Stanford reportedly would forego media rights payouts for ACC invite. Could Cal do the same?

Could donors for the California Golden Bears and Stanford Cardinal swallow a huge financial hit?

Cal and Stanford keep pursuing ACC membership, and with no vote being taken, the option is still on the table.

One of the most interesting rumors circulating around Stanford’s newest bid is that the Cardinal are willing to forego a lot to get into a major conference. More from Ralph Russo of the Associated Press:

Leaders from Stanford, California, Oregon State and Washington State spoke Thursday, and Stanford told its colleagues it had informed the ACC that it would be open to joining the conference at greatly reduced or even no media rights payout for several years, a person familiar with the discussions told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the schools were not making their internal discussions public.

Whether getting Stanford — and Northern California rival Cal — at a cut rate will be enough to convince the necessary 12 of 15 ACC schools to vote to expand remains unknown.

The likely plan would be reduced/no payouts for several years, followed by escalating payouts over time. It’s basically what Washington and Oregon accepted in the Big Ten, except with far harsher terms.

It makes sense that Stanford could find the money to survive. Although most of their $30+ billion endowment goes elsewhere, there are enough donors that can pony up and foot the bill for athletics to keep going forward.

Can Cal do this though?

It’s hard to imagine Stanford and Cal not approaching this in equal partnership, and even harder to imagine Stanford taking a much rawer deal. So if Stanford is making this deal, you have to imagine Cal is coming in at about the same rate. And it seems absurd that Stanford could do this alone. They would definitely want their key rival.

If Cal were to do this, it would require an unprecedented level of support for Cal Athletics from both the university but also the donor class. Cal would be foregoing tens in millions in expected payouts that are needed for a host of items.

But relegation might just be too dire a prospect. Losing potentially millions in donations to not only Cal Athletics but UC Berkeley as well could prove to be very damaging to the world’s number one public university.

---

---

It would be a great accomplishment to make this work from a financial perspective. So again, it’s a matter of cobbling together resources whereever the Bears can find them, at the very last minute. Not ideal, but better than the alternative.

The natural consequence of Cal accepting such an offer is the potential downsizing of their athletic department. Although donations are at an all-time high, with no TV money and heavier travel costs inbound, the only way Cal can support 30 sports is exponentially increasing their athletic endowment. The university has already committed hundreds of millions to alleviating the Memorial Stadium debt so it’s unlikely a ton more assistance will be coming.

It’s hard to imagine Cal donors coming up with the money to pay off football costs, support the growing NIL movement, deal with assisting in paying off , and have enough on hand to support the remaining sports.

But then again, Cal donors came up with the money to save all five sports that were cut in 2011. And eventually the potential loss of donors seemed to terrify Cal enough to never attempt cutting sports again.

Hopefully, the university will be a bit more proactive this time around, and allow all these sports the chance to save themselves by finding ways to be self-sustaining.