Report: USC and UCLA are planning to leave for the Big Ten as early as 2024

CFB_Rules

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When do we start to see leagues contract underperforming members? I’m sure the Big 10 would love to kick out Rutgers now
 

cgori

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Why? The Big10 just added Rutgers (and Maryland) in 2015.
Because someone in every conference is going to try to maximize the value of each member in the conference (if you assume that there is an upper bound on how many schools can be in a conference). Schools that were never thought to be possible members have become possible - the geographic (and traditional rivalry/membership) concerns are basically gone.
 

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When do we start to see leagues contract underperforming members? I’m sure the Big 10 would love to kick out Rutgers now
Doesn’t this go directly against the theory in this thread that the good teams in these leagues want teams they can beat? The strong teams aren’t looking for parity.
 

Awesome Fossum

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When do we start to see leagues contract underperforming members? I’m sure the Big 10 would love to kick out Rutgers now
Twenty years ago, when the Big East kicked out Temple?

I don't know if we ever get to the point where the Big 10 kicks out Rutgers. What I do think is possible is once the Big 10 and the SEC capture all the other schools they want, attention turns to whether the big time schools in those conferences should leave and form a new national conference. Same thing in the end, but I think it takes the form of Rutgers being left behind rather than kicked out. That's probably 20+ years down the road.

Doesn’t this go directly against the theory in this thread that the good teams in these leagues want teams they can beat? The strong teams aren’t looking for parity.
Everyone is happy beating up on Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt is happy to be beat up on, but the members are looking for revenue. Right now, there are increases to be had with adding schools. But that will soon reach its limit, and the next way to make the slices of pie bigger will be to cut fewer slices.
 

snowmanny

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Vanderbilt sucks at football but their endowment is 10X that of, for example, Clemson. Not a bad school to have in your league.
 

Humphrey

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They love to proudly throw their membership(s) in the American Association of Universities- the only Big 10 school not in that is Nebraska. Of course, one can only guess what that has to do with high level college athletics.
 

snowmanny

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Exactly.

Also I think that it is generally good to have high-reputation and very financially stable partners. Northwestern and Vanderbilt seem like excellent last-place teams.
 

Ale Xander

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Exactly.

Also I think that it is generally good to have high-reputation and very financially stable partners. Northwestern and Vanderbilt seem like excellent last-place teams.
This seems like an argument to boot out Rutgers
 

Joe D Reid

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Back when the news dropped, there were some questions about how all this might affect UC Berkeley and whether that had been taken into account when UCLA bolted. I just recently left UC's system office and had some knowledge, so I made some vague post about how UC's system gives the individual campuses autonomy over athletics matters. But the shitstorm is now public:

https://edsource.org/2022/newsom-says-ucla-owes-explanation-over-its-decision-to-join-big-ten/675746

So, UCLA consulted virtually nobody at the system office and basically none of the non-UCLA-affiliated Regents. The Berkeley alumni community is PISSED. Governor Newsom (who is a UC Regent by virtue of his office) made his first in-person appearance at a Regents meeting in a while just to essentially say "what the fuck?" The Regents have now asked for a review of the impact and will consider whether to claw back authority over future athletics decisions.

I don't think any of this has a chance of unwinding the deal, although I also wouldn't be stunned if UCLA suddenly voluntarily decides to share some of the future B1G TV deal money with Berkeley and maybe also voluntarily commits to playing Berkeley OOC in every sport annually forever until the earthquake comes and claims the state.
 

Captaincoop

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Back when the news dropped, there were some questions about how all this might affect UC Berkeley and whether that had been taken into account when UCLA bolted. I just recently left UC's system office and had some knowledge, so I made some vague post about how UC's system gives the individual campuses autonomy over athletics matters. But the shitstorm is now public:

https://edsource.org/2022/newsom-says-ucla-owes-explanation-over-its-decision-to-join-big-ten/675746

So, UCLA consulted virtually nobody at the system office and basically none of the non-UCLA-affiliated Regents. The Berkeley alumni community is PISSED. Governor Newsom (who is a UC Regent by virtue of his office) made his first in-person appearance at a Regents meeting in a while just to essentially say "what the fuck?" The Regents have now asked for a review of the impact and will consider whether to claw back authority over future athletics decisions.

I don't think any of this has a chance of unwinding the deal, although I also wouldn't be stunned if UCLA suddenly voluntarily decides to share some of the future B1G TV deal money with Berkeley and maybe also voluntarily commits to playing Berkeley OOC in every sport annually forever until the earthquake comes and claims the state.
Once Newsom is done grandstanding and the Regents see what this means financially for UCLA (which has been operating deep in the red forever) and that Berkeley has no path to an invite, everyone will move on and allow this to happen as planned.
 

Humphrey

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Once Newsom is done grandstanding and the Regents see what this means financially for UCLA (which has been operating deep in the red forever) and that Berkeley has no path to an invite, everyone will move on and allow this to happen as planned.
Maybe not....https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-ten-evaluating-cal-oregon-stanford-and-washington-from-pac-12-as-further-expansion-considered/
 

OCST

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It’s beyond ridiculous now.

After UCLA puts 300 people on a red eye to play Rutgers in a parking lot in front of 19000 people in Piscataway, get back to me about how this is all about education snd these athletes are students first.
 

Awesome Fossum

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First, I don't think anyone says that.

Second, wasn't your proposal to fully nationalize? Your post #42 has Oregon/Miami and Washington/UCF sharing conferences.
 

BaseballJones

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There is no conceivable argument that anyone with even a modicum of intelligence would believe that all this is to enhance *education*. It's not even to improve *athletics*. It's all about football in particular, and specifically, football money. That's it.
 

mauf

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It’s beyond ridiculous now.

After UCLA puts 300 people on a red eye to play Rutgers in a parking lot in front of 19000 people in Piscataway, get back to me about how this is all about education snd these athletes are students first.
How do college sports teams travel these days?

I’m sure P5 football teams fly charter. The difference between a 2-hour charter and a 6-hour charter might matter to old farts like us, but it’s not a big deal for college kids.

I have to think that Olympic sports fly commercial though. That’s going to be a lot of long flights for the UCLA and USC teams. Rutgers isn’t even the worst of it — how the fuck do you get to Champaign or State College from LAX?
 

OCST

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How do college sports teams travel these days?

I’m sure P5 football teams fly charter. The difference between a 2-hour charter and a 6-hour charter might matter to old farts like us, but it’s not a big deal for college kids.

I have to think that Olympic sports fly commercial though. That’s going to be a lot of long flights for the UCLA and USC teams. Rutgers isn’t even the worst of it — how the fuck do you get to Champaign or State College from LAX?
Pre-pandemic I ran into the BC softball team sitting in a gate in Raleigh-Durham airport, buying bags of Funyuns and Bugles in Hudson News like everyone else, so yeah.

You’re right re the football charters, but still, flying from CA to Rutgers as a routine conference obligation is nuts.
 

Gdiguy

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How do college sports teams travel these days?

I’m sure P5 football teams fly charter. The difference between a 2-hour charter and a 6-hour charter might matter to old farts like us, but it’s not a big deal for college kids.

I have to think that Olympic sports fly commercial though. That’s going to be a lot of long flights for the UCLA and USC teams. Rutgers isn’t even the worst of it — how the fuck do you get to Champaign or State College from LAX?
Yeah, I think this is the real issue

Even some of the 'closer' ones to cities - I see like 1 non-stop flight a day between LAX and Columbus Ohio, and none between LAX and Lincoln NE, so you're dealing with connections also

And moreover, having one or two really long trips a year isn't really a huge deal - any major team is doing those already between OOC games and distant conference ones (even LA to Washington is a decent trip). But the bigger issue is that there's no short ones anymore - you've replaced the AZ (both AZ and AZ state are ~1:30 direct flights), UT (~2 hr direct), Bay Area (~1:30 direct) in-conference games with minimum 4 or 5 hour travel times, in many cases then requiring making connections or doing significant bus trips after.

While I'm positive Newsom is grandstanding, if one was at all even remotely interested in the 'academic' part of 'student athletes' this idea would be killed immediately.
 

OCST

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Pro leagues with players getting paid millions don’t submit their players to this kind of travel- divisions exist precisely to make as many road-trips as possible, as reasonable as possible
 

Joe D Reid

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I believe that under UC policy in effect at the time, this can't be "killed" by Newsom/the Regents (maybe by UCLA itself, not sure what it signed). But UCLA could be strong-armed into giving up some of the money. And in particular, I wouldn't expect the Regents to sign off on Jarmond's next round of incentive payments.

And yes, the whole thing is pretty dumb if the goal is to maximize student welfare. Unless, I suppose, the B1G really does add another tranche of West Coast teams, in which case they would probably go to three divisions (East/Central/West) for regular season play in most sports. In which case we would sort of be back where we started, except with the schools having super-bundled their media rights.
 

Awesome Fossum

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Pro leagues with players getting paid millions don’t submit their players to this kind of travel- divisions exist precisely to make as many road-trips as possible, as reasonable as possible
It sounds like you're thinking about the NCAA as the league and the conferences as the divisions rather than the conferences as the leagues and the divisions as the divisions. The NCAA is not in a position to organize the schools geographically. This is more analogous to when the Giants and Dodgers moved west.

Interesting to see if this new travel burden hinders UCLA or USC in recruiting. I suspect they'll do just fine in football; I would worry about the other sports if I were a supporter.
 

Gdiguy

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I believe that under UC policy in effect at the time, this can't be "killed" by Newsom/the Regents (maybe by UCLA itself, not sure what it signed). But UCLA could be strong-armed into giving up some of the money. And in particular, I wouldn't expect the Regents to sign off on Jarmond's next round of incentive payments.
I think you're not being creative enough

The UC Regents could absolutely do things that completely screw UCLA over with (and would essentially force the athletic dept to pull out of) this decision (e.g., cracking down on gaming the 'does travel time count as team/practice time' rules ala https://www.2adays.com/blog/flaws-of-the-20-hour-rule/ , or putting UC-specific rules in place about requiring chartered flights for travel above X time).

If the UCLA athletics dept wants to play rule lawyer about 'well technically we can do this unilaterally', I see zero problem with UC's Regents implementing policies to ensure that 'student athletes' maintain proper ability to succeed academically
 

axx

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Other than this really screws over Cal, is there any other reason for them to want to do that?
 

Captaincoop

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I think you're not being creative enough

The UC Regents could absolutely do things that completely screw UCLA over with (and would essentially force the athletic dept to pull out of) this decision (e.g., cracking down on gaming the 'does travel time count as team/practice time' rules ala https://www.2adays.com/blog/flaws-of-the-20-hour-rule/ , or putting UC-specific rules in place about requiring chartered flights for travel above X time).

If the UCLA athletics dept wants to play rule lawyer about 'well technically we can do this unilaterally', I see zero problem with UC's Regents implementing policies to ensure that 'student athletes' maintain proper ability to succeed academically
The Regents could shut down the move without even resorting to games like that. But they are not going to want to actually stop this.
 

deanx0

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Seeing that it's college football 100% driving this bus, wouldn't it make sense to uncouple football from every other sport and go back to more sensible conferences for the rest of the sports to increase the likelihood of geographic rivalries and limit costs for travel for the other sports while creating these megaconferences solely for football?
 

Awesome Fossum

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Seeing that it's college football 100% driving this bus, wouldn't it make sense to uncouple football from every other sport and go back to more sensible conferences for the rest of the sports to increase the likelihood of geographic rivalries and limit costs for travel for the other sports while creating these megaconferences solely for football?
On the one hand, yes, absolutely.

On the other, we have to consider otherwise common sense ideas from the perspective of who is actually in a position to make such a decision. Is it in, say, the Big 10's best interests to effectively dissolve all its sports except football? I think that's less straightforward. If anything, the Big 10 has made a strides to consolidate with the creation of Big 10 hockey and lacrosse within the last decade.
 

Dan Murfman

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Someday sports rights will go down but not anytime soon. The Big 10 is about to sign their tv deals and will be getting over 1 billion a year. Looks like FOX will have a noon game. CBS the 3:30 and NBC a prime time game. And as of now ESPN will be out of the Big 10. Potentially good news for The PAC and Big 12 as ESPN will need some content. I would think despite the money the Big 10 basketball programs won’t be thrilled with no ESPN coverage.

View: https://twitter.com/ourand_sbj/status/1556796713620357120?s=21&t=QDzzYs9edM2luRmH7UWHOg


View: https://twitter.com/nicoleauerbach/status/1556814074046025728?s=21&t=QDzzYs9edM2luRmH7UWHOg
 

loshjott

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Someday sports rights will go down but not anytime soon. The Big 10 is about to sign their tv deals and will be getting over 1 billion a year. Looks like FOX will have a noon game. CBS the 3:30 and NBC a prime time game. And as of now ESPN will be out of the Big 10. Potentially good news for The PAC and Big 12 as ESPN will need some content. I would think despite the money the Big 10 basketball programs won’t be thrilled with no ESPN coverage.
Not to derail the thread, but more prime time NBC games means more start time delays for new SNL episodes, which drives the olds like me crazy. I'm sure Lorne Michaels doesn't like it either, but football rules the TV universe.

Edit: assuming they start at 8pm ET like the Notre Dame games.
 

canderson

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That deal to me makes it seem Big 10 expansion isn't done. I don't see how they cal fill 3 national OTA games a week with that money without a ND or something.
 

Ale Xander

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That deal to me makes it seem Big 10 expansion isn't done. I don't see how they cal fill 3 national OTA games a week with that money without a ND or something.
One mIchigan game
One Ohio state game
One USC or Penn state game
 

Ale Xander

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Preseason. Unless they're killing a precon game.
Out of conference?
Who has rights to the Michigan Texas game?

8/31/24 PSU WV, UCLA Hawaii, USC LSU Minn UNC?
9/7 Iowa Iowa State, Michigan Texas?, Kansas Illinois, NW Duke?
9/14 Ohio state wash, Wisconsin Alabama?, Maryland UVA
9/21 MSU BC, UCLA LSU? Purdue Oregon State
 

Dan Murfman

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And ESPN is out of Big Ten broadcasting.
View: https://twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/status/1557015309692846080?s=20&t=FR-jiBM_LVK-vlhIwAhZ9w


ESPN has pulled out of Big Ten media rights negotiations entirely, ending one of the longest sports media relationships in the business. That move clears the way for CBS and NBC to join Fox Sports as Big Ten broadcasters starting with the 2023-24 school year. A formal announcement could come as early as this week. It could push into next week. As part of the deal terms, CBS is expected to carry a football game in the 3:30pm ET window on Saturdays, and NBC would carry one in primetime. NBC’s Peacock streaming service will carry an undetermined number of games per year exclusively. Peacock also will simulcast the games that air on NBC. ESPN said no to the conference’s final offer of a seven-year deal, sources said. That package was for linear-only games and did not have any direct-to-consumer rights. ESPN execs believed that they would have had to pay upwards of $380M per year to keep the package, which was much higher than they were willing to go.
 

Humphrey

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So ESPN/ABC will end up with the SEC and ACC (which I think it already has)?

Who's got the (lighter) Pac 12 and the Big 12?