“I stayed in the jeep while Jim wrestled the boa constrictor”
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“I’ll stay in the helicopter while Jim goes down to check on whether the tranquilizer worked on the lion”
Even as a 9 year old, I thought “wow, this is nuts! What a colossal a-hole”
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At the risk of being a spammer, I’m reposting Uteopia’s link to the NIL event this Saturday:
” / TwitterWe have a lot of really good people on this board, including Bama & OCGreg.
One of our players who will benefit from this NIL event is RB Micah Bernard, who really took one for the team in Pasadena, attempting to play CB in a really bad injury depletion situation. Bernard also scored a TD - Utah RB Micah Bernard INCREDIBLE 12 Yard TD Catch vs Ohio State | 2021 College Football - YouTube
If you love CFB, hard to come up with somebody who better embodies the best things about the game than Micah Bernard… and his teammates.
I’m not going to this golf event, but had to pitch in. For everyone, even out of towners, anything you can kick down is going to a very worthy cause, and you get some kind of poster.
(I look forward to the event Rocker & others are working on, too. Hell, maybe I’ll even match somebody on the money… need to think it through, but the offer is out there.)
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Stumbled across this article via r/cfb subreddit. It’s an interesting read. I’m unsure what to make of it, other than what we’ve been upset over on this board has been around quite some time.
So, without further ado:
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Sports Illustrated’s Power 5 Desirability Ratings
Utah at #35 out of 69
I don’t disagree with the rankings but the attendance part is weird. They are going by the size of the stadium. Personally, I don’t think # matters as much as the environment. Alabama does well with stadium size as does Michigan but those stadiums are not as loud and intimidating as say LSU or others.
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A smaller packed Utah (or Oregon for example) stadium has better atmosphere than a larger stadium with huge sections of unsold seats.
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Michigan and Alabama don’t go unsold but recent years the home games with games people get hyped for has been a min. Alabama played the big P5 game at a neutral site. FINALLY, this season they go to Austin and Texas returns next year and then they go on a decade and a half of home and homes with multiple P5 games.
It’s hard to get hyped for these bad non-conf games.
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More good insight from Canzano: Canzano: Pac-12 in a dance with ESPN and knows who else might bid (johncanzano.com)
- Nothing new to report on the media numbers, we may (or may not) know more tomorrow, which is a massive day for the league & especially Kliavkoff.
- But the media landscape is more detailed in this post - what other players may be out there, etc.
- IF the PAC tries to expand, SDSU is the no-brainer. Fresno, UNLV, Boise… he goes back & forth. SMU and/or getting Houston to flip - maybe… again if they decided to expand.
- Very interesting that the B1G was so focused on where alumni settle, with LA, SFO, New York and DC all having substantial numbers of B1G alumni, bigger than anywhere in the Midwest.
Even though no breaking news or scoop insights, another quality Canzano blog post.
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The more I read, the more I am becoming convinced that Utah actually might be going to the Big Ten, not the Big 12 or the Pac-12 staying together. I don’t think the Big Ten is done expanding. As evidenced by their commissioner’s comments. I think the Big Ten is going to expand again w/western teams so USC and UCLA are not on an island. I think they add Washington, Oregon, Stanford OR Cal, and UTAH. Utah is the Pac-12’s best program right now with a rabid fan base and an expanded stadium. Utah just won the Pac-12 Championship and they’re the overwhelming pick to win the league this year (in the Pac-12 Media Poll). They NEED a “bridge” program to the West Coast schools they wanna add, so, why not add Utah, who currently is the best football program in the Pac-12 sans Oregon? They won’t add BOTH Cal and Stanford because that would be redundant, even in the big Bay Area media market. They added USC and UCLA because Los Angeles is the #2 media market in the entire country and they wanted complete control over it.
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Love the idea of us in the Big 10 but I give it a .001% given what they are looking for. They want top 20 markets and we just aren’t that. Sad but I believe true. I don’t like the loss of academic focus of the B12 so I’m hoping for a sustained P12. But we will see. This is so not about football anymore.
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Right. It’s about the student-athletes. Right? It is, isn’t it? All about them.
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I’d give it maybe 20% chance in the next few years, if I squint hard enough. (But who thought we’d hit the jackpot in the spring of 2010?)
In one scenario, the move is on to super-conferences, and the no-brainer - but incremental - additions for the B1G was the LA market. But it leaves those schools on an island. It’s closer from San Francisco to the Big Island than from LA to Rutgers, literally.
The B1G is consensus driven, they’ve been academically focused, and so far they’ve been about sharing. (Some of the schools even have undergraduate classes that count at member institutions. That’s an impressive level of cohesion that explains very cautious moves.)
And now they have an obvious problem for their new schools - this self-defeating travel issue.
If they add the NW schools and the NorCal schools, that puts them at 20, but it still leaves 2 holes: Six teams on the left coast, and no teams in the MTZ.
The money issue remains. TV markets, and whether these schools get a full share. And nothing happens until the Notre Dame issue is resolved.
UW and UO are the next “no-brainer” additions to address the glaring “island” problem the LA schools have, but the money issue is not resolved with them, either, and the travel issue is still unequal… in a conference that is all about equality.
I see two major scenarios:
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If the playoffs expand, there is less pressure on the outside for schools to move to super-conferences. In this scenario it becomes possible the LA schools get fed up with the travel and perhaps even come back to a western league. (Odds - less than 5%)
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If super-conferences are truly a go, the money issues need resolution, a chess match with the SEC speeds things up - tiered money throughout the league, or adding some western schools at less than full parity, etc.
[Ripples off Scenario 2 below, for those who really want to read:]
2A. If Notre Dame is in, Stanford is a natural pairing, but the TV money in that situation is widely unequal.
2B. Then UW & UO are added, and maybe both NorCal schools (to resolve bond litigation with Cal)
2C If it becomes Notre Dame + Stanford, then UW and UO, Utah could be dangling, would probably go B12 along with others. If it’s Notre Dame + Stanford AND Cal + UW and UO, then Utah could make it in as a MTZ “bridge” school. (Odds - maybe 10%, impossible to know right now.)
2D - It could easily include adding schools back east.
I think there’s a scenario where our best chance would be if they go to 28 or 32 teams and get the money issues resolved. We check all the boxes the B1G finds important except the massive TV market.
But if the playoffs go to 12 or 16 teams, the PAC could stay intact and the LA schools jumped for the money, only to be left on an island. If the goal is to get into the CFP, this is the best scenario, and the PAC can focus on getting their FB product improved.
(It’s fun to think about how Utah might find its way into the B1G, but I kind of think the Chris Hill axiom may apply here - things inside the B1G and SEC are not as sophisticated as everyone imagines, and neither league wants to be the reason most of CFB atrophies.)
Right now I’m a fan of expanding the playoffs and preserving CFB.
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UCLA should be out of debt now. “UCLA agrees to settlement of more than $67 million in dispute with Under Armour”
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It’s about the student athletes’ frequent-flyer miles.
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Sounds like no ESPN or Fox deal. Maybe Apple, Google or Amazon?
I happened to be listening to ESPN 700 in my car this morning while Kliavkoff spoke at PAC-12 Media Day. He spent a few minutes on NIL and money’s influence in college sports–in the context of conference realignment. I’m sure his remarks will soon be available by podcast. I have to say, everything he said was spot-on, and based on sound principles. I think everyone here would agree. In fact, everyone who’s not a Big 10 or SEC fan would agree. There is no principled basis for disagreement with Kliavkoff on those subjects–just as there’s no principled basis for supporting what the Big 10 and SEC are doing with expansion, or what USC and UCLA are doing. (Unless they want to consider maximizing income a principle. That might be a defensible principle for a publicly-traded company that owes a duty to shareholders, but not for college sports.)
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I think it means both. The current model is network heavy, but the future is streaming, ala carte.
The PAC absolutely needs to lead on the 2nd, otherwise the TV numbers alone put us at a disadvantage.
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Where was the outrage when Utah was added to PAC 10? It’s a bit hypocritical. This all started way back when Georgia Tech left the SEC for the ACC. Expansion is natural. It’s much like pro leagues adding markets. Each conference is like their own league. In terms of NIL I would be interested in how many are interested in ending players having autonomy and able to make money and who are just advocating rules to this.
I don’t think the two situations are comparable at all. You obviously disagree.
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