Haven’t tapped in to the comments over the last two weeks when all of this unfolded. But. Here I am.
Just want to say I love you all for making our community what it is and wherever this next journey goes with the team and university we love so dearly, I’m glad we’ll all be on it together!
Rob: Yes, we are all in this together and it SUCKS!!!!! Baring a miracle invitation to the Big-10, Cal Athletics as we know it is dead. Football and baseball will be gone. Basketball may survive if we can get into the WCC and Madsen can turn things around. The only sports that Cal will be known for and able to compete in will be rugby and water polo. Maybe swimming and diving will survive in the WCC. The bottom line is that our exposure will plummet and FUCLA will become, by default, the new flagship of the UC system (which is maybe what they have been working towards all along). We will become the University of Chicago of the West or the UCSD of the North. I wonder if Christ is really just a Yalie at heart who believes that football is a barbarian sport for the masses and has no place in higher education (other than a club sport). Maybe she is right but our alma mater is going to take a huge hit if we get demoted to the Mountain West or simply get left out in the cold. What the hell were she and Knowlton doing for the last five years as all of this began unraveling? I guess that they really thought that our academic and Olympic prestige would be enough to get us an invite to the Big-10 or another major conference. Here is a news flash for the idiot administrators at Cal, the 'Furd, OSU and Wazzu: ALUMNI DON'T RALLY AROUND THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT!!!!!! Whether they like it or not, football and basketball draw people together and make college experiences that much more enjoyable. Sayonara Pac-12. I just hope that my alma mater doesn't go down with the ship.
Sad, sad day...years of ineptitude have left us out in the cold. Brutal changes coming once this settles. We go from a power 5 conference to obliteration. Despite it being clear for years that the revenue sports were driving the TV dollars, we kept plodding along with 30 sports while basketball/football struggled. Too many people mis read the situation, thinking that our academic status would help us...in the end we were undone by poor leadership, not holding people accountable and a lack of appreciation for a sports industry that has become cut throat. The music stopped and we were left without a chair. For those of us that look forward every fall to the hope of a new season, it just feels sickening that we will no longer have a seat at the table. If we do even carry on, it will be at a diminished level while our former competitors are splashed all over tv networks every Saturday. Just sickening.
With that said, totally agree that the lack of leadership and accountability got us here. With our financial situation we should have been out in front and making change happen instead of sitting back and watching how it unfolded.
To be fair, Christ and Knowlton were probably busy doing required UC Learning Center online training on Cyber Security or perhaps UC Preventing Harassment & Discrimination: Supervisors, Faculty, MSP or something. Nobody escapes uc.sumtotal.host !
Agreed. I had not been following that closely but when someone says something like that at such a critical time you realize they don’t know what they are doing and/or they have no options, no leverage just hot air.
CFB has finished the transition to the dark side and has irredeemably changed. 100-year old rivalries stood no chance against tens of millions of dollars TV revenue offered. Major networks pulled the strings and ruined the traditions that made CFB the most compelling sport of all. In a country where nothing can escape the homogenizing forces of corporations and money, why would we have expected CFB to be an exception? It was fun while it lasted...
Yeah I have to agree - the rivalries and traditions are what make CFB fun. These TV deals are destroying those. So now we just have a less good version of the NFL.
I think this is a step towards the death of CFB. If it’s all about the money, then at some point minor leagues will form so 18-21 year olds can reap salaries instead of paying the money to schools, and then CFB eventually crumbles completely first to a minor league and eventually to the NFL directly when they revoke the rule that you have to be three years out of high school
Someone on an earlier post said something along the lines of "controlled demolition". I must admit to giving this explanation more than just a passing thought.
If one wanted to destroy or severely curtail intercollegiate sports at a place like Cal, it would be hard to write a better script than the one that has played out over the past several years. While lack of reading the situation, poor decision making, and general incompetence can certainly explain some this, it is hard to look back on all of the pieces and moves that have transpired and wonder if there is not an intentional agenda at work.
The Pac 8/10/12 has been a remarkably stable institution for many, many decades. Even today, there are (were) certainly enough high performing teams in major revenue sports to keep the conference from imploding. It takes quite some doing to crater something than has been a bulwark of stability (this is no cobbled-together Conference USA type of thing).
To crib and re-apply an oft cited Hemingway quote: "How did you go broke? Two ways, gradually and then suddenly"
Flash, Double Flash!! The University of California at Berkeley (formerly known as Cal) has announced that the school has entered into a development agreement with a major Bay Area builder to convert Memorial Stadium into a student housing site bearing the name Carol Christ Student Housing Complex. To honor the site's athletics heritage, the complex will comprise of several high rise blocks grouped around the Jim Knowlton Memorial Cock Fighting Pit. Construction of the project is expected to start in September of this year.
I saw a clip from a Bay area news reader who referred to Cal as 'Cal State'. While the Bay area is a top 5 TV market, where are you on CFB viewer engagement? Probably lower than SLC!
Neither Cal nor Standford are SEC caliber teams, even their worst team has more size depth in scholarship potential than either of these two schools. It will never happen. The best outcome for all the schools, are the combine the WAC, mountain west, and what remains of the pack and build a super conference for the West Coast., yet this is far from possible, maybe they can pull teams from the big sky conference
SEC: Hey maybe we should just add teams too, just to take away everyone's thunder. How about them smartyboys at Cal and Stanford. It'll make our conference seem smarter. Let's do it.
A frustrating and really useless exercise - but still: how did Knowlton get hired? Background (Asst AD Army, AD RPI and Air Force)- how in the hell could that possibly be construed as remotely qualified to run a P5 ath dept? We got what we paid for.
Oregon and UW got a smaller share than I'd expected if this is accurate. I'm sure Cal is still talking with B1G but it'll be bargain rate until the next deal is signed.
The ACC would be our emergency with all 4 Pac teams. I believe they make about $39M/school right now. But that would be a hell of a mess with their grant of rights being locked in so long.
Mountain West is only about $4M/school. Not remotely enough with our stadium debt and overall size.
ACC can’t officially add teams or their GOR would be opened again and they’d lose their top 4 schools within the week. The most that could happen is a scheduling agreement.
Thanks for that bit of info. Definitely changing my mind on this now. It looks like the ACC can actually expand and change its revenue sharing but ESPN isn't obligated to provide more money.
Of course, a scheduling agreement only matters if it comes with the revenue share. And I can't imagine ESPN and the ACC getting everyone lined up enough to make that happen while maintaining the status quo. In theory, ESPN could make a Pac-4 scheduling deal for games to appear on the ACC Network but that doesn't seem like it will pay the bills.
I agree we have to hope, but media markets don’t matter like they used to. It’s possible to track actual viewership and Cal/Stanford don’t move the ratings needle. The rumor is the Big 10 presidents wanted to add Cal and Stanford but ESPN/Fox told them it would take away from their per school earnings.
Getting Cal and Furd in the Big Ten Academic Alliance would be HUGE for the other schools. Fox DGAF about academics but they are only part of the equation.
Haven’t tapped in to the comments over the last two weeks when all of this unfolded. But. Here I am.
Just want to say I love you all for making our community what it is and wherever this next journey goes with the team and university we love so dearly, I’m glad we’ll all be on it together!
Rob: Yes, we are all in this together and it SUCKS!!!!! Baring a miracle invitation to the Big-10, Cal Athletics as we know it is dead. Football and baseball will be gone. Basketball may survive if we can get into the WCC and Madsen can turn things around. The only sports that Cal will be known for and able to compete in will be rugby and water polo. Maybe swimming and diving will survive in the WCC. The bottom line is that our exposure will plummet and FUCLA will become, by default, the new flagship of the UC system (which is maybe what they have been working towards all along). We will become the University of Chicago of the West or the UCSD of the North. I wonder if Christ is really just a Yalie at heart who believes that football is a barbarian sport for the masses and has no place in higher education (other than a club sport). Maybe she is right but our alma mater is going to take a huge hit if we get demoted to the Mountain West or simply get left out in the cold. What the hell were she and Knowlton doing for the last five years as all of this began unraveling? I guess that they really thought that our academic and Olympic prestige would be enough to get us an invite to the Big-10 or another major conference. Here is a news flash for the idiot administrators at Cal, the 'Furd, OSU and Wazzu: ALUMNI DON'T RALLY AROUND THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT!!!!!! Whether they like it or not, football and basketball draw people together and make college experiences that much more enjoyable. Sayonara Pac-12. I just hope that my alma mater doesn't go down with the ship.
Rashaverick: He wasn't wrong!
Thank you and the WFC crew for all your hard work, Rob.
Thanks Rob
I think we can win the Pac 4
I don’t know, Wilcox went 1-2 against the remaining Pac4 teams. WSU and OSU beat us pretty convincingly last season.
offensive and defensive previews of the Pac 4 will be appointment viewing
Will it be available for non paid subscribers?
yes they should be. IIRC they always have been
Watch all Pac4 Games! $1.99 for the season pass.
Rose Bowl here we come!
We will be able to play true round robin. Times two!
I would say it’s 25% likely
This is the greatest comment in internet history
Hey - home and away games for each. Nice!
Sad, sad day...years of ineptitude have left us out in the cold. Brutal changes coming once this settles. We go from a power 5 conference to obliteration. Despite it being clear for years that the revenue sports were driving the TV dollars, we kept plodding along with 30 sports while basketball/football struggled. Too many people mis read the situation, thinking that our academic status would help us...in the end we were undone by poor leadership, not holding people accountable and a lack of appreciation for a sports industry that has become cut throat. The music stopped and we were left without a chair. For those of us that look forward every fall to the hope of a new season, it just feels sickening that we will no longer have a seat at the table. If we do even carry on, it will be at a diminished level while our former competitors are splashed all over tv networks every Saturday. Just sickening.
This is extremely dramatic.
With that said, totally agree that the lack of leadership and accountability got us here. With our financial situation we should have been out in front and making change happen instead of sitting back and watching how it unfolded.
New conference website just dropped.
https://pac-4.com/
I've seen sources that Pac-4 After Dark will be streaming on OnlyFans.
So much this. But “tri-state” is a bit of a stretch, no? More like two half states and an “area.” We play some games!
🤣
“BEAR QUIT! BEAR DIE!
-James Arthur Knowlton
To quote my floridly eloquent southern father whose vocabulary of swear words was second to none: Goddamn it to hell anyway shit fire!
To be fair, Christ and Knowlton were probably busy doing required UC Learning Center online training on Cyber Security or perhaps UC Preventing Harassment & Discrimination: Supervisors, Faculty, MSP or something. Nobody escapes uc.sumtotal.host !
Nah, they were working on that branding thingy: Cal or Berkeley? Cal or Berkeley?
Just saw a very lame response from out lame duck chancellor, and her worthless AD on FB!
“the longer we wait for the media deal, the better our options get” - July, 21, 2023
He should be fired for cause just for uttering those words.
He was really feeling and believing that Silicon Valley motto of faking it until you make it.
Agreed. I had not been following that closely but when someone says something like that at such a critical time you realize they don’t know what they are doing and/or they have no options, no leverage just hot air.
CFB has finished the transition to the dark side and has irredeemably changed. 100-year old rivalries stood no chance against tens of millions of dollars TV revenue offered. Major networks pulled the strings and ruined the traditions that made CFB the most compelling sport of all. In a country where nothing can escape the homogenizing forces of corporations and money, why would we have expected CFB to be an exception? It was fun while it lasted...
Yeah I have to agree - the rivalries and traditions are what make CFB fun. These TV deals are destroying those. So now we just have a less good version of the NFL.
I think this is a step towards the death of CFB. If it’s all about the money, then at some point minor leagues will form so 18-21 year olds can reap salaries instead of paying the money to schools, and then CFB eventually crumbles completely first to a minor league and eventually to the NFL directly when they revoke the rule that you have to be three years out of high school
Someone on an earlier post said something along the lines of "controlled demolition". I must admit to giving this explanation more than just a passing thought.
If one wanted to destroy or severely curtail intercollegiate sports at a place like Cal, it would be hard to write a better script than the one that has played out over the past several years. While lack of reading the situation, poor decision making, and general incompetence can certainly explain some this, it is hard to look back on all of the pieces and moves that have transpired and wonder if there is not an intentional agenda at work.
The Pac 8/10/12 has been a remarkably stable institution for many, many decades. Even today, there are (were) certainly enough high performing teams in major revenue sports to keep the conference from imploding. It takes quite some doing to crater something than has been a bulwark of stability (this is no cobbled-together Conference USA type of thing).
To crib and re-apply an oft cited Hemingway quote: "How did you go broke? Two ways, gradually and then suddenly"
You are beginning to sound like a conspiracy theorist… welcome aboard 😎
Flash, Double Flash!! The University of California at Berkeley (formerly known as Cal) has announced that the school has entered into a development agreement with a major Bay Area builder to convert Memorial Stadium into a student housing site bearing the name Carol Christ Student Housing Complex. To honor the site's athletics heritage, the complex will comprise of several high rise blocks grouped around the Jim Knowlton Memorial Cock Fighting Pit. Construction of the project is expected to start in September of this year.
After we beat Auburn my prophecy will come true and we will be invited to join the SEC! ;-)
Dude...most of the ding dongs out here don't even know that Cal is Berkeley.
I saw a clip from a Bay area news reader who referred to Cal as 'Cal State'. While the Bay area is a top 5 TV market, where are you on CFB viewer engagement? Probably lower than SLC!
Brilliant!
Neither Cal nor Standford are SEC caliber teams, even their worst team has more size depth in scholarship potential than either of these two schools. It will never happen. The best outcome for all the schools, are the combine the WAC, mountain west, and what remains of the pack and build a super conference for the West Coast., yet this is far from possible, maybe they can pull teams from the big sky conference
SEC: Hey maybe we should just add teams too, just to take away everyone's thunder. How about them smartyboys at Cal and Stanford. It'll make our conference seem smarter. Let's do it.
Cal and Stanford will get into the B1G 2 minutes after they kick Rutgers and Northwestern out for masquerading as a Power 5 program.
A frustrating and really useless exercise - but still: how did Knowlton get hired? Background (Asst AD Army, AD RPI and Air Force)- how in the hell could that possibly be construed as remotely qualified to run a P5 ath dept? We got what we paid for.
Been saying this for years.
Oregon and UW got a smaller share than I'd expected if this is accurate. I'm sure Cal is still talking with B1G but it'll be bargain rate until the next deal is signed.
Bargain rate? At this point ANY amount offered by the B1G would be doing us a favor.
I will take less than a bargain rate!
The ACC would be our emergency with all 4 Pac teams. I believe they make about $39M/school right now. But that would be a hell of a mess with their grant of rights being locked in so long.
Mountain West is only about $4M/school. Not remotely enough with our stadium debt and overall size.
ACC can’t officially add teams or their GOR would be opened again and they’d lose their top 4 schools within the week. The most that could happen is a scheduling agreement.
Thanks for that bit of info. Definitely changing my mind on this now. It looks like the ACC can actually expand and change its revenue sharing but ESPN isn't obligated to provide more money.
Of course, a scheduling agreement only matters if it comes with the revenue share. And I can't imagine ESPN and the ACC getting everyone lined up enough to make that happen while maintaining the status quo. In theory, ESPN could make a Pac-4 scheduling deal for games to appear on the ACC Network but that doesn't seem like it will pay the bills.
We have the second best Media Market in the PAC12. Hopefully the BIG10 will invite CAL and Stanfurd to the party.
I agree we have to hope, but media markets don’t matter like they used to. It’s possible to track actual viewership and Cal/Stanford don’t move the ratings needle. The rumor is the Big 10 presidents wanted to add Cal and Stanford but ESPN/Fox told them it would take away from their per school earnings.
Hoping this has been in play all along
Getting Cal and Furd in the Big Ten Academic Alliance would be HUGE for the other schools. Fox DGAF about academics but they are only part of the equation.