The only hope now is Cal and Stanford to Big10. I can't even imagine how the locals here in WA and OR are going to react at the idea that they are losing same conference status for their State schools. It's an abomination. The Apple Cup and former Civil War are massively important to the alumni bases here. What a total first class F*&*ing travesty for the sport I love.
Wazoo and Beaver fans are beyond angry at their in-state counterparts. It's the same feeling I have for the scumbags at UCLA. Couldn't care less about USC. They're a private school and can do as they please.
Why don't OU/OSU and UW/WSU just continue playing every year? Somehow Georgia and Georgia Tech manage, despite them not being in the same conference and the game never being any good.
Seems like if it's so important they will figure it out.
I'm usually NOT the guy to default to cynically dogpiling "bad leadership," but good gracious - can you imagine being the conference commissioner whose incompetence and lack of vision led to the probable death of an organization that had been delivering to West Coast fans/alumni since 1915?
Sure, we can take bets. Cal (and friends) find a MWC home. Cal and friends stay in some tiny, gimpy version of the Pacific Conference for another few years. Cal gets a charity invite from the B10. Who knows, who knows. Cal's beleaguered football program folds, or contracts into a DII-scale operation. Who knows anything anymore. I just know I'm bummed beyond belief.
Lots of factors lead us here, make no mistake, but the poor leadership at the Chancellor and AD levels the past 8 years have been a major contributing factor to this mess Cal finds itself in.
Kliavkoff will be out of a job if there's no conference to hold together. Even if there is, the remaining schools could definitely decide to let him go.
FiatSlug: You are a 1000 percent right about that. What the hell was he doing for the last year? If I read that he gets to leave with some million dollar plus severance package, then I will lead the march to burn down the Pac-12 headquarters.
Just curious what his day looks like tomorrow. Does he just pack his things and leave? The conference still needs to maintain business this year. So how does the conference function in its day-to-day business this year, when you can assume everyone will be running to find other jobs?
It seems like the only option left would be for the 4 remaining schools to partner with SDSU/Boise State/Colorado State/UNLV/SMU/RICE, etc and put together a TV deal with Apple. There's no way they would pay as much as they were offering before, but maybe it would be better than the Mountain West's current deal ($7 Million).
We should be thinking outside the box. Both Stanford and Cal should be able to generate private equity investments as a way of bringing in cash. FSU is actively working on this. There are a number of reasons why Cal and Stanford would be attractive. Just requires a special deal structure.
Take an equity investment in a holding company. The holding company owns the rights to the apportioned TV money, both linear and streaming, to be paid out in the future. Investors will be paid a favorable rate of return on the capital raised. Ultimately buys time for Cal to figure out what it wants to do over the next couple of years. In this way Cal and Stanford don't have to go hat in hand to the networks and have more leverage.
This is America and we capitalist. We not only will not fire him, we will not sue him, we will give him a golden parachute for his incompetence because we wouldn’t want to scare away any potential future qualified commissioners.
This is far worse than Holmoecaust. In those days, nothing took away from our non-revenue sports. This is existential to every sport at Cal. It's existential to the very notion of Cal I cherish. I'm glad I didn't go to a school that is only academics, like a CalTech. I'm an athlete myself. Cal being both is a big part of why I love Cal.
Yes, mark it on your calendar August 4th...the day the Pac died!
There goes Cal athletics as we know it, its going to be a brutal couple of years. The fanbase is going to have to adjust to our lower standing. Athletes in the program are going to see their teams cut. We are moving from the haves to the have nots overnight. The MWC media payout is about $7 million, a fraction of what we were getting and far under the $31 million the Big 12 is getting. Hello minor leagues
Whether we get into the Big 10 or not, and I'm still leaning that we will, but at a poverty rate, the Cal athletic department needs to be fired. And the new president better understand the importance of football, and not think it's 1920.
The Regents get to pick up the debt --which was already crippling. Too bad they didn't kill the UCLA move when they had a chance. UCLA is now gonna have to pay out more than $10 million to help cover our bankruptcy I'd guess. And it dents even academic fundraising as well for years while they pick up the pieces. No big game events. What do for homecoming. Upset alumni like myself who have supported both. Those folks that wanted this are going to finally what athletics means for the rest of the university and it won't be a rosy picture for a very long time.
UCLA isn’t paying you a dollar. They owe you nothing. There is a grant of rights that expires after this season. Whatever contractual debts Cal took on, they did so knowing full well they might not have access to UCLA’s revenue share beyond that. Blame it on your inept administration and poor athletic performance. If you think the UC regents are going to compel UCLA to actually pay you anything for your own crappy athletic program you have another thing coming. That was what we call CYA move. It’s pathetic to think the UC system’s flagship institution needs welfare (or Calimony) to stay afloat.
I had the same thought. The contingent of folks at Cal who feel sports are a distraction from the university’s mission have always been strong and I am sure they are saying “I told you so!” right about now.
But but but, I think the stadium bonds makes that option infeasible. They have no choice but to max out stadium revenue
The stadium debt is a *student* problem. When the Regents approved the bonds, student fees were the guarantor. Nobody on the Board of Regents thought that the stadium bonds would actually be paid off by student fees.
When the ASUC "finds out" about this, I expect shit to hit the fan. It will become a political problem.
I don't have the time or inclination to ... dig up my past comment, so I'll just repeat the short, short version [yes, I am mixing in 2 wildly different movie references, it's what I do]: Cal + furd go full Ivy. This is the way. [zing, a 3rd!]
True, but they should. Delusional to think the revenue sports would've stayed competitive with the rest of the conference blue bloods, even before the implosion.
I guess everything must come to an end. Even my college football fandom? This new world of cfb doesn't interest me at all. If I want franchise sports, I'll stick with the 49ers. At least I can cut cable now
Life sucks when nobody loves you....Sigh.......It really is unbelievable how many steps had to go wrong for us to reach this point or that we have so many clueless administrators (from the Pac-12 and Berkeley) that have gotten us here as well. The big question that I have is will the Mountain West even feel like paying us the paltry 5 million a year to join their league? We don't have the fan base or money to go independent so that isn't an option. What comes next? Extinction of most Cal Sports? Reduction to club level? Eventual invitation to the Big-10 at a bargain-basement price? It would be nice if Christ and Knowlton had SOMETHING, ANYTHING to say about all of this.
I'm going to keep it real, I read their statement and I almost preferred the silence. Readimg them say "We are not watching and waiting," and only getting that statement now is like when you get t-boned by a teenager and they walk out of their car and tell you "I wasn't on my phone."
It’s so depressing. Cal football has quite literally changed my life in so many positive ways. I didn’t go to Cal, so my experiences with cheering for the school aren’t the same as many here. But the football team has led to so many happy moments in my childhood that it’s hard to imagine that changing for the worse.
If I didn’t see them beat USC in 2003, then I probably wouldn’t be into football, and if not for that I would have never played. It’s been an amazing 20 years, and yes some of it has been downs, but I haven’t been happier than when I could catch a game on Saturday. My son started to cheer for them too. Little three year old doesn’t know what he’s doing, but it was something I could look forward to, watching games with my son.
Maybe everything will be fine in the end, maybe we will find a life raft, but it hurts to see the team and the fans I love not only get ripped apart by their contemporaries, but to basically see the admin not give a shit at all about all this. A statement. I’ll take ANYTHING. I’m sorry y’all, I’m in my feelings today, but other than my family there’s nothing I love more than Cal Football. It’s such a big part of my life it’s hard to imagine a future without cheering for the team I love. I know this may seem like melodrama to a lot of old blues, but I hate what’s been going on. I hate what tv producers have done to conferences. I hate what is happening to college football.
Thanks for listening. Maybe these feelings will go away if they find a way to get the deal. We can only hope so. As for me, I’ll be cheering for Cal until it goes under. But I won’t just accept mediocrity anymore. Go Bears, forever.
Holy shit another non alumni fan. I thought I was the only one. My situation is slightly different in that I live in Eugene. The fact that the bears don’t get to play the Beavs or ducks every year will ruin a lot of the fun for me even if there is still a football team somewhere.
Yeah, me too. It is only through this crisis that I have met more. It is nice to see another Bart Alumni. I'm going to the UCLA game as it may very well be the last time I see Cal play for a while.
Yes to all this. I've got two little ones who proudly wear their Cal shirts on game days, and it's kind of heartbreaking to think about right now. Sad day.
Isn't the good news that we only have to win 3 games to be PAC 4 champs? I think we have a real shot... Sorry, just had to add some levity in here. This is super depressing, and feel for all the fans of the teams on the outside looking in.
Cal needs to reach out to Big 10 and say, we will come at even more reduced pay as the soon to be pac4 is not an option. No posturing. No negotiating. Check egos out at the door. We are an amazing, top-notch institution, but our athletics is super lacking. We are losing leverage by the day. Just tell Big10, you make up the terms and please try to make it as fair as you deem fit. We will take it. Need to think about the other sports programs too that will have to close down if this doesn't work out, not just football.
Just awful news (although not unexpected). I kept hoping that somehow Apple would improve the offer so that it would keep the league together. It just makes me sick.
I doubt that the Big 10 will offer us (they will probably look east at the ACC).
We didn't help ourselves by having an incompetent AD, allowing the basketball program to crater and allowing the football program to not be competitive. Bad choices at a critical time period make us an unattractive candidate for the Big 10.
The league should probably have been more aggressive in adding teams and more proactive in getting a media deal, but in the end we didn't do enough to make ourselves a better program.
Going forward its clear that there is going to be no debate about what is the #1 UC....sadly UCLA is in the drivers seat. If you got accepted by both and cared at all about school spirit, sports, etc. you would go to UCLA. They will be hosting Michigan at the Rose Bowl while we are playing Utah State and Fresno State....just awful!
David: I had the same thought as you about being relegated to the role of #2 UC. Incoming students want a college experience that includes going to games on Saturday. I know that I enjoyed that when I was at Cal and getting together with my friends/fellow alums was even more fun. Get ready to become the west coast version of the University of Chicago, a.k.a., "where fun goes to die".
I actually won't be surprised if the apple deal is actually pretty forward thinking and will be considered better in the long run. People in the east coast who aren't interested in watching west games late, aren't interested regardless.. but all the west coast fans spread around the globe would now be able to properly pay for access to all the games. I just don't think the old guard can think in an innovative way about streaming or look beyond how it has always been done.
That's not a serious option, in my opinion. It doesn't tangibly help financials and drags your brand way down. It does, however, show what a terrible job this administration has done in navigating this.
Makes scheduling a lot easier. Probably more money in a TV deal for us in a conference than as an independent. Gives all of our remaining non football and non revenue sports that teams that don’t get cut a conference home.
The only hope now is Cal and Stanford to Big10. I can't even imagine how the locals here in WA and OR are going to react at the idea that they are losing same conference status for their State schools. It's an abomination. The Apple Cup and former Civil War are massively important to the alumni bases here. What a total first class F*&*ing travesty for the sport I love.
Cluster F*&K
Wazoo and Beaver fans are beyond angry at their in-state counterparts. It's the same feeling I have for the scumbags at UCLA. Couldn't care less about USC. They're a private school and can do as they please.
Why don't OU/OSU and UW/WSU just continue playing every year? Somehow Georgia and Georgia Tech manage, despite them not being in the same conference and the game never being any good.
Seems like if it's so important they will figure it out.
I'm usually NOT the guy to default to cynically dogpiling "bad leadership," but good gracious - can you imagine being the conference commissioner whose incompetence and lack of vision led to the probable death of an organization that had been delivering to West Coast fans/alumni since 1915?
Sure, we can take bets. Cal (and friends) find a MWC home. Cal and friends stay in some tiny, gimpy version of the Pacific Conference for another few years. Cal gets a charity invite from the B10. Who knows, who knows. Cal's beleaguered football program folds, or contracts into a DII-scale operation. Who knows anything anymore. I just know I'm bummed beyond belief.
In the meantime the top athletes will move on the higher profile program. And not just in the revenue sports.
this is not on the current guy, but Larry Scott put us in a ocean hole so deep, that we'd need a Navy nuclear sub to get us out.
Lots of factors lead us here, make no mistake, but the poor leadership at the Chancellor and AD levels the past 8 years have been a major contributing factor to this mess Cal finds itself in.
The silence from Cal is deafening.
The silence is what is so frustrating and upsetting!
Can we fire our commissioner now? What do we need GK for if the Pac12 won’t exist after this season.
Kliavkoff will be out of a job if there's no conference to hold together. Even if there is, the remaining schools could definitely decide to let him go.
FiatSlug: You are a 1000 percent right about that. What the hell was he doing for the last year? If I read that he gets to leave with some million dollar plus severance package, then I will lead the march to burn down the Pac-12 headquarters.
Oh you know he is leaving on a golden parachute.
Just curious what his day looks like tomorrow. Does he just pack his things and leave? The conference still needs to maintain business this year. So how does the conference function in its day-to-day business this year, when you can assume everyone will be running to find other jobs?
It seems like the only option left would be for the 4 remaining schools to partner with SDSU/Boise State/Colorado State/UNLV/SMU/RICE, etc and put together a TV deal with Apple. There's no way they would pay as much as they were offering before, but maybe it would be better than the Mountain West's current deal ($7 Million).
We should be thinking outside the box. Both Stanford and Cal should be able to generate private equity investments as a way of bringing in cash. FSU is actively working on this. There are a number of reasons why Cal and Stanford would be attractive. Just requires a special deal structure.
Say more
Take an equity investment in a holding company. The holding company owns the rights to the apportioned TV money, both linear and streaming, to be paid out in the future. Investors will be paid a favorable rate of return on the capital raised. Ultimately buys time for Cal to figure out what it wants to do over the next couple of years. In this way Cal and Stanford don't have to go hat in hand to the networks and have more leverage.
Sounds as likely to succeed as a deal with a Crypto company (pyramid scheme) for stadium naming rights.
The Mt West has a contract to fill that runs thru 2026. There is a limited amount of room for growth with new members.
Fire the commish? I want to sue him for every dime we paid him!
This is America and we capitalist. We not only will not fire him, we will not sue him, we will give him a golden parachute for his incompetence because we wouldn’t want to scare away any potential future qualified commissioners.
I’m for a 2 team conference consisting of only Cal and Stanford.
Negligible travel expenses
Weakly Big Game beat downs
What’s not to like?
#2Pac2024
Unless we get a last minute reprieve, this is the darkest days of Cal football since the Holmoecaust era. And it was completely preventable.
This is far worse than Holmoecaust. In those days, nothing took away from our non-revenue sports. This is existential to every sport at Cal. It's existential to the very notion of Cal I cherish. I'm glad I didn't go to a school that is only academics, like a CalTech. I'm an athlete myself. Cal being both is a big part of why I love Cal.
Yes, mark it on your calendar August 4th...the day the Pac died!
There goes Cal athletics as we know it, its going to be a brutal couple of years. The fanbase is going to have to adjust to our lower standing. Athletes in the program are going to see their teams cut. We are moving from the haves to the have nots overnight. The MWC media payout is about $7 million, a fraction of what we were getting and far under the $31 million the Big 12 is getting. Hello minor leagues
If we get to that point, you'll see us run to the Big 12 with hands out. Fit be damned.
If they're taking UA and ASU you'd think they would take us and Furd, who would bring at least as much to the table.
Is the Big XII an option, though? If it is, then that's Plan B as long as we know when the point of decision/no return is upon us.
At this point, going to Big 12 would be a huge win for us.
We are at that point
I'd say we are way past that point.
Whether we get into the Big 10 or not, and I'm still leaning that we will, but at a poverty rate, the Cal athletic department needs to be fired. And the new president better understand the importance of football, and not think it's 1920.
Unfortunately I'm worried they just cancel athletics. I bet some of the academic department are probably thrilled about this
The Regents get to pick up the debt --which was already crippling. Too bad they didn't kill the UCLA move when they had a chance. UCLA is now gonna have to pay out more than $10 million to help cover our bankruptcy I'd guess. And it dents even academic fundraising as well for years while they pick up the pieces. No big game events. What do for homecoming. Upset alumni like myself who have supported both. Those folks that wanted this are going to finally what athletics means for the rest of the university and it won't be a rosy picture for a very long time.
UCLA isn’t paying you a dollar. They owe you nothing. There is a grant of rights that expires after this season. Whatever contractual debts Cal took on, they did so knowing full well they might not have access to UCLA’s revenue share beyond that. Blame it on your inept administration and poor athletic performance. If you think the UC regents are going to compel UCLA to actually pay you anything for your own crappy athletic program you have another thing coming. That was what we call CYA move. It’s pathetic to think the UC system’s flagship institution needs welfare (or Calimony) to stay afloat.
I had the same thought. The contingent of folks at Cal who feel sports are a distraction from the university’s mission have always been strong and I am sure they are saying “I told you so!” right about now.
But but but, I think the stadium bonds makes that option infeasible. They have no choice but to max out stadium revenue
Do they? Is the stadium debt a Cal problem or a UC Regents problem?
The stadium debt is a *student* problem. When the Regents approved the bonds, student fees were the guarantor. Nobody on the Board of Regents thought that the stadium bonds would actually be paid off by student fees.
When the ASUC "finds out" about this, I expect shit to hit the fan. It will become a political problem.
That is a good question, I thought the obligor on the bonds was the University, but am not 100%
Sell the real estate under it to payoff the debt, and relocate to the Pacific campus in Stockton. That stadium will be an ok fit for Mt, West games.
Time to update your old Tedford curtains meme and make it our football and athletic program.
I don't have the time or inclination to ... dig up my past comment, so I'll just repeat the short, short version [yes, I am mixing in 2 wildly different movie references, it's what I do]: Cal + furd go full Ivy. This is the way. [zing, a 3rd!]
Nah, they'll never do that.
True, but they should. Delusional to think the revenue sports would've stayed competitive with the rest of the conference blue bloods, even before the implosion.
We/they don't have the money. Harvard proudly supports 40 varsity programs out of its endowment primarily. They bus to away games.
Right, & Cal would kick their ass in football just like we do in rowing. Furd's probably sitting on a billion too, time to spread the wealth.
You're not wrong, but couldn't be more after-the-fact.
I guess everything must come to an end. Even my college football fandom? This new world of cfb doesn't interest me at all. If I want franchise sports, I'll stick with the 49ers. At least I can cut cable now
I got to that point last year. No more CFB for me. At least I got back some Saturdays.
Life sucks when nobody loves you....Sigh.......It really is unbelievable how many steps had to go wrong for us to reach this point or that we have so many clueless administrators (from the Pac-12 and Berkeley) that have gotten us here as well. The big question that I have is will the Mountain West even feel like paying us the paltry 5 million a year to join their league? We don't have the fan base or money to go independent so that isn't an option. What comes next? Extinction of most Cal Sports? Reduction to club level? Eventual invitation to the Big-10 at a bargain-basement price? It would be nice if Christ and Knowlton had SOMETHING, ANYTHING to say about all of this.
I'm going to keep it real, I read their statement and I almost preferred the silence. Readimg them say "We are not watching and waiting," and only getting that statement now is like when you get t-boned by a teenager and they walk out of their car and tell you "I wasn't on my phone."
Just heard Knowlton landed us a home-and-home against De La Salle next year.
How much of an underdog are we?
It's worth the recruiting exposure
It’s so depressing. Cal football has quite literally changed my life in so many positive ways. I didn’t go to Cal, so my experiences with cheering for the school aren’t the same as many here. But the football team has led to so many happy moments in my childhood that it’s hard to imagine that changing for the worse.
If I didn’t see them beat USC in 2003, then I probably wouldn’t be into football, and if not for that I would have never played. It’s been an amazing 20 years, and yes some of it has been downs, but I haven’t been happier than when I could catch a game on Saturday. My son started to cheer for them too. Little three year old doesn’t know what he’s doing, but it was something I could look forward to, watching games with my son.
Maybe everything will be fine in the end, maybe we will find a life raft, but it hurts to see the team and the fans I love not only get ripped apart by their contemporaries, but to basically see the admin not give a shit at all about all this. A statement. I’ll take ANYTHING. I’m sorry y’all, I’m in my feelings today, but other than my family there’s nothing I love more than Cal Football. It’s such a big part of my life it’s hard to imagine a future without cheering for the team I love. I know this may seem like melodrama to a lot of old blues, but I hate what’s been going on. I hate what tv producers have done to conferences. I hate what is happening to college football.
Thanks for listening. Maybe these feelings will go away if they find a way to get the deal. We can only hope so. As for me, I’ll be cheering for Cal until it goes under. But I won’t just accept mediocrity anymore. Go Bears, forever.
You are true blue, sir. Hang in there.
Holy shit another non alumni fan. I thought I was the only one. My situation is slightly different in that I live in Eugene. The fact that the bears don’t get to play the Beavs or ducks every year will ruin a lot of the fun for me even if there is still a football team somewhere.
Yeah, me too. It is only through this crisis that I have met more. It is nice to see another Bart Alumni. I'm going to the UCLA game as it may very well be the last time I see Cal play for a while.
Yes to all this. I've got two little ones who proudly wear their Cal shirts on game days, and it's kind of heartbreaking to think about right now. Sad day.
Hello Darkness My old friend
Old friend? More like our ever-present, lifelong companion.
Isn't the good news that we only have to win 3 games to be PAC 4 champs? I think we have a real shot... Sorry, just had to add some levity in here. This is super depressing, and feel for all the fans of the teams on the outside looking in.
Levity is good, after all no one is dying here.
Technically, we are the Pac7. (At least until the next Pac meeting after which 'Zona is gone.)
Unfortunately Wilcox went 1-2 against the remaining schools last season.
Cal needs to reach out to Big 10 and say, we will come at even more reduced pay as the soon to be pac4 is not an option. No posturing. No negotiating. Check egos out at the door. We are an amazing, top-notch institution, but our athletics is super lacking. We are losing leverage by the day. Just tell Big10, you make up the terms and please try to make it as fair as you deem fit. We will take it. Need to think about the other sports programs too that will have to close down if this doesn't work out, not just football.
Their terms might end up including no payout at all and the right for each prior Big 10 team to draft a player they want from our roster per year.
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes again
Can you picture what will be?
So limitless and free
Desperately in need
Of some stranger's hand
In a desperate land…
The blue bus is calling us
The blue bus is calling us
Driver, where you taking us?
Just awful news (although not unexpected). I kept hoping that somehow Apple would improve the offer so that it would keep the league together. It just makes me sick.
I doubt that the Big 10 will offer us (they will probably look east at the ACC).
We didn't help ourselves by having an incompetent AD, allowing the basketball program to crater and allowing the football program to not be competitive. Bad choices at a critical time period make us an unattractive candidate for the Big 10.
The league should probably have been more aggressive in adding teams and more proactive in getting a media deal, but in the end we didn't do enough to make ourselves a better program.
Going forward its clear that there is going to be no debate about what is the #1 UC....sadly UCLA is in the drivers seat. If you got accepted by both and cared at all about school spirit, sports, etc. you would go to UCLA. They will be hosting Michigan at the Rose Bowl while we are playing Utah State and Fresno State....just awful!
David: I had the same thought as you about being relegated to the role of #2 UC. Incoming students want a college experience that includes going to games on Saturday. I know that I enjoyed that when I was at Cal and getting together with my friends/fellow alums was even more fun. Get ready to become the west coast version of the University of Chicago, a.k.a., "where fun goes to die".
I actually won't be surprised if the apple deal is actually pretty forward thinking and will be considered better in the long run. People in the east coast who aren't interested in watching west games late, aren't interested regardless.. but all the west coast fans spread around the globe would now be able to properly pay for access to all the games. I just don't think the old guard can think in an innovative way about streaming or look beyond how it has always been done.
But with no conference there is no Apple deal.
We have a home if we want it, it’s just in the MWC.
Good article, one minor disagreement. The Pac won’t last until the end of August, it probably won’t last to the end of today.
That's not a serious option, in my opinion. It doesn't tangibly help financials and drags your brand way down. It does, however, show what a terrible job this administration has done in navigating this.
We don’t have any options right now. That is our only option at the moment. Cal/OSU/WSU will have to merge with the MWC for next season.
Or bring in teams from that conference. San Diego St., Fresno St., Boise St., San Jose St., are good teams
What are the advantages to that rather than just staying independent?
Makes scheduling a lot easier. Probably more money in a TV deal for us in a conference than as an independent. Gives all of our remaining non football and non revenue sports that teams that don’t get cut a conference home.