I suspect the real crisis will occur when Kliavkoff tells the schools what is the best offer he has on the table. If it's considerably less than what the Big XII schools are getting, some schools are going to be tempted to jump ship. And if the Big XII comes hunting, will the Big 10 sit still or restart talks with UW and Oregon? The Big 10 doesn't have a commissioner at the moment, so it may be awhile before we know if they decide to make another move.
Upon thinking on the matter further I expect the Pac-12 will go forward on this as they have to nail down the TV money no matter what above all other considerations. Butts in the seats count but not as much as they used to. So look forward to 30,000 attendees at Memorial unless we are playing Auburn or The Ohio State.
My first thought with regards to SDSU getting in would be a school complementary to them...which would be Fresno St. I think that athletically and geographically they stack up, but I'm not sure about the academic part. What friction exists with Cal/Stanford?
I understand why they would want SMU for the Dallas market but I am not overly excited for their addition. Same goes for UNLV. Other than a fun trip to Vegas, that addition isn’t very exciting.
I wish we would have just added the 4 Big 12 schools last season.
At the end of the day, the Pac12 is probably dead in the next 4 years. Oregon and UW rightly don’t want to stay in a weakened and rebuilding Pac12.
I suppose at the end of the day survival of the Pac-12 is what it's all about. Certainly there are some tradeoffs, among them is looking away from perceived academic disparity between the candidates and the R1 research schools. But even in the Pac-12 as it exists now there is disparity between universities, e.g., is OSU on the same level as Cal and Stanford? No. Given the fact that the Bay Area market (4 million plus sets of eyeballs) is so large, why not consider SJSU? Perhaps the consideration would be dilution, and whether or not there would be any accretive effect in adding that school compared with saving a portion of the lost SoCal market with the addition of 1.1 million eyeballs in San Diego County.
FWIW, SMU disaffiliated itself from the United Methodist Church (over anti-LGBT positions). And they're moving toward R1 status. https://www.smu.edu/Research/Road-to-R1
I've seen mentioned that SDSU and SMU may enter with a lesser share, perhaps because they haven't achieved the same designations. Avi ran through the usual other options and each has flaws that are harder to remedy. I do understand why Kliavkoff is beefing so hard with Big XII. Yormark moving his deal up created a revenue ceiling (instead of using the B1G as the baseline Kliavkoff was pushing, albeit unsuccessfully). Hopefully the Arizona schools that (reportedly) are peeved won't defect.
TV market. The fact that we would consider SMU but never gave BYU a serious look is ridiculous. Yes BYU is culturally a weird fit, but it is a good school, they have a National following, love athletics, and are an undeniable part of Western history. We should be begging BYU to join now (though not sure what sort of binding contract they have with the Big 12).
Also SDSU is a good school. They always had great faculty, but it took a while for the student body to catch up. No reason why the best Cal State should be excluded based on academics.
The Pac ? Conference is in a death spiral. Kliavkoff has flailed and failed and is out of glittery options. The conference is going Off Broadway and eventually Off Oblivion. The Pac ? Conference champion will play the Tidal Basin Conference champion in the Phlegm Bowl the first Wednesday in December at 11 AM ET. at Stagg Field in Stockton. --- Avi, I have a poll suggestion for you: "Who killed Cal athletics?" and the nominees are Sandy Barbour, Mike Williams, Jim "Empty Suit" Knowlton, "Clueless Carol" Christ, Nicholas Dirks, and Tom Holmoe. (add others you see fit).
1 - go the same route as the Univ. of Chicago and drop all athletics; or
2 - Take the lead and form a new conference of heavy scholastic focused schools including Stanford, Rice, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Duke, plus 6 more and call it the Egghead Dozen Conference. Then the conference champions could play the ivy League champions in the Who Cares Bowl (Eggs vs. Vines) in Gila Bend, Arizona. . However since the Ineptitude Twins -Knowlton & Christ- are useless, and followers, not leaders, some other schools' leadership groups would have to take the lead.
Why does the Pac12 keep pushing the Conference Of Champions tag line around? After USC & UCLA are gone after next season, they will go from 704 team championships down to 432 and the B10 will go from 504 up to 777. Won't that just be another bad storyline for the Pac12 down the road? Shouldn't they be transitioning the brand now?
Discussing the potential roadmaps of uni research designations is pretty immaterial in the grand scheme of things. The Pac 12 as we've known it will continue to be in its death throes. UW and OR will never sit tight, and key members will continue to be picked off. This is a death spiral that may get some bandages thrown on, but the hemorrhaging won't stop.
While I can understand why the PAC-12 may have few better expansion schools choices than SDSU and SMU, it seems to me that the league will be lowering both its academic and athletic reputation. Along with a likely decline in media payments, the PAC-12 may be on its way down to the level of the AAC. I wonder why the stronger programs like Oergon, UW and Utah would want to remain in this reconfigured conference. The Big-12 certainly has an opportunity to lure away the Four Corner schools with its media package which likely will be considerably better than anything the PAC-12 will be able to negotiate.
Lowering our academic reputation? With USC/UCLA gone, that distinction is gone. It's just Cal, UW, and Furd now. Also, SDSU is largely hampered academically due to state-wide university politics and UC dick swinging. We shouldn't have any issues with bringing them in, and having games in SoCal for recruiting -- they're not going to add a TV market -- is too important to pass up.
I suspect the real crisis will occur when Kliavkoff tells the schools what is the best offer he has on the table. If it's considerably less than what the Big XII schools are getting, some schools are going to be tempted to jump ship. And if the Big XII comes hunting, will the Big 10 sit still or restart talks with UW and Oregon? The Big 10 doesn't have a commissioner at the moment, so it may be awhile before we know if they decide to make another move.
Upon thinking on the matter further I expect the Pac-12 will go forward on this as they have to nail down the TV money no matter what above all other considerations. Butts in the seats count but not as much as they used to. So look forward to 30,000 attendees at Memorial unless we are playing Auburn or The Ohio State.
How about UCI?
Love to hear “anteater” cheers attempt to roll off people’s tongues! 😂
Would love them as a basketball-only member. And then use them as a secret bye during football season.
Oh, watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out
(Oh here she comes)
Yeah yeah she's an anteater
(Oh here she comes)
(She's an anteater)
She's watching and waiting ooh
(Oh here she comes)
Oh she's a anteater
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneater_(Hall_%26_Oates_song)
My first thought with regards to SDSU getting in would be a school complementary to them...which would be Fresno St. I think that athletically and geographically they stack up, but I'm not sure about the academic part. What friction exists with Cal/Stanford?
they draw very well
I was referring to Fresno St. Well, I'm a little confused; does the visiting fans attending matter for evaluating who to add?
It does not.
SMU would be weird from a tradition point of view. I'm all in on SDSU...Go Aztecs!
George Kliavkoff certainly came on board at a tough time.
I don't envy him, even if he was chosen specifically to handle this sort of situation. His predecessor did not leave him much to work with.
SDSU, yes.
I understand why they would want SMU for the Dallas market but I am not overly excited for their addition. Same goes for UNLV. Other than a fun trip to Vegas, that addition isn’t very exciting.
I wish we would have just added the 4 Big 12 schools last season.
At the end of the day, the Pac12 is probably dead in the next 4 years. Oregon and UW rightly don’t want to stay in a weakened and rebuilding Pac12.
I suppose at the end of the day survival of the Pac-12 is what it's all about. Certainly there are some tradeoffs, among them is looking away from perceived academic disparity between the candidates and the R1 research schools. But even in the Pac-12 as it exists now there is disparity between universities, e.g., is OSU on the same level as Cal and Stanford? No. Given the fact that the Bay Area market (4 million plus sets of eyeballs) is so large, why not consider SJSU? Perhaps the consideration would be dilution, and whether or not there would be any accretive effect in adding that school compared with saving a portion of the lost SoCal market with the addition of 1.1 million eyeballs in San Diego County.
FWIW, SMU disaffiliated itself from the United Methodist Church (over anti-LGBT positions). And they're moving toward R1 status. https://www.smu.edu/Research/Road-to-R1
I've seen mentioned that SDSU and SMU may enter with a lesser share, perhaps because they haven't achieved the same designations. Avi ran through the usual other options and each has flaws that are harder to remedy. I do understand why Kliavkoff is beefing so hard with Big XII. Yormark moving his deal up created a revenue ceiling (instead of using the B1G as the baseline Kliavkoff was pushing, albeit unsuccessfully). Hopefully the Arizona schools that (reportedly) are peeved won't defect.
SMU is a bad choice; I give zero shit about the
TV market. The fact that we would consider SMU but never gave BYU a serious look is ridiculous. Yes BYU is culturally a weird fit, but it is a good school, they have a National following, love athletics, and are an undeniable part of Western history. We should be begging BYU to join now (though not sure what sort of binding contract they have with the Big 12).
Also SDSU is a good school. They always had great faculty, but it took a while for the student body to catch up. No reason why the best Cal State should be excluded based on academics.
The Pac ? Conference is in a death spiral. Kliavkoff has flailed and failed and is out of glittery options. The conference is going Off Broadway and eventually Off Oblivion. The Pac ? Conference champion will play the Tidal Basin Conference champion in the Phlegm Bowl the first Wednesday in December at 11 AM ET. at Stagg Field in Stockton. --- Avi, I have a poll suggestion for you: "Who killed Cal athletics?" and the nominees are Sandy Barbour, Mike Williams, Jim "Empty Suit" Knowlton, "Clueless Carol" Christ, Nicholas Dirks, and Tom Holmoe. (add others you see fit).
assigning blame won't fix this thing
you must be a New Testament guy
I'm not an any-testament guy; I just think that this culture of finding blame for everything is a humanitarian cancer
All of Cal killed Cal IA. No segment of the campus has much interest in IA--student body, faculty, staff, etc.
Then Cal should do one of two things:
1 - go the same route as the Univ. of Chicago and drop all athletics; or
2 - Take the lead and form a new conference of heavy scholastic focused schools including Stanford, Rice, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Duke, plus 6 more and call it the Egghead Dozen Conference. Then the conference champions could play the ivy League champions in the Who Cares Bowl (Eggs vs. Vines) in Gila Bend, Arizona. . However since the Ineptitude Twins -Knowlton & Christ- are useless, and followers, not leaders, some other schools' leadership groups would have to take the lead.
Why does the Pac12 keep pushing the Conference Of Champions tag line around? After USC & UCLA are gone after next season, they will go from 704 team championships down to 432 and the B10 will go from 504 up to 777. Won't that just be another bad storyline for the Pac12 down the road? Shouldn't they be transitioning the brand now?
Conference of Moral Victories
Conference of When they Go Low, We Go Away
perhaps its trademarked, so the pac owns the label, Conf of Champs?
Does a trademark matter if it's not a true statement?
Discussing the potential roadmaps of uni research designations is pretty immaterial in the grand scheme of things. The Pac 12 as we've known it will continue to be in its death throes. UW and OR will never sit tight, and key members will continue to be picked off. This is a death spiral that may get some bandages thrown on, but the hemorrhaging won't stop.
The pac 12 will figure out how to mess things up, they always do.
While I can understand why the PAC-12 may have few better expansion schools choices than SDSU and SMU, it seems to me that the league will be lowering both its academic and athletic reputation. Along with a likely decline in media payments, the PAC-12 may be on its way down to the level of the AAC. I wonder why the stronger programs like Oergon, UW and Utah would want to remain in this reconfigured conference. The Big-12 certainly has an opportunity to lure away the Four Corner schools with its media package which likely will be considerably better than anything the PAC-12 will be able to negotiate.
Lowering our academic reputation? With USC/UCLA gone, that distinction is gone. It's just Cal, UW, and Furd now. Also, SDSU is largely hampered academically due to state-wide university politics and UC dick swinging. We shouldn't have any issues with bringing them in, and having games in SoCal for recruiting -- they're not going to add a TV market -- is too important to pass up.
In photos, identifying who’s who is always helpful.