The regents should have forced the Big ten to take Cal when they took UCLA. Bottom line. Best course of action for Cal at this point is going independent. That way they can earn some leverage back in the negotiation, especially once the timing of the market is better.
As expected, we're taking the ACC flier. This would be a struggle to make happen, though. The key here would be to at least have one Power 5 option, which would put us in a better negotiating position.
I think Cal really didn't have plans. If I read it correctly, Cal was content with the Pac12's direction and was one of two schools who voted in favor.
There's no way Cal would have voted yes and either of OSU or WSU would not have. I think the likelihood is that Cal was intending to ratify the new deal but found out at the meeting that Oregon and Washington were leaving and thus voted it down too.
Good to see a bit more detail on the offers. $23M raised to $25M by counteroffer. Better than the $20M we were initially going by, though I haven't seen details on the subscriber escalators.
If the Big 10 doesn’t come calling the best bet may be to start an all California- Nevada league with Cal, Stanford, San Diego State, Fresno State, San Jose State, UC Davis, Sac State, UNLV, Nevada Reno….
The goal would be to strengthen California football by keeping the talent in home. Washington State has 39 players from California on their roster, Oregon State has 45, Boise State has 39, and Utah State 21. We would want the majority of those players attending and playing for CA colleges.
The goal would be to cut back on travel, keep the players in-state, and strengthen California football. California has to start playing chess…
If no major conference deal is in the offing the remaining 4 schools have the chance to recast the PAC 12. They can return to negotiating with Apple and have an opportunity to construct a pace setting media deal. As was pointed out previously Apple is not going way, and has far more cash on hand than Fox and ESPN who have their own problems to solve. I agree with PawlOski that we can look at what has happened as an opportunity for Cal and Stanford to get creative and innovate.
Time to get rid of sports all together and just be great at academics. Have the students pay for the debt that they incurred on the stadium. They can afford it! What's another $10 or $20 grand.
The discourse around this news from both our many haters, as well us fans here and elsewhere (myself very much in the center) has been pretty depressing. Depressing cause we know all of the self-criticism and lack of faith in our leadership is warranted. But its depressing nonetheless if we don't also sprinkle in some modicum of hope. Everything that has needed to be said about poor leadership, a century of inertia and the cascade of mistakes and blunders that led us to this moment has been said, and there will be no shortage of opportunity for criticism and blame once the dust settles. It's beyond all of our control at this point, and CC, JK in concert with Stanford's leadership are the only ones that can save us now. So for our own mental health let's try to send some good energy back to them and ourselves, and try to begin to envision some hopeful scenarios for ourselves to at least get us through the next days.
im just curious - are there any current CAL students on here?
bc idk if they even care about football anymore...
not bc the product has been meh, but bc it is so damn hard to get into CAL these days. current student body is just not that into college football. they chose CAL bc of the academics and the reputation; the football team and college sports in general were not part of the equation for most of them.
it is just very different at CAL these days compared to when i graduated in 1998, and i imagine the same for most readers/posters here...i would venture that student season tickets do not even sell out anymore...
I live in a school district that typically sends 25-30 kids to Cal each year. For the most part, their attitudes toward athletics in general, and football in particular, range from apathy to outright contempt.
Cal could change this by sending the message that they want students who support athletics. Students will do whatever it takes to get admitted to an elite college like Cal, including promising to support athletics in their admission essays. But I suspect the admission staff is apathetic and contemptuous as well.
I'm not a current student nor a recent graduate. I graduated in 2007. I made the decision solely on academics. I was a big sports fan and had some knowledge of college football but I didn't even know "Berkeley" had a football team. But here I am.
I was at Cal for football seasons of 2003 to 2006, so you can figure out why.
Not saying anyone (other than a student-athlete) chose CAL bc of sports, but more that the continuously increasing academic entrance standards play a role in lack of student interest, vis-a-vis "back in my day." yeah it was hard to get into CAL, and i transferred in from ju-co, but there was perhaps more of an interest in seeking out all that the campus had to offer, rather than just focus on academics.
‘92 grad here and as far as I remember, they made the same arguments about us back then. But the teams and communities of true believers made us care.
I didn’t go to Cal for college sports, but I sure got it when I got there… and easily my biggest connection to Cal, my biggest takeaway from my time there, has been enduring fandom that has outlived and outshone any other.
lol - the "kids these days," and "back in my day," arguments never get old.
i chose CAL bc i wanted the whole big college experience, and everything that came with it, including football, basketball, and lotsa smart people with varied and wide ranging interests.
and yeah, football has been the thread that binds one of my friend groups from CAL.
but another group of friends, we just got 30+ families together for a "reunion" and none of them have ever been to a CAL football game.
I graduated fairly recently and my last large group of friends at Cal just graduated so my 2c..
There are still people who care and like having athletics (why do you think I'm here?), but the changing demographics of the student body to the ever more academically gifted has undoubtedly hurt College sports support generally at Cal.
The culture of the student body nowadays has become extremely self deprecating so shitting on or being apathetic toward the crappy football team is often a matter of course. I think when my relatives went to Cal/were affiliated with it this really wasn't the attitude, but things have changed and now a vocal part of the student body sees coming here as their unfortunate backup plan for not getting into Stanford or an Ivy. Hell I've heard stories of stuff people were doing from the 70s that make Cal back then sound like a random party school. Add the rise of UCLA in the last decade and you get a broken sense of school pride. Hell our student speaker in my graduated year wrote a whole essay on how coming here and not being able to go to Yale or Harvard was a huge life challenge they had to overcome on the way to graduating top of their class (I wish I was joking).
Adding to this.. I grew up in the East Bay during the Tedford years and I have a ton of family ties to Cal which I can't really go into without possibly doxxing myself. I was basically born to go to Berkeley and have a ton of pride in it as an institution.. not so much the case for a lot of the student body. Add in the fact that the team hasn't been good in years and there you go.
i think i am on same page as you - thank you for explaining the current situation as you experience it.
also grew up in east bay - went to first CAL game at age 8 with my pal and his dad. we parked at his dad's old frat house. i broke a rib before the game, playing "catch" with some of those frat bros. didnt say anything till i got home bc i was having too much fun.
lotsa ppl i grew up with in "Lamorinda" were in your boat...born to go to Berkeley.
Define "Athletic" success. If you are talking about football and basketball, be more specific. And even if you are conflating "Athletics" with just football and basketball, look at the leagues. For example, how many other schools have two starting NFL QBs? Who has the largest contract in the NBA right now?
Olympic sports teams are already being hurt. Consider that with this uncertainty no athlete in any sport with options will be committing to go to Cal unless this is sorted out favorably. I understand in 2011, five teams including baseball needed to raise approx $20 million and present plans for long-term self sustainability to be reinstated. What will it cost this time for potentially many more sports and is it even salvageable? Every plausibly scenario seems to lead to a massive $$ cut.
Starting to wonder if, rather than the end, this is just a storm that Cal needs to weather on the way to a different arrangement as realizations like this begin to really sink in. It's only been a weekend, but it could be a dozen or more weeks until an eventual arrangement takes shape.
Yeah, when you think about it there are a lot of reasons why Cal needs to get itself back into a major conference and also why a number of other interested parties (the state of California, the Olympic team, etc.) would want to make it happen. Some arrangement will probably be made, albeit not as a good a one as we could have had with more proactive leadership.
This is so short sighted. We should absolutely rebuild the Pac-12. We will be one of the marquee teams in the conference. We have four out of the original six members so we keep some of the history and continuity. And as one of the marquee teams we get to set the terms. MWC teams will jump at the chance to move up to a P5 conference so that opens up the possibility of doing unequal revenue share while we get our financial affairs in order.
And in the meantime, we can start contending for conference championships in the revenue sports and drive revenue through traditional means, ticket sales, donations, etc... If the competition level of the new Pac-12 isn't good enough for some of our Olympic sports, we make adjustments for them (I am sure some of the UO/UW/USC/UCLA programs would love to skip the trip out to Rutgers), apparently we already do non-conference alignments for a number of sports, so this wouldn't be unheard of.
Watching Cal football and basketball struggle through decades of mediocrity has been painful to watch. A lot of fans have tuned out, many for good. Begging the B1G for a minuscule revenue share is going to lead to more of the same. We have an opportunity to shape our own destiny. It might come with plenty of risk, but I would much rather take that risk than sign up for another decade or two of mediocrity. Some things are worth fighting for and keeping college football regional is one of those things. That is a hill that I would be proud for us to die on. And who knows, maybe after a decade or more of being Ohio States punching bag, UO and UW come crawling back. USC and UCLA are dead to me though, they can be the doormat of the B1G for eternity.
The regents should have forced the Big ten to take Cal when they took UCLA. Bottom line. Best course of action for Cal at this point is going independent. That way they can earn some leverage back in the negotiation, especially once the timing of the market is better.
C'mon..cal has no credo or athletics any more...bit of a division 2 now...just reality..
Hahahahaha this is so messed up.
https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1688558111236276225?s=19
As expected, we're taking the ACC flier. This would be a struggle to make happen, though. The key here would be to at least have one Power 5 option, which would put us in a better negotiating position.
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/38152204/acc-begin-discussing-cal-stanford-additions
My guess is that this is mostly a leverage play to get the B1G to offer a bigger share, but it's good to have options.
That's so much better than joining MWC.
We may just be pawns in their media deal saga, but we'd at least be getting a lifeline.
As in a lot of negotiations, if you have just one option then it often ends up as no options.
I think Cal really didn't have plans. If I read it correctly, Cal was content with the Pac12's direction and was one of two schools who voted in favor.
https://www.on3.com/os/news/cal-california-berkeley-board-of-regents-meeting-pac-12-membership-big-12-apple/
There's no way Cal would have voted yes and either of OSU or WSU would not have. I think the likelihood is that Cal was intending to ratify the new deal but found out at the meeting that Oregon and Washington were leaving and thus voted it down too.
Good to see a bit more detail on the offers. $23M raised to $25M by counteroffer. Better than the $20M we were initially going by, though I haven't seen details on the subscriber escalators.
Rather than try to join the MW the Pac4 should ask the MW to join them and stay a P5 conference.
It is an academic step down and both Cal and Stanford will be embarassed loosing to Boise and
Fresno, but at least the conference champion would get an invite to the college playoffs
I think a merger into a new Pac has been discussed and would be the direction. Unfortunately, the media deal would still look more like MWC.
If the Big 10 doesn’t come calling the best bet may be to start an all California- Nevada league with Cal, Stanford, San Diego State, Fresno State, San Jose State, UC Davis, Sac State, UNLV, Nevada Reno….
This could help rebrand West Coast football!
Not including Washington State and Oregon State would be a dumb idea...you would also want Bosie State...and.maybe Utah State. Basically the MWC.
The goal would be to strengthen California football by keeping the talent in home. Washington State has 39 players from California on their roster, Oregon State has 45, Boise State has 39, and Utah State 21. We would want the majority of those players attending and playing for CA colleges.
The goal would be to cut back on travel, keep the players in-state, and strengthen California football. California has to start playing chess…
We could even add Cal Poly San Luis Obispo into the mix. San Luis Obispo is a beautiful city!
If no major conference deal is in the offing the remaining 4 schools have the chance to recast the PAC 12. They can return to negotiating with Apple and have an opportunity to construct a pace setting media deal. As was pointed out previously Apple is not going way, and has far more cash on hand than Fox and ESPN who have their own problems to solve. I agree with PawlOski that we can look at what has happened as an opportunity for Cal and Stanford to get creative and innovate.
Time to get rid of sports all together and just be great at academics. Have the students pay for the debt that they incurred on the stadium. They can afford it! What's another $10 or $20 grand.
The discourse around this news from both our many haters, as well us fans here and elsewhere (myself very much in the center) has been pretty depressing. Depressing cause we know all of the self-criticism and lack of faith in our leadership is warranted. But its depressing nonetheless if we don't also sprinkle in some modicum of hope. Everything that has needed to be said about poor leadership, a century of inertia and the cascade of mistakes and blunders that led us to this moment has been said, and there will be no shortage of opportunity for criticism and blame once the dust settles. It's beyond all of our control at this point, and CC, JK in concert with Stanford's leadership are the only ones that can save us now. So for our own mental health let's try to send some good energy back to them and ourselves, and try to begin to envision some hopeful scenarios for ourselves to at least get us through the next days.
Well done piece from the WSJ...no solutions of course but plenty of disdain! Should be unlocked
https://www.wsj.com/sports/football/college-sports-pac-12-big-ten-big-12-7b7902a7?st=2qqh06pfp0gpfzl&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
im just curious - are there any current CAL students on here?
bc idk if they even care about football anymore...
not bc the product has been meh, but bc it is so damn hard to get into CAL these days. current student body is just not that into college football. they chose CAL bc of the academics and the reputation; the football team and college sports in general were not part of the equation for most of them.
it is just very different at CAL these days compared to when i graduated in 1998, and i imagine the same for most readers/posters here...i would venture that student season tickets do not even sell out anymore...
I live in a school district that typically sends 25-30 kids to Cal each year. For the most part, their attitudes toward athletics in general, and football in particular, range from apathy to outright contempt.
Cal could change this by sending the message that they want students who support athletics. Students will do whatever it takes to get admitted to an elite college like Cal, including promising to support athletics in their admission essays. But I suspect the admission staff is apathetic and contemptuous as well.
I'm not a current student nor a recent graduate. I graduated in 2007. I made the decision solely on academics. I was a big sports fan and had some knowledge of college football but I didn't even know "Berkeley" had a football team. But here I am.
I was at Cal for football seasons of 2003 to 2006, so you can figure out why.
Oh man you got super lucky with those years!
Not saying anyone (other than a student-athlete) chose CAL bc of sports, but more that the continuously increasing academic entrance standards play a role in lack of student interest, vis-a-vis "back in my day." yeah it was hard to get into CAL, and i transferred in from ju-co, but there was perhaps more of an interest in seeking out all that the campus had to offer, rather than just focus on academics.
Yeah, I think it's the best 4 year span of the modern era of Cal football. I tell my friends I came to Cal the same year as Aaron Rodgers.
‘92 grad here and as far as I remember, they made the same arguments about us back then. But the teams and communities of true believers made us care.
I didn’t go to Cal for college sports, but I sure got it when I got there… and easily my biggest connection to Cal, my biggest takeaway from my time there, has been enduring fandom that has outlived and outshone any other.
lol - the "kids these days," and "back in my day," arguments never get old.
i chose CAL bc i wanted the whole big college experience, and everything that came with it, including football, basketball, and lotsa smart people with varied and wide ranging interests.
and yeah, football has been the thread that binds one of my friend groups from CAL.
but another group of friends, we just got 30+ families together for a "reunion" and none of them have ever been to a CAL football game.
I graduated fairly recently and my last large group of friends at Cal just graduated so my 2c..
There are still people who care and like having athletics (why do you think I'm here?), but the changing demographics of the student body to the ever more academically gifted has undoubtedly hurt College sports support generally at Cal.
The culture of the student body nowadays has become extremely self deprecating so shitting on or being apathetic toward the crappy football team is often a matter of course. I think when my relatives went to Cal/were affiliated with it this really wasn't the attitude, but things have changed and now a vocal part of the student body sees coming here as their unfortunate backup plan for not getting into Stanford or an Ivy. Hell I've heard stories of stuff people were doing from the 70s that make Cal back then sound like a random party school. Add the rise of UCLA in the last decade and you get a broken sense of school pride. Hell our student speaker in my graduated year wrote a whole essay on how coming here and not being able to go to Yale or Harvard was a huge life challenge they had to overcome on the way to graduating top of their class (I wish I was joking).
Adding to this.. I grew up in the East Bay during the Tedford years and I have a ton of family ties to Cal which I can't really go into without possibly doxxing myself. I was basically born to go to Berkeley and have a ton of pride in it as an institution.. not so much the case for a lot of the student body. Add in the fact that the team hasn't been good in years and there you go.
i think i am on same page as you - thank you for explaining the current situation as you experience it.
also grew up in east bay - went to first CAL game at age 8 with my pal and his dad. we parked at his dad's old frat house. i broke a rib before the game, playing "catch" with some of those frat bros. didnt say anything till i got home bc i was having too much fun.
lotsa ppl i grew up with in "Lamorinda" were in your boat...born to go to Berkeley.
Cal does not deserve nor Merit an offer from the Big 10 . The remaining 4 pac 12 school's have a history of Athletic mediocrity at best
Define "Athletic" success. If you are talking about football and basketball, be more specific. And even if you are conflating "Athletics" with just football and basketball, look at the leagues. For example, how many other schools have two starting NFL QBs? Who has the largest contract in the NBA right now?
Um. Oregon State beat Oregon last year. Wazzu usually makes a bowl game.
Olympic sports teams are already being hurt. Consider that with this uncertainty no athlete in any sport with options will be committing to go to Cal unless this is sorted out favorably. I understand in 2011, five teams including baseball needed to raise approx $20 million and present plans for long-term self sustainability to be reinstated. What will it cost this time for potentially many more sports and is it even salvageable? Every plausibly scenario seems to lead to a massive $$ cut.
Perspective from Olympic sports. Is there any rich person who care about Team USA?
https://www.si.com/college/2023/08/06/potential-power-five-exclusion-stanford-cal-team-usa-olympics
Thanks for that. A much-needed perspective.
Starting to wonder if, rather than the end, this is just a storm that Cal needs to weather on the way to a different arrangement as realizations like this begin to really sink in. It's only been a weekend, but it could be a dozen or more weeks until an eventual arrangement takes shape.
Yeah, when you think about it there are a lot of reasons why Cal needs to get itself back into a major conference and also why a number of other interested parties (the state of California, the Olympic team, etc.) would want to make it happen. Some arrangement will probably be made, albeit not as a good a one as we could have had with more proactive leadership.
This is so short sighted. We should absolutely rebuild the Pac-12. We will be one of the marquee teams in the conference. We have four out of the original six members so we keep some of the history and continuity. And as one of the marquee teams we get to set the terms. MWC teams will jump at the chance to move up to a P5 conference so that opens up the possibility of doing unequal revenue share while we get our financial affairs in order.
And in the meantime, we can start contending for conference championships in the revenue sports and drive revenue through traditional means, ticket sales, donations, etc... If the competition level of the new Pac-12 isn't good enough for some of our Olympic sports, we make adjustments for them (I am sure some of the UO/UW/USC/UCLA programs would love to skip the trip out to Rutgers), apparently we already do non-conference alignments for a number of sports, so this wouldn't be unheard of.
Watching Cal football and basketball struggle through decades of mediocrity has been painful to watch. A lot of fans have tuned out, many for good. Begging the B1G for a minuscule revenue share is going to lead to more of the same. We have an opportunity to shape our own destiny. It might come with plenty of risk, but I would much rather take that risk than sign up for another decade or two of mediocrity. Some things are worth fighting for and keeping college football regional is one of those things. That is a hill that I would be proud for us to die on. And who knows, maybe after a decade or more of being Ohio States punching bag, UO and UW come crawling back. USC and UCLA are dead to me though, they can be the doormat of the B1G for eternity.
Conference realignment will continue. Being the boss of a rebuilt Pac12 conference won't mean much. If it is successful, we will lose more schools.