jon Wilner is up there with you!).
Living in Seattle, sports stories stop at the Oregon border. You bring it all home for a Beav/Duck fan in Seattle. Thanks so much!
As a lifelong PAC fan this conference realignment is a massive disruption to the foundation of the conference. When I think of PAC schools, UCLA is at the the heart of the conference. It just seems wrong for them to be anywhere else. I wish the 5-10% chance was enough and they could find a way to make it work. USC and a grip of their fans have always felt as if they saw themselves as better than the rest of us. They needed to be babied and coddled and reaffirmed constantly. So, USC leaving kind of felt like an inevitability and a relief as much as it feels wrong. If you don’t want to be here, then stop whining and go. UCLA won’t stay, but they will be missed. It’s truly sad they have to go for money. Larry Scott literally killed the PAC 12 as we know it, and a list of presidents and chancellors share in the blame for giving him the power to do it. What an awful, self-absorbed failure he was to dig the conference into this massive hole.
I kinda hope they stay. But since it’s all but certain they are leaving. With the 12 team playoff they will have a hard time even sniffing Big 10 title game let alone FBS playoffs. They will look at this move with regret.
Love college sports, not the professional leagues of football and basketball. Move them out of the universities. Let some students lace-up and get on the field... Ducks vs. Huskies.
Go Ducks volleyball...........Elite Eight.
And the fact that those of us in Los Angeles have no clue which way this turns is an indictment of the local media. The LA Times has the reporting chops to be out front in this, to know what regents are thinking, what information they consider critical, to assess the politics in a state where, counter-intuitively, the Bay Area has always had more clout than Southern California.
Instead we wait for the magician to pull back the curtain at a meeting. The Times is doing nothing, hoping its unethical silence will result in approval.
UCLA has presented a budget for the move that includes spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in mental health counselors for their athletes.
Think about that for a minute. Then tell me why this is a good thing for student athletes? As for fans, I have exactly zero UCLA alumni friends who want this to happen.
Does expansion seem like less of a priority now that the new playoff system is in place?
4 conference champs will get 1st round byes. With a Pac-10 with every team playing each other and thus no need for a conference championship I question how much value San Diego St really offers? The new playoff system seems to disadvantage large conferences vs small conference in my view. I also think USC and UCLA going it alone as the sole West coast reps to the B1G will ultimately be a spectacular failure that collapses in their faces but time will tell.
The Pac 12 should do everything possible to keep UCLA. If they leave its because the Pac 12 failed them in revenue. Its time to update the The Rose Bowl and expand to San Diego. Send money toward Colorado and the Arizona schools too. Oregon State is on the right track. It's time to reinvest in our beloved conference.
I keep thinking about how poorly run the UCLA athletic department must be to get in such financial trouble. They have a massive (and very wealthy) alumni base, a robust and successful collection of sports and are located in one of the largest and wealthiest communities in the country.
The deficits they run are fairly easy to understand. They don’t earn enough ticket revenues (low attendance for football and MBB) and they don’t own a football stadium. But those were problems years ago as well.
I want to ask a Bruins woman basketball player what she thinks after flying cross country in the dead of winter to play Rutgers in basketball?
Appreciate the good reporting, John.
The game is dead. We are just here left arguing over the semantics of it.
The UCLA administration did not break any UC Regent rules. It clearly states that each university can make their own decisions when it comes to their athletic departments finances, hiring coaches, etc... The UC Regents changed their rules after UCLA decided to leave for the BIG 10. I think the regents will require UCLA to share a portion of their revenue with CAL. If the regents decide to block the move, there is a possibility of a 500 million dollar lawsuit from the Big 10. The new media rights deal included USC and UCLA. I also think the Big Ten will eventually invite Cal and Stanford being that the Bay Area is the 5th largest media market.
They made a selfish strategic choice to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. If the Regents had been involved they would have asked for Cal to be included as a package.
these comments are comical. It all makes sense if we accept that NONE of most programs care one %$#@&* about the general health of college football. So Stanford is equal to UCLA? And YOU have no doubt you know exactly the BIG 10 and Stanford would do. I hoped UCLA wouls stay simply because it would screw USC a little. I lke the PAC and am fine. I will miss reading know everthing types predicting everything and being off target mostly. So UCLA gets more money and returns to sub .500 status where they have been for 8 of the last 10 seasons.