Death of the PAC12 thread — and what happens to Utah

I don’t know what good it would do at this point to know the identities of these people. I hope it wasn’t Utah. Regardless of who through out the $50 million figure, apparently nobody stood up and said you are nuts.

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Not much new here. From Axios:

# College football rivalries are the biggest loser in realignment race

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Apparently, it was ASU.

Edit: that was in the original Trojanswire article, but has now been removed. Interesting.

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You’ll have to forgive them, they hadn’t recovered from the late night frat party

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I don’t know about this. Our biggest rivalry will still be going strong…

With Colorado.

(shame on you if you thought I was referring to someone else!)

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Just a small point, but California had skiing open at Mammoth (where I live) through August 6, so there’s more than just surfing. Of course, the Venn diagram of skiers and college football fans probably includes about 6 people in Southern California. :smiley:

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I live in the Eastern Sierras, though this winter was borderline Arctic. Over 20 m of snow which hasn’t all melted.

No one cares about college football here except for the occasional USC fan with his snowboard.

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Has anyone else noticed the irony inTrojan Wire publishing an article blaming someone (other than USC or UCLA) for the PAC-12’s demise?

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Many OOC rivalries like UGAvGT, UKvLouisville, ClemsonvUSC all still exist. The OUvOSU could remain. State legislatures may get involved.

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I would be glad if this didn’t happen for a while.

Snip from The Athletic:

But let’s say some day in the future, a group of presidents are sitting around a table, grousing over the fact their rival league is making $12 million-$15 million more a year than their schools.

They look around the table, when some brave voice notes a reality.

“If we kick out a less valuable member and redistribute their money to the rest of us, that gap will shrink to half or less than half of what it was overnight.”

We’re supposed to believe, if it comes to that, the knives wouldn’t come out?

Oregon and Oregon Statehave shared a conference since 1915. Washington and Washington State have been tied together since 1917. USC and UCLA have been alongside their Golden State brethren since 1928.

But when cash came into consideration, none of that mattered anymore.

So if Vanderbilt, a founding member of the SEC in 1932, or Rutgers, a newcomer to the Big Ten in 2014, or Northwestern, a founding member of the Big Ten in 1896, eventually become an obstacle between the rest of a conference and adding a few more million dollars to their annual paycheck, are we to believe that tradition, collegiality and chivalry are going to snap their losing streak against the undefeated dollar?

There is some value in having members of a super conference that are more accustomed to and accepting of modest results than others, but that value has a limit. And as the money grows, either conference might find that limit.

College football embracing a bicoastal Big Ten and, in the process, breaking up a century-old conference — albeit a flawed conference — like the Pac-12 was an ugly moment for everyone involved. It was the biggest step toward college football shrugging off the regionality and tradition that made it something that millions of Americans loved and helped it grow into what it has become today.

But it can get uglier. And that ruthless next step is contraction.

It doesn’t take a look too deep into the crystal ball to see that it’s only a question of when college football takes that next step, not if it chooses to take it.

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Chip Kelly and Chris Hill make some valid observations. I think removing football from the rest of college athletics makes a lot of sense.

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Related to the LA Times article and another clip from the posting by LAUte… Richard Deitsch, the media writer for The Athletic and former media writer for SI (when SI was the real SI) published an interview with Burke Magnus, head of programming at ESPN. Here is the relevant question and answer.

I know you’ve seen it reported that ESPN offered the Pac-12 $30 million a year ago and the Pac-12 came back with a much higher counteroffer. ESPN decided not to go with that higher number. Is that reporting accurate?

Directionally, yeah, that’s fair to say. I think the order was reversed. Our final offer, which was rejected, was never really countered back. We went in another direction, as has been documented. Regardless, we thought we made a fair, disciplined and marketplace-informed offer, and we couldn’t get there with them at that time.

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Bank of America Small World, Goodyear People Mover, Kodak Photo Spot, Atlantic Richfield Autopia, GE Carousel of Progress. Which have I missed?

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Autopia is gone? Say it isn’t so!

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The Exxon Valdez Pirates of the Caribbean

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https://www.axios.com/2023/08/16/broadcast-cable-less-than-50-percent-tv-usage-july

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Bucking the trend, Cazano’s article seems like a remarkably accurate depiction of the events. It’s interesting to note that in Oregon’s first year in the B10 they’ll receive about $31 million and goes up about a million each year. Oregon’s additional travel costs amount to about $8 million, so that’s a net at about the Apple deal without the kickers, which Oregon would’ve done well with. But Oregon is Oregon and PK will fill any shortfall. PK rules Eugene. Everyone who is familiar with Eugene knows every shop in town has a pic of Phil Knight and a pic of Steve Prefontaine. But my question is who fills the Washington shortfall or perhaps they just don’t care. I think the other interesting thing is that Cal and Stanford was working this thing with lame duck presidents who seemed aloof about the whole thing. What might have happened had they been as engaged and pressing as the OSU, WSU, Utah and ASU presidents? Who knows I guess.

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This certainly seems like the future doesn’t it? The Apple fallback wasn’t a horrible idea, but about five years before its time I guess.

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Year 2023 and still waiting for the a la carte TV model.

I assume the Apple proposal required a buyer to pay for the Apple TV package, which would include a plethora of content that many people have no interest in watching. That’s what sucked about the Pac-12 network, you had to likewise subscribe to Xfinity, or Cox, or whatever. I don’t buy cable or streaming TV and in Northern Santa Barbara County am able to get abc, NBC, CBS, KCET (pbs), and half a dozen other channels for free via the antenna in my attic. When staying in a hotel and scrolling through the TV channels, it’s surprising the amount of people willing to pay for such a video waste land. I refuse to have to pay for 7 cotton candies, 13 snow cones, and 9 Mexican churros when ordering steak and baked potato in the hotel restaurant.

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Yes for Apple TV+, but it came out it the payout was tied to those subscriptions and not to an Apple TV PAC12 package (like they’re doing with MLS/Messi). I enjoy several shows/movies on Apple TV+ and it’s the cheapest platform we pay for ($7-8/mo compared to Hulu/Disney+/ESPN+, Netflix, etc.). But it is getting annoying paying for several platforms rather than a la carte channels like ESPN and such.

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