BU, you need to understand the context of Utah and BYU to understand our ambivalence to the B12 idea.
For decades Utah was the little brother and got handled by BYU with a ton of religious overtones involved. It wasn’t just BYU fans looking down on non-Mormons as heathen scum, but also looking down on non-BYU Mormons at Utah as being inferior. Utah fans are a mixture of Mormon and non-Mormon, but we’re united in our collective disdain for BYU.
I don’t know if there’s a more dysfunctional rivalry in the country, based on the cultural and religious overtones. I’m sure the BYU side has their own stories about being offended.
Eleven years ago we hit the jackpot and have enjoyed being separated from BYU nation. This may be the primary tacit reason we’re cool on the idea of getting connected with them again.
All I really want to add to that is the problem is primarily the self-righteous BYU fans. Normally the sporting side of things, with a few exceptions, has been good between the schools.
BBBBAAAHHH, just have the PAC 12 change the name to the PAC. Then it doesn’t matter how many schools we have.
There are too many things that add to the value of a PAC school that transcend athletics. The only identity the BIG 12 has is athletics. The research and enterprise deals we were making in the luxury boxes during games with our counterparts were worth more than the sporting event that brought the parties together. You won’t have that with the BIG 12. Had that mattered to them, BYU wouldn’t have even got a sniff.
We will figure out a path forward. Maybe it ends up in the BIG 12, but a PAC with 10 teams would work, too.
Let’s see what happens when the B1G is dealing with sending non revenue teams to the equivalent of Hawaii. Better yet, how their fans deal with a 10:30PM kickoff or 11:30PM tipoff. Without a mechanism to create some amount of compactness and economies of scale, doubling your revenues and your costs is a zero sum game.
I suspect Utah and the Arizona schools will apply for Big 12 membership. Since USC and UCLA have slipped athletically, the cachet/street cred of the PAC is down. Most of my fellow Utah fans won’t admit that, though. Utah will do just fine culturally in playing Baylor, Tech, TCU, Cincy, Houston, etc. it’s about time we weaned ourselves away from ephemeral California-driven sports conferences.
One thought I have is a huge liability we’ve had in the PAC-NN is games that start late and commonly end around 2AM in the Eastern time zone. (Of course the reverse situation is that when games start at Noon in the East, people out on the west coast are generally up by 9AM ) Greatly hurts TV ratings when games take place with many potential viewers asleep.
If we’re in an expanded/merged league that includes UCF, Cincinnati, and West Virginia, etc., those schools/fans won’t appreciate watching their teams at such later hours and the league could perhaps push the TV networks to have more reasonable start times. (I know I never liked it when we played WAC late games at Hawaii) Would be nice if none of our home football games started after perhaps 7PM instead of all these 8:25PM starts that are common.
The BIG12 is going to come calling if they haven’t already, and if I was your AD I’d pick up the phone. Don’t wait on UW and the Ducks as they have to wait to see what ND is going to do. You don’t want to wait until it’s a fire sale and you HAVE to move.
Stanford and Kal are not going to want to deal with the new landscape of college football. They will be playing at a lower level in less than 10 years. Who cares what Oregon St. and the Cougs do?
I feel like Utah would be fine in the B12. That said, I’m hoping the remaining PAC schools hold the line. The travel nightmare that U$CLA will face in the B1G is going to hurt their programs (maybe not as much as their hiring incompetence/underachieving has, but it’s not a positive).
I’d rather do that than 8:30 PM kick-offs. “Pac 12 After Dark” sucks and up to 3,000 people watch. Thursday night games suck also.
In 2018, Larry Scott had the opportunity to lock us all into a deal with ESPN until 2030. But no, he didn’t want to. Those PAC12 ratings from China hadn’t kicked in yet.