Stanford’s Athletics budget is around $134 million annually you could probably tack on another $10 million a year moving to the ACC when factoring in travel.
I just don’t see how either Stanford or Cal can be competitive with the travel they’d have undergo. The basketball teams would have to go out on two 14 day east coast trip to mitigate the costs, kinda like Hawaii does. Then you’re operating in a completely different time zone. Then you’re stuck in that conference until at least 2036. I get it, there’s only bad options but there’s had to be a better bad option than that.
Dropped the daughter off Saturday for her sophomore year, going to take an A’s game in today. Figure not paying attention will result in something positive happening, and making an effort to keep busy to help from checking media sites every 15 minutes. (and hoping some rando sees the Cal shirt I’m wearing, and tells me “Did you hear the news?”) Go Bears, dammit!
It's hard to believe that this entire mess could get much worse when, all of a sudden, it does. So the only way to partially save Cal Athletics is to join a Power Five League, play for nothing, and hope that we can be made whole when the next media contract comes up for negotiation in 7-10 years? Christ and Knowlton are going to go down in history as two of the WORST college administrators to ever set foot on a campus. I hope that the trustees and the Board of Regents hire their replacements from someplace like Michigan, Notre Dame or even FUCLA. Those places have administrators who understand the role and importance of athletics and know how to build winning programs WITH academic excellence. Those are not mutually exclusive issues, as our rivals across the bay have proven time and time again. Hell, they managed to win two Rose Bowls AND have three Heisman Trophy finalists in this century! Someday we will know why Christ and Knowlton were so clueless and absolutely incapable of guiding Cal to a better future. It is going to cost Cal MILLIONS of dollars and perhaps YEARS to dig out of this mess. During this time, donations will drop along with the level of recruits we are able to get. Parents and their kids aren't stupid. Who wants to represent a university athletic department that seems to be constantly in disarray and that probably vetoed (along with others) and ESPN lifeline TWICE! I agree with Wilcox when he said that this whole mess was so unnecessary and could have been avoided.
It is surprising to me that the B1G seems unwilling to meet whatever the ACC can pay. But I guess these are different media contracts and companies we're dealing with here.
Thought about it all day. All the gloom and doom. And I've decided to come to this decision:
This is the best thing that could have happened to CAL and STANFORD.
Hear me (and my sunshine) out.
PAC12 Football was dying. It's been 20 years since USC won a BCS tittle. Only Oregon and Washington have made the playoff, and neither won a title. All the best west coast recruits (especially QBs) are heading to the SEC, ACC, and B1G. The SouthEast is the epicenter of college football and it's not even close.
The West Coast needed a reboot.
There have been a million words written about all the failures of PAC12 leadership... Larry Scott, GK, The AD's, The Presidents... and this incompetence has adversely affected Cal and Stanford the most.
Apathy in the fan bases, lack of revenue, lose of the national spotlight, programs struggling to find their footing.
We needed a reboot most of all.
Cal and Stanford to the ACC isn't just the best case scenario... it might be the rebirth both programs needed.
With Cal and Furd (and possible SMU) in the ACC, it instantly becomes the premier Academic Conference in the nation.
No one come close.
It's the best cultural fit.
We'd be proud to hang with Duke, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Georgia Tech... and they will be proud to call us their peers.
The ACC is at least tied for 2nd best pedigree in College Football.
Clemson won 2 titles in the playoff era.
Ohio St's one title came right after Florida St won it.
The Noles and The U are legendary programs in the epicenter of College Football.
And this doesn't even take into account the looming presence of Notre Dame.
We could learn a thing or two from these programs. We'd be proud to call them peers.
And when it comes to basketball, the Big12 is now the best conference, but Duke and North Carolina are still the most storied programs.
We'd be in good company.
Of course there will be a lot of work to take the travel burden off the non-revenue sports... but at least they'll exist! We'll sort it out.
Now... let's accept the DOOM SCENARIO that we get ZERO dollars in the media deal. Nothing.
Good.
Stanford has the biggest endowment in the nation and CAL has the biggest and richest alumni base in the nation.
Time to bring those alumni into the fold.
The NIL era has been eye opening. CAL ALUMNI have stepped up and we have a solid NIL program. Stanford too.
So.... let's get them to finance the entire athletic department too.
No big cheesy donors needed (cough... Phil Knight.. cough)... crowd funded like nothing we've ever seen before.
We've been embarrassed and abandoned in realignment. We're on the verge of losing MOST of our intercollegiate sports programs.
Its stings.
So let's rise from the ashes without the burden of the Pac12 and all its failures and back stabbing insecure members.
Let's be free to become the paradigms of West Coast Athletics.
This could be the moment when The University of California Alumni galvanizes and comes together and takes our national sports profile back to the 1950's when it matched our academics.
In the ACC, we'd be free of the U$C's and Oregons. Free of the baggage of the Pac12.
Who cares if we never play Washington and UC Los Angeles again. We're better than them.
We could reboot and rebrand on the national stage with schools we actually respect and align with and 10 years from we could/should be unrecognizable.
Rebrand. Reboot. Rebirth.
Go Bears.
P.S. Please excuse any typos. Bling Pig is a delicious IPA
SuperEQ: You make some interesting points and I've certainly had the same thought about both schools joining the ACC for a fresh start. Cal has managed to beat U$C exactly FOUR times in TWENTY-TWO years!!!! It took us a good twenty plus years to break the losing streak in basketball to FUCLA! I think that we have won ONE football game at Autzen and TWO at the Rose Bowl in this century! Also, let's not forget about our nine game losing streak to the 'Furd that didn't end until 2019. Let's be honest. Even if Cal is able to find the money to keep most of its athletics afloat, we have pretty much been a punching bag in football and basketball for these schools for most of this century (and much of the last one). While having a Big-10 west coast "pod" would make sense from a geographic standpoint, are we doing ourselves any favors by becoming a west coast version of Rutgers, aka, "Big-10 doormat"? I know that the Big-10 makes the most sense for many reasons, but I think that we are guaranteed at least 6-7 losses per year (maybe more) in football should we eventually be asked to join. If that happens, then no more half-measures. Cal will have to go all-in with athletics, which, by the way, doesn't mean that we have to lower academic standards. It's been said many times before but it is nevertheless true: If Michigan, Notre Dame, FUCLA, the 'Furd, etc., can win with high academic standards, then so can we.
Your projected losses are only if Cal remains status quo of our cultural attitude towards football.
At present, I am quite sure most Cal Admins would not even know how to imagine, let alone realize, Cal making a bid for playoffs, much less a national championship. The thing is, a national championship takes a concerted, sustained effort by the whole campus and alumni network. It never just happens by coincidence and never with a support network that is satisfied with middling. If we are not trying to be national champions, what is the point in even trying?
2. Everything on an ESPN network, so far better exposure than P12 Network.
The NIL collective has been making great progress and through it’s not the ideal (keeping the old Pac or playing in the B1G would be better), the ACC should provide a good showcase if we can improve the revenue sports. History has shown that Cal fans will show up if they expect a good team.
Bravo. Well said, even though I feel B!G is a better eventuality, apart from your phoenix bird rebirth scenario, with which I wholeheartedly agree, there are two things that I would like to affirm or add:
1. B!G west coast pod would be PAC 2.0 with the likelihood that nothing culturally would change for us.
2. Playing east coast schools would provide some relief from PAC-12 After Dark darkness, where we are unknown to large segments of folks in Eastern and Central times.
We need to do more than compete, we need to win or die tryin.’
Really interesting update! Hope his optimism is justified. It is possible that the "no media dollar" thing refers to some particular subset of cash (ACC made some changes in distribution recently). Or maybe it was just pure BS.
If there's a vote, it would almost certainly be "yes" because a "no" would take the form of not voting. If it is yes, then I wonder if the B1G will come sniffing. He says B1G isn't involved but that could always change when someone slaps on a price tag.
If anyone has trouble with the above link, try this one. Doesn't seem paywalled.
A little bit off topic but was thinking today about what makes alumni write checks to their alma maters? I think most would agree it’s due to their affinity for the school and, after graduating 10,20,30+ years ago, what causes that affinity to continue? I would say continued engagement with the school and the #1 way to stay engaged is (by far ) through athletics. If you watched the Johnny Manziel documentary on Netflix you would know that his freshman year when he came out of nowhere to win the Heisman, Texas A&M received $300 million more in donations that year than their next highest year ever (and that was to the university not the athletic department). If athletics prospers, alumni are engaged and happy and willing to write checks. There are many other valid reasons to write that check (Nobel prizes, Olympian athletes, being recognized as global leader in so many areas) but I doubt any of those come close to success in football and basketball. I’m only posting this diatribe to say the our administration has historically always looked down on athletics as not being worthy of their support (maybe you could argue until just recently) and that’s a shame as we’ve likely discovered this too late.
The football culture in Texas is much different than in the Bay Area and especially among Cal alums. I don't feel aTm and Cal are comparable on multiple levels.
Of course the cultures are very different. But are you saying that the Bears being PAC champions in football (and basketball) would not have helped with raising money? Of course it would have as well as with recruiting which is where it all starts.
Absolutely it would help but not to the magnitude of historical proportions as experienced by aTm. But sure a championship would surely help (not holding my breath on said championship, however).
Hard to believe the Big Ten wouldn't take that deal. Cal and Stanford are a better fit there and the creation of the new six-pac within the Big ten makes too much sense
It’s possible, but highly unlikely in this environment IMO. Conferences aren’t going to want to add just ONE more west coast team, unless the other one is Notre Dame, and ND isn’t going anywhere. Only Cal makes sense as a traveling partner.
Question: does no media payout mean football doesn’t produce a net profit? In other words, what is the net coming from stadium revenue, sponsorships and so on?
IMHO- our priority should be a P5 conference, but fuck “several years” of no payout.
Several issues that have lead us to this point where we’re giving away the store, remain unresolved, so what will change? And just imagine the media executives glee after getting the Bay Area for free or ten cents on the Dollar.
We can’t just have a team and pretend that’s enough. We either are committed to being national contenders or don’t bother.
Right, now. As much as Christ gets it, I think she will sit back on her “wrap around porch”, pat herself on the back, and convince herself that just having a team is “just enough” bread and circuses, should we beg our way into a P5 conference. Getting back to status quo is not enough. This AD circus has plenty of clowns already.
OK Avinash, or others, what is the advantage for Cal going to the ACC with no media rights versus going independent until say the B!G media rights negotiations are renewed? Then perhaps on that renewal Cal gets accepted into the B!G.
ACC deal would have guaranteed media money eventually (probably just as ACC implodes and next media deal is 50% lower). Independent would have no guarantee of anything.
And the independent route would be very difficult in scheduling, as next years schedules are mostly or entirely locked. And other non-conference games are booked often years in advance. Plus the P4 schools are all looking to schedule more conference games, which means less non-conference matchups.
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. Unless we join a conference, we are pretty much locked out of a conference season schedule. We'd have to play Stanford like 6 times. Very few, if any, schools will entertain a non-conference game during the conference season on one of the one or two weeks they won't have a conference game scheduled. And most, if not all, of the non-conference match-ups that make up the first month of the season have already been scheduled. For instance, we've had this Auburn game on the books for close to a decade. North Texas was scheduled during Mike Williams tenure. Not sure about Idaho. And no quality programs are gonna want to travel to Berkeley or Palo Alto in the middle of the conference season.
I think the issue is that if we don’t stay in the Power 4, our athletic Dept will be permanently degraded in quality and we will never be able to claw back into the P4. It’s a keeping the boat afloat situation
Get into the Big 10, get some plus .500 seasons and fan interest up (esp TV eyes), keep our current recruits and attract future ones by being in a P4 conference, try to scrap the money together to stay afloat for a few years and then make a case for a cut of the Big Ten pie.
By then, we can hopefully say, “Why do Rutgers / Maryland / Northwestern get a full share and we get nothing?”.
Cal’s strong NIL push this past year shows they already have.
It’s not enough to just remain in the P4…they have to start winning some games, too. This is all an exercise in futility if say they get an ACC invite and continue to put 4-8 teams out there in an empty CMS…
If it happens, the burden would likely fall on donors, UCLA handout, and hopefully some money from ESPN, who wants us there (but is also broke, so doubdtful). Relegation would just add to the debt and the regents would still pull from UCLA’s pockets to pay down the debt even if we stopped playing entirely. It sounds strange, but Cal Athletics is too big to fail. And the albatross that is the Memorial retrofit is strangely why we can’t ever close the lid on football.
And all the faculty and alumni that don't want/care about sports are going to say, see why should campus money go to athletics when it can be donor supported.
Stanford’s Athletics budget is around $134 million annually you could probably tack on another $10 million a year moving to the ACC when factoring in travel.
I just don’t see how either Stanford or Cal can be competitive with the travel they’d have undergo. The basketball teams would have to go out on two 14 day east coast trip to mitigate the costs, kinda like Hawaii does. Then you’re operating in a completely different time zone. Then you’re stuck in that conference until at least 2036. I get it, there’s only bad options but there’s had to be a better bad option than that.
Dropped the daughter off Saturday for her sophomore year, going to take an A’s game in today. Figure not paying attention will result in something positive happening, and making an effort to keep busy to help from checking media sites every 15 minutes. (and hoping some rando sees the Cal shirt I’m wearing, and tells me “Did you hear the news?”) Go Bears, dammit!
Go rando, bring us some news!
And, yes!
GO BEARS 🐻!!!
It's hard to believe that this entire mess could get much worse when, all of a sudden, it does. So the only way to partially save Cal Athletics is to join a Power Five League, play for nothing, and hope that we can be made whole when the next media contract comes up for negotiation in 7-10 years? Christ and Knowlton are going to go down in history as two of the WORST college administrators to ever set foot on a campus. I hope that the trustees and the Board of Regents hire their replacements from someplace like Michigan, Notre Dame or even FUCLA. Those places have administrators who understand the role and importance of athletics and know how to build winning programs WITH academic excellence. Those are not mutually exclusive issues, as our rivals across the bay have proven time and time again. Hell, they managed to win two Rose Bowls AND have three Heisman Trophy finalists in this century! Someday we will know why Christ and Knowlton were so clueless and absolutely incapable of guiding Cal to a better future. It is going to cost Cal MILLIONS of dollars and perhaps YEARS to dig out of this mess. During this time, donations will drop along with the level of recruits we are able to get. Parents and their kids aren't stupid. Who wants to represent a university athletic department that seems to be constantly in disarray and that probably vetoed (along with others) and ESPN lifeline TWICE! I agree with Wilcox when he said that this whole mess was so unnecessary and could have been avoided.
Amen.
Additional BI input, seems B!G is off of the table. Too great a chasm on the $$$'s.
It is surprising to me that the B1G seems unwilling to meet whatever the ACC can pay. But I guess these are different media contracts and companies we're dealing with here.
Read this article this morning.
Thought about it all day. All the gloom and doom. And I've decided to come to this decision:
This is the best thing that could have happened to CAL and STANFORD.
Hear me (and my sunshine) out.
PAC12 Football was dying. It's been 20 years since USC won a BCS tittle. Only Oregon and Washington have made the playoff, and neither won a title. All the best west coast recruits (especially QBs) are heading to the SEC, ACC, and B1G. The SouthEast is the epicenter of college football and it's not even close.
The West Coast needed a reboot.
There have been a million words written about all the failures of PAC12 leadership... Larry Scott, GK, The AD's, The Presidents... and this incompetence has adversely affected Cal and Stanford the most.
Apathy in the fan bases, lack of revenue, lose of the national spotlight, programs struggling to find their footing.
We needed a reboot most of all.
Cal and Stanford to the ACC isn't just the best case scenario... it might be the rebirth both programs needed.
With Cal and Furd (and possible SMU) in the ACC, it instantly becomes the premier Academic Conference in the nation.
No one come close.
It's the best cultural fit.
We'd be proud to hang with Duke, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Georgia Tech... and they will be proud to call us their peers.
The ACC is at least tied for 2nd best pedigree in College Football.
Clemson won 2 titles in the playoff era.
Ohio St's one title came right after Florida St won it.
The Noles and The U are legendary programs in the epicenter of College Football.
And this doesn't even take into account the looming presence of Notre Dame.
We could learn a thing or two from these programs. We'd be proud to call them peers.
And when it comes to basketball, the Big12 is now the best conference, but Duke and North Carolina are still the most storied programs.
We'd be in good company.
Of course there will be a lot of work to take the travel burden off the non-revenue sports... but at least they'll exist! We'll sort it out.
Now... let's accept the DOOM SCENARIO that we get ZERO dollars in the media deal. Nothing.
Good.
Stanford has the biggest endowment in the nation and CAL has the biggest and richest alumni base in the nation.
Time to bring those alumni into the fold.
The NIL era has been eye opening. CAL ALUMNI have stepped up and we have a solid NIL program. Stanford too.
So.... let's get them to finance the entire athletic department too.
No big cheesy donors needed (cough... Phil Knight.. cough)... crowd funded like nothing we've ever seen before.
We've been embarrassed and abandoned in realignment. We're on the verge of losing MOST of our intercollegiate sports programs.
Its stings.
So let's rise from the ashes without the burden of the Pac12 and all its failures and back stabbing insecure members.
Let's be free to become the paradigms of West Coast Athletics.
This could be the moment when The University of California Alumni galvanizes and comes together and takes our national sports profile back to the 1950's when it matched our academics.
In the ACC, we'd be free of the U$C's and Oregons. Free of the baggage of the Pac12.
Who cares if we never play Washington and UC Los Angeles again. We're better than them.
We could reboot and rebrand on the national stage with schools we actually respect and align with and 10 years from we could/should be unrecognizable.
Rebrand. Reboot. Rebirth.
Go Bears.
P.S. Please excuse any typos. Bling Pig is a delicious IPA
SuperEQ: You make some interesting points and I've certainly had the same thought about both schools joining the ACC for a fresh start. Cal has managed to beat U$C exactly FOUR times in TWENTY-TWO years!!!! It took us a good twenty plus years to break the losing streak in basketball to FUCLA! I think that we have won ONE football game at Autzen and TWO at the Rose Bowl in this century! Also, let's not forget about our nine game losing streak to the 'Furd that didn't end until 2019. Let's be honest. Even if Cal is able to find the money to keep most of its athletics afloat, we have pretty much been a punching bag in football and basketball for these schools for most of this century (and much of the last one). While having a Big-10 west coast "pod" would make sense from a geographic standpoint, are we doing ourselves any favors by becoming a west coast version of Rutgers, aka, "Big-10 doormat"? I know that the Big-10 makes the most sense for many reasons, but I think that we are guaranteed at least 6-7 losses per year (maybe more) in football should we eventually be asked to join. If that happens, then no more half-measures. Cal will have to go all-in with athletics, which, by the way, doesn't mean that we have to lower academic standards. It's been said many times before but it is nevertheless true: If Michigan, Notre Dame, FUCLA, the 'Furd, etc., can win with high academic standards, then so can we.
Awesome points, GoldenBear88.
Your projected losses are only if Cal remains status quo of our cultural attitude towards football.
At present, I am quite sure most Cal Admins would not even know how to imagine, let alone realize, Cal making a bid for playoffs, much less a national championship. The thing is, a national championship takes a concerted, sustained effort by the whole campus and alumni network. It never just happens by coincidence and never with a support network that is satisfied with middling. If we are not trying to be national champions, what is the point in even trying?
So, yes, indeed. we need a reboot.
"This town (university) needs an enema."
- Joker
Agree. 100%. We need a do over.
Let’s leave the Pac12 mediocrity behind and go national into the number one academic conference, and play real football in the southeast
Some more positives to this:
1. Better bowl tie-ins.
2. Everything on an ESPN network, so far better exposure than P12 Network.
The NIL collective has been making great progress and through it’s not the ideal (keeping the old Pac or playing in the B1G would be better), the ACC should provide a good showcase if we can improve the revenue sports. History has shown that Cal fans will show up if they expect a good team.
All true
Bravo. Well said, even though I feel B!G is a better eventuality, apart from your phoenix bird rebirth scenario, with which I wholeheartedly agree, there are two things that I would like to affirm or add:
1. B!G west coast pod would be PAC 2.0 with the likelihood that nothing culturally would change for us.
2. Playing east coast schools would provide some relief from PAC-12 After Dark darkness, where we are unknown to large segments of folks in Eastern and Central times.
We need to do more than compete, we need to win or die tryin.’
Go Bears!
Agree. But let's let all the cowards and disloyal Pac12 members go their separate ways for awhile.
Let's focus on us for 5 years.
And our 7pm kickoffs will be of interest on the east coast and get national coverage.
(Like this years Auburn Game)
BG at BI has posted that Stanford's "no media rights" offer is "patently false". He asserts Tuesday "may" be the vote by the ACC.
https://bearinsider.com/forums/2/topics/116011/next
Really interesting update! Hope his optimism is justified. It is possible that the "no media dollar" thing refers to some particular subset of cash (ACC made some changes in distribution recently). Or maybe it was just pure BS.
If there's a vote, it would almost certainly be "yes" because a "no" would take the form of not voting. If it is yes, then I wonder if the B1G will come sniffing. He says B1G isn't involved but that could always change when someone slaps on a price tag.
If anyone has trouble with the above link, try this one. Doesn't seem paywalled.
https://bearinsider.com/forums/2/topics/116011
A little bit off topic but was thinking today about what makes alumni write checks to their alma maters? I think most would agree it’s due to their affinity for the school and, after graduating 10,20,30+ years ago, what causes that affinity to continue? I would say continued engagement with the school and the #1 way to stay engaged is (by far ) through athletics. If you watched the Johnny Manziel documentary on Netflix you would know that his freshman year when he came out of nowhere to win the Heisman, Texas A&M received $300 million more in donations that year than their next highest year ever (and that was to the university not the athletic department). If athletics prospers, alumni are engaged and happy and willing to write checks. There are many other valid reasons to write that check (Nobel prizes, Olympian athletes, being recognized as global leader in so many areas) but I doubt any of those come close to success in football and basketball. I’m only posting this diatribe to say the our administration has historically always looked down on athletics as not being worthy of their support (maybe you could argue until just recently) and that’s a shame as we’ve likely discovered this too late.
The football culture in Texas is much different than in the Bay Area and especially among Cal alums. I don't feel aTm and Cal are comparable on multiple levels.
Of course the cultures are very different. But are you saying that the Bears being PAC champions in football (and basketball) would not have helped with raising money? Of course it would have as well as with recruiting which is where it all starts.
Absolutely it would help but not to the magnitude of historical proportions as experienced by aTm. But sure a championship would surely help (not holding my breath on said championship, however).
BINGO!
Amen
Lived in both Berkeley and Madison and enjoyed them both, although Madison was more fun on a football Saturday
if we don't have media rights short term, can we strike a side deal with Apple-or-whomever?
I believe so. It would cover our home games.
Hard to believe the Big Ten wouldn't take that deal. Cal and Stanford are a better fit there and the creation of the new six-pac within the Big ten makes too much sense
Logic and pragmatism are not things FOX values it seems.
I'm going to ask the unthinkable question here, because the Pac-x imploding was unthinkable until it did:
Is there a scenario where Cal and Stanford go their separate ways?
Maybe Cal to the Big 12 with San Diego State and Stanford goes to the ACC with Notre Dame.
It’s possible, but highly unlikely in this environment IMO. Conferences aren’t going to want to add just ONE more west coast team, unless the other one is Notre Dame, and ND isn’t going anywhere. Only Cal makes sense as a traveling partner.
I would think so, yes. Cal is an albatross of a football program for any conference.
Question: does no media payout mean football doesn’t produce a net profit? In other words, what is the net coming from stadium revenue, sponsorships and so on?
Very, very unlikely. At this point it’s about mitigating more debt and setting ourselves up to get back to even someday.
IMHO- our priority should be a P5 conference, but fuck “several years” of no payout.
Several issues that have lead us to this point where we’re giving away the store, remain unresolved, so what will change? And just imagine the media executives glee after getting the Bay Area for free or ten cents on the Dollar.
We can’t just have a team and pretend that’s enough. We either are committed to being national contenders or don’t bother.
Right, now. As much as Christ gets it, I think she will sit back on her “wrap around porch”, pat herself on the back, and convince herself that just having a team is “just enough” bread and circuses, should we beg our way into a P5 conference. Getting back to status quo is not enough. This AD circus has plenty of clowns already.
OK Avinash, or others, what is the advantage for Cal going to the ACC with no media rights versus going independent until say the B!G media rights negotiations are renewed? Then perhaps on that renewal Cal gets accepted into the B!G.
ACC deal would have guaranteed media money eventually (probably just as ACC implodes and next media deal is 50% lower). Independent would have no guarantee of anything.
And the independent route would be very difficult in scheduling, as next years schedules are mostly or entirely locked. And other non-conference games are booked often years in advance. Plus the P4 schools are all looking to schedule more conference games, which means less non-conference matchups.
So, if next year's schedule is locked than our schedule is full right? As an independent or member of a conference be it the ACC or other.
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. Unless we join a conference, we are pretty much locked out of a conference season schedule. We'd have to play Stanford like 6 times. Very few, if any, schools will entertain a non-conference game during the conference season on one of the one or two weeks they won't have a conference game scheduled. And most, if not all, of the non-conference match-ups that make up the first month of the season have already been scheduled. For instance, we've had this Auburn game on the books for close to a decade. North Texas was scheduled during Mike Williams tenure. Not sure about Idaho. And no quality programs are gonna want to travel to Berkeley or Palo Alto in the middle of the conference season.
I think the issue is that if we don’t stay in the Power 4, our athletic Dept will be permanently degraded in quality and we will never be able to claw back into the P4. It’s a keeping the boat afloat situation
Get into the Big 10, get some plus .500 seasons and fan interest up (esp TV eyes), keep our current recruits and attract future ones by being in a P4 conference, try to scrap the money together to stay afloat for a few years and then make a case for a cut of the Big Ten pie.
By then, we can hopefully say, “Why do Rutgers / Maryland / Northwestern get a full share and we get nothing?”.
Stanford has much deeper pockets than Cal. I don't see the alumni stepping up like that
Cal’s strong NIL push this past year shows they already have.
It’s not enough to just remain in the P4…they have to start winning some games, too. This is all an exercise in futility if say they get an ACC invite and continue to put 4-8 teams out there in an empty CMS…
Call cannot afford to do this. We’re already a welfare school saddled with debt while relying on kickbacks from UCLA’s departure.
If it happens, the burden would likely fall on donors, UCLA handout, and hopefully some money from ESPN, who wants us there (but is also broke, so doubdtful). Relegation would just add to the debt and the regents would still pull from UCLA’s pockets to pay down the debt even if we stopped playing entirely. It sounds strange, but Cal Athletics is too big to fail. And the albatross that is the Memorial retrofit is strangely why we can’t ever close the lid on football.
And all the faculty and alumni that don't want/care about sports are going to say, see why should campus money go to athletics when it can be donor supported.