I wish I could believe you, but I don't think this ends well for us. We'll either be left stranded or be left as a crumb to highest of the low bidders. Maybe a PAC leftovers / ACC leftovers cross-coastal alignment is a possibility, which sounds dreamy at this point.
Alpha: WHEN do you think that this will happen? I think that the Big 10 is perfectly content to let us twist in the wind for however long it takes and then swoop in with a lowball offer that will pay us even less than we are getting now. What is their incentive to offer us a deal in the 30-35 million range when we can't even get that now?
Goddamn golden. Commission Buchanan indeed. I love this site and my fellow Cal alumni. Colorado can go to hell and I hope all their students and alumni get another STD on top of the ones they already have.
Good riddance. Was a strange marriage anyway. The Pac to me is always the teams that are in the Pacific Time Zone. If Utah bolts, fine. I'd rather be the Pac 8 than have the Boise State's of the world join. I'm fine with SDSU. Not a fan of SMU. If I have to live with not playing the shitty SoCal schools annually, then so be it. The Bear does not quit, the Bear will not die. The Pac is not the Bear. Go Bears!
Cornell actually has a few land grant (aka "contract") colleges. Regardless of the travel logistics, such a plan would never work as teh Ivies support athletics out of their general funds. Their TV contract rights barely covers teh cost of turning on the lights. Cal cannot continue 31 sports other than remaining a P5 school. (Harvard has ~40 varsity programs, but then Harvard has more money than most countries around the world.)
Fuck em. They left because they won't have to compete with the likes of Utah, Oregon, UW and CAL for the conference championship after USC and FUCLA leave. The Big 12 blows; inferior competition after Texas and Oklahoma leave, and even with their recruiting they have not been at the top of the heap. We'll see if TCU, Baylor, can keep their winning ways. As for the rest, including Houston, Okie State and Cincy, meh... I'll bet our PAC 9 will have more top 25 teams at the end of the 2024 season than the BIG12.
They left because this conference still doesn’t have a media deal in place and our commissioner keeps bullshitting them and everyone else that he has one that will be revealed any day now.
It isn’t about top 25 teams at the end of this season, it’s about having a secured multi million dollar contract for your program going forward.
Pac can’t offer any financial security beyond this year, Colorado jumped to the best and most secure offer to save themselves before any other school could. They have a smart AD, we have an idiot AD.
I don't agree. They could have waited to see what the PAC12 media deal will be and then walked if they didn't like it; the Big12 would have taken Colorado anytime. The news on the PAC media rights deal has been that as time goes on the terms of the deal get better for the PAC. Only time will tell.
I'm a bit worried that CU did see the top level numbers and moved. This could just be an indirect way of saying "don't expect an announcement on media day" or might mean something.
I don't think there are any top numbers yet to be seen. If they are so bad that a losing program in the Denver media market decides to bail, I would think that UW and Oregon would have gone to the Big10
Big12 is supposedly giving them a full share of $32 million. I bet Big12 gave Colorado an ultimatum of make a decision by the end of the month or else the offer is pulled or reduced. Commissioner Buchanan came to the Pac12 media day with a bunch of bullshit in hand and no solid answers so Colorado left for the sure thing over rather than stay on the Titanic.
UW and Oregon have been groveling for a BiG invite. They would jump at any opportunity. The BiG has just not made them an offer. (My guess is that Oregon & Wash wanted a really short term TV deal, and that has been part of the hold up.)
Don't be surprised if the school Presidents have been told what the numbers are looking like, and Colorado decided that they weren't good enough to stick around.
Colorado saw that the money was probably less and the exposure even worse. The P12 deal is almost assuredly going to be predominantly streaming, and while eventually that is going to be the landscape as cable dies, we’re just not there yet. CU said it themselves - they want to be on Fox and ESPN…that’s NOT the P12.
Tom Hansen, Larry Scott and now George Kliavkoff have been unmitigated disasters, and the Conference Presidents and CEO Group just as incompetent.
I think CU finally realized that Commissioner Buchanan wasn’t able to get a very good deal and that the Big12 deal was worth more money and the Big12 is more stable than the Pac leftovers. They called his bluff and he folded his hand. Reports are trickling out that the Pac leftovers media deal isn’t good and it won’t get better over time.
The Big 12 apparently gave them a deadline to make a decision, and they chose. Not surprised since this is exactly what they did when they came to the Pac-12. They're an underwhelming program that can't seem to commit to anyone.
Prime will be out of the job or coaching at some classy school like Liberty after going 2-10 and reports of hazing and an extremely toxic environment emerge.
While I would love to see it because to hell with Colorado and Deion, it’s just not happening. Fully expect him to go a respectable 4-8, then bowl with a 6-6 in year 2 and get hired on at Georgia Tech or Ole Miss when Kiffin bolts back to the NFL.
The Pac is dead.....Long live....I don't know. What comes next? Is it possible that Cal Athletics will cease to exist? Aside from alums, who is going to pay to watch us? Who are we going to play? This is bad. Football and Sports Gods, pray for us.
If today's rumor reported by Sportskeeda is true, the PAC-12 TV deal is $12 million less than the Big 12 and includes only 20% linear coverage. This, plus the rumor that the CW network wants to air PAC-12 games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights was probably enough to trigger CU's decision to leave, but I suspect there is more to this story.
Well I suppose there is some logic in being the first mover (or third at this point I guess), but IF a grant of rights had shored up the conference aligning with the PAC10 still seems a better move than the Big 12. Either the media deal was shaping up to be horrific and/or they had intel suggesting that there were others poised to move.
Remaining rational and using logic...Cal is going to be ok...If CU is worth a 31.7 million share to the b12 then certainly Cal is worth that and probably more. We now just have to wait and see if the B1G/ACC will offer or if SDSU can get a similar number to the B12 number if they join. If not, we are going to be playing across the dustbowl with the B12l but it's not doomsday "off to the MWC" for Cal.
You are right! There are a huge number of Big 10 alumni in the Bay Area. If, as I have, you were to attend a football game at Maryland or Rutgers, you would see that the stadiums are full of Big 10 alumni from the visiting teams. Cal would be able to fill Memorial Stadium and pay off the loans.
I believe it. I remember the Cal-Ohio State game in 2014 - Memorial Stadium was easily 75% Ohio State and all the people I chatted with happened to live on the West Coast.
The Big 10 is a special animal. It is the only conference with a truly national alumni base with almost 6 million living alumni spread out over the entire USA. This is why it can command more money from the media than the SEC whose alumni are concentrated in the South East. Four metropolitan areas attract at least 1% (and usually more) of the Big 10 graduates from all 14 universities. They are NYC, DC, LA and, guess what, the Bay area. There are over 100,000 Big 10 alumni living in the Bay Area and most, if not all the schools have active alumni chapters. The heavy presence of alumni in these metro areas is why the Big 10 added Rutgers and Maryland and now USC and UCLA. There is only more metro area left to add and I am sure Stanford and Cal are included in the mid-term plans of the Big 10. The Big 10 Academic Alliance (separate from, but tied to admission to the BIG 10 conference) intends to build the largest consortium of research universities in the world and Stanford and Cal are wanted by the faculties of the Big Ten schools. The problem is timing.
Not likely,. The B12 gotta sweetheart TV agreement that says any Power 5 school that joins will get the same $ share. So, if Cal wanted to join the B12, we'd get 31.7 too. No more.
I watched the Kliavkoff speech with great interest. He basically spent most of it covering his you know what. He remarked that he loves Las Vegas and is from Las Vegas. That's why we are stuck with all events there rather than the largest media hub in the country outside of NYC. Meanwhile the deal remains elusive. He lacks charisma and apparently negotiating chops. As time goes on the asset he is representing keeps losing value. He should go back to his casino background.
Similarly expensive. My company is throwing a convention in LA and the union requirements and general cost of business/regulations is staggering in comparison to other states.
I imagine the actual numbers were released and confirmed what everyone except Wilner and Canzano expected: $15-$20 million payout with 80% streaming only. It goes to show just how much value the Los Angeles schools brought to the PAC-12 and why the Big Ten wanted them. I expect the Big Ten will soon expand to Cal and Stanford. They might not get anything close to full revenue share (maybe ever) but it will be far more than what any other conference can provide.
Perhaps the Saudis would like or be interested in a LIV style college football league?
Yesterday: the Axe
Tomorrow: Bone Saw!
Pac-12 partner: Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund
I like it. And women would have to wear burkas to all athletic events!
We would have more money than all the other CFB conferences combined.
It's going to end up the exact way I thought it would:
Cal, Stanford, Washington, Oregon: Big 10
Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, Colorado: Big 12
Washington State, Oregon State: Mountain West OR Big 12.
I wish I could believe you, but I don't think this ends well for us. We'll either be left stranded or be left as a crumb to highest of the low bidders. Maybe a PAC leftovers / ACC leftovers cross-coastal alignment is a possibility, which sounds dreamy at this point.
you're dreaming if you think we aren't in the same boat as WSU and OSU. Stanford will either get into Big 10 or go independent.
Alpha: WHEN do you think that this will happen? I think that the Big 10 is perfectly content to let us twist in the wind for however long it takes and then swoop in with a lowball offer that will pay us even less than we are getting now. What is their incentive to offer us a deal in the 30-35 million range when we can't even get that now?
I worry that you may be right, but I also think they'd like to get our academic cred.
What is the difference between Big 10 and Big 12?
Money.
. . . and scholarly reputation.
You can’t make this shit up. The Pac is a complete joke at this moment.
Just fucking merge with the MWC and call it a career.
This is the unfortunate result of incompetent leadership at the highest levels.
Decades of incompetent leadership at the Pac10/12.
It started with Hansen, continued with Scott and now we have the equivalent of James Buchanan as the commissioner of the Pac12.
Goddamn golden. Commission Buchanan indeed. I love this site and my fellow Cal alumni. Colorado can go to hell and I hope all their students and alumni get another STD on top of the ones they already have.
I’m just happy I was able to put my U.S. History degree to good use today for everyone’s amusement.
Too bad , George does not have a beard.
That's the funniest comment on WFC I've read in ages. Literally LOL'd.
“merge with the MWC”
Yup. Do it now. Stop the pussy-footing and go big or go home.
I’m gonna love the road trips to Fresno.
Seriously, just grab the best of the bunch of the MWC schools at this point.
So sick of this cherry-picking. Get the barrel and take all the remaining cherries. and be the bastard with the biggest barrel.
Good riddance. Was a strange marriage anyway. The Pac to me is always the teams that are in the Pacific Time Zone. If Utah bolts, fine. I'd rather be the Pac 8 than have the Boise State's of the world join. I'm fine with SDSU. Not a fan of SMU. If I have to live with not playing the shitty SoCal schools annually, then so be it. The Bear does not quit, the Bear will not die. The Pac is not the Bear. Go Bears!
Reports last week that a deal was imminent so Colorado may be reacting to all the numbers. SDSU deadline already passed on June 30 (exit fee doubled).
Colorado leaving wouldn't be terminal by itself but we can see the dominos.
So at this rate we might have a shot at winning the PAC (whatever), with Cal and Stanford as the last ones in the league.
Merge with the Ivy League? I’d travel to a road game at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc.
the frequent flier miles would be insane
Ivy League won't want to merge with a public school, it's the antithesis of their culture
Cornell actually has a few land grant (aka "contract") colleges. Regardless of the travel logistics, such a plan would never work as teh Ivies support athletics out of their general funds. Their TV contract rights barely covers teh cost of turning on the lights. Cal cannot continue 31 sports other than remaining a P5 school. (Harvard has ~40 varsity programs, but then Harvard has more money than most countries around the world.)
Fuck em. They left because they won't have to compete with the likes of Utah, Oregon, UW and CAL for the conference championship after USC and FUCLA leave. The Big 12 blows; inferior competition after Texas and Oklahoma leave, and even with their recruiting they have not been at the top of the heap. We'll see if TCU, Baylor, can keep their winning ways. As for the rest, including Houston, Okie State and Cincy, meh... I'll bet our PAC 9 will have more top 25 teams at the end of the 2024 season than the BIG12.
They left because this conference still doesn’t have a media deal in place and our commissioner keeps bullshitting them and everyone else that he has one that will be revealed any day now.
It isn’t about top 25 teams at the end of this season, it’s about having a secured multi million dollar contract for your program going forward.
Pac can’t offer any financial security beyond this year, Colorado jumped to the best and most secure offer to save themselves before any other school could. They have a smart AD, we have an idiot AD.
I don't agree. They could have waited to see what the PAC12 media deal will be and then walked if they didn't like it; the Big12 would have taken Colorado anytime. The news on the PAC media rights deal has been that as time goes on the terms of the deal get better for the PAC. Only time will tell.
I'm a bit worried that CU did see the top level numbers and moved. This could just be an indirect way of saying "don't expect an announcement on media day" or might mean something.
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/38031370/source-pac-12-media-rights-deal-expected-future
There's a guy named Greg Swaim making some specific claims but he seems like a sketchy source.
I don't think there are any top numbers yet to be seen. If they are so bad that a losing program in the Denver media market decides to bail, I would think that UW and Oregon would have gone to the Big10
Big12 is supposedly giving them a full share of $32 million. I bet Big12 gave Colorado an ultimatum of make a decision by the end of the month or else the offer is pulled or reduced. Commissioner Buchanan came to the Pac12 media day with a bunch of bullshit in hand and no solid answers so Colorado left for the sure thing over rather than stay on the Titanic.
UW and Oregon have been groveling for a BiG invite. They would jump at any opportunity. The BiG has just not made them an offer. (My guess is that Oregon & Wash wanted a really short term TV deal, and that has been part of the hold up.)
Don't be surprised if the school Presidents have been told what the numbers are looking like, and Colorado decided that they weren't good enough to stick around.
Colorado saw that the money was probably less and the exposure even worse. The P12 deal is almost assuredly going to be predominantly streaming, and while eventually that is going to be the landscape as cable dies, we’re just not there yet. CU said it themselves - they want to be on Fox and ESPN…that’s NOT the P12.
Tom Hansen, Larry Scott and now George Kliavkoff have been unmitigated disasters, and the Conference Presidents and CEO Group just as incompetent.
I fully agree. Mostly worried that Colorado just happened to be the first because they had an invitation in hand. To my knowledge, B1G hasn't formally invited Oregon and Washington. Edit: Forgot about this. I guess it is almost an invite. https://www.heartlandcollegesports.com/2023/05/14/oregon-washington-vetted-and-cleared-to-join-big-ten-brett-mcmurphy/
This was also posted yesterday. Could just be a home and home but...
https://www.instagram.com/p/CvH_mnwuSdi/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
I think CU finally realized that Commissioner Buchanan wasn’t able to get a very good deal and that the Big12 deal was worth more money and the Big12 is more stable than the Pac leftovers. They called his bluff and he folded his hand. Reports are trickling out that the Pac leftovers media deal isn’t good and it won’t get better over time.
i audibly laughed at the reference at commissioner Buchanan
The Big 12 apparently gave them a deadline to make a decision, and they chose. Not surprised since this is exactly what they did when they came to the Pac-12. They're an underwhelming program that can't seem to commit to anyone.
Interesting.
Pac-whatever number conference won't be much different when Oregon and Washington leave.
What Rug said...wonder the role Sanders had in this....
I doubt he had any frankly. This is about ensuring a stable financial future for their athletics program.
Prime will be coaching in the SEC or ACC by ‘25.
Prime will be out of the job or coaching at some classy school like Liberty after going 2-10 and reports of hazing and an extremely toxic environment emerge.
While I would love to see it because to hell with Colorado and Deion, it’s just not happening. Fully expect him to go a respectable 4-8, then bowl with a 6-6 in year 2 and get hired on at Georgia Tech or Ole Miss when Kiffin bolts back to the NFL.
My guess is Prime wanted to stay in PAC. He won't run from competition.
He's more about running to the bank.
The Pac is dead.....Long live....I don't know. What comes next? Is it possible that Cal Athletics will cease to exist? Aside from alums, who is going to pay to watch us? Who are we going to play? This is bad. Football and Sports Gods, pray for us.
If today's rumor reported by Sportskeeda is true, the PAC-12 TV deal is $12 million less than the Big 12 and includes only 20% linear coverage. This, plus the rumor that the CW network wants to air PAC-12 games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights was probably enough to trigger CU's decision to leave, but I suspect there is more to this story.
The road to the playoff got better?
Well I suppose there is some logic in being the first mover (or third at this point I guess), but IF a grant of rights had shored up the conference aligning with the PAC10 still seems a better move than the Big 12. Either the media deal was shaping up to be horrific and/or they had intel suggesting that there were others poised to move.
Remaining rational and using logic...Cal is going to be ok...If CU is worth a 31.7 million share to the b12 then certainly Cal is worth that and probably more. We now just have to wait and see if the B1G/ACC will offer or if SDSU can get a similar number to the B12 number if they join. If not, we are going to be playing across the dustbowl with the B12l but it's not doomsday "off to the MWC" for Cal.
Cal isn't worth that much
Lol they are worth more than CU, it's why they were even mentioned as a target for B1G expansion.
I think Cal's value is more as a venue for Bay Area B1G alumni to watch local games. Apparently, there are a lot of those bastards in NorCal.
You are right! There are a huge number of Big 10 alumni in the Bay Area. If, as I have, you were to attend a football game at Maryland or Rutgers, you would see that the stadiums are full of Big 10 alumni from the visiting teams. Cal would be able to fill Memorial Stadium and pay off the loans.
Yes. Outside of B10s current footprint, they have more graduates in Bay Area than any other market in the country. Hope springs eternal
I believe it. I remember the Cal-Ohio State game in 2014 - Memorial Stadium was easily 75% Ohio State and all the people I chatted with happened to live on the West Coast.
The Big 10 is a special animal. It is the only conference with a truly national alumni base with almost 6 million living alumni spread out over the entire USA. This is why it can command more money from the media than the SEC whose alumni are concentrated in the South East. Four metropolitan areas attract at least 1% (and usually more) of the Big 10 graduates from all 14 universities. They are NYC, DC, LA and, guess what, the Bay area. There are over 100,000 Big 10 alumni living in the Bay Area and most, if not all the schools have active alumni chapters. The heavy presence of alumni in these metro areas is why the Big 10 added Rutgers and Maryland and now USC and UCLA. There is only more metro area left to add and I am sure Stanford and Cal are included in the mid-term plans of the Big 10. The Big 10 Academic Alliance (separate from, but tied to admission to the BIG 10 conference) intends to build the largest consortium of research universities in the world and Stanford and Cal are wanted by the faculties of the Big Ten schools. The problem is timing.
Not likely,. The B12 gotta sweetheart TV agreement that says any Power 5 school that joins will get the same $ share. So, if Cal wanted to join the B12, we'd get 31.7 too. No more.
I watched the Kliavkoff speech with great interest. He basically spent most of it covering his you know what. He remarked that he loves Las Vegas and is from Las Vegas. That's why we are stuck with all events there rather than the largest media hub in the country outside of NYC. Meanwhile the deal remains elusive. He lacks charisma and apparently negotiating chops. As time goes on the asset he is representing keeps losing value. He should go back to his casino background.
Holding the events in the Bay Area would be a waste of conference money.
I mean LA where media day has been
Similarly expensive. My company is throwing a convention in LA and the union requirements and general cost of business/regulations is staggering in comparison to other states.
Just add SDSU and there are 10 schools. Wait that ship has sailed.
I thought the commissioner said there's nothing to worry about
Our Lehman moment
I imagine the actual numbers were released and confirmed what everyone except Wilner and Canzano expected: $15-$20 million payout with 80% streaming only. It goes to show just how much value the Los Angeles schools brought to the PAC-12 and why the Big Ten wanted them. I expect the Big Ten will soon expand to Cal and Stanford. They might not get anything close to full revenue share (maybe ever) but it will be far more than what any other conference can provide.