Nice reference
1 Like
Iâve seen a couple Rose Bowl predictions for Wisconsin vs Utah. I will be at that game if it happens
5 Likes
Canzano: Pac-12 alliance is a punch back at SEC and ESPN
Aug. 25, 2021
By John Canzano | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Forgive the pundits who woke up drunk and took another sip from the SECâs spiked punch bowl. They missed the point. Also excuse those who still believe ESPN is still first a news agency and not the money-printing event company it has become.
Window dressing⌠the critics called it.
Arm waving⌠they termed it.
ESPNâs primary channels (ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPNU and ESPN news) didnât bother to carry the live news conference that announced a ground-breaking alliance between the Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC on Tuesday. They left it to the Pac-12 Network, the ACC Network and the Big Ten Network. Wrap your head around that. Then sober up and consider that what we saw this week from 41 major universities was a punch back at those who are trying to run away with the keys to major college athletics.
Weâve seen up close and personal how a Power Five conference can quickly become irrelevant. I loved what I saw on Tuesday because it was proof of life from the Pac-12. Conference commissioner George Kliavkoff sat up straight alongside Kevin Warren of the Big Ten and the ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, and they basically talked about the SEC/ESPN without talking about the SEC/ESPN.
Those two entities are married now.
None of us were invited to the wedding. But itâs evident that the SEC and ESPN are in this together over the next decade, for better or â even better. The SEC and ESPN went to great lengths on Tuesday to pretend there was nothing to see here. But down deep, I think the happy couple knows theyâve fostered a troubling divide in college athletics. One the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 apparently donât have to live with.
Iâm good with that. Iâm also good with the fact that nothing was signed on Tuesday. No legal documents. No binding contract between the trio of conferences. The thing doesnât even have a name â although an old friend of mine quickly dubbed it: âThe Rebel Alliance.â
Throuple, anyone?
The Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC say theyâll put their arms around each other and trust each other. Theyâll lean into the alliance, especially when it comes to scheduling non-conference games. I suspect, too, they may have similar outlooks when it comes to the College Football Playoff expansion and important NCAA matters. They insist they wonât vote as a block, but they are definitely an alliance with common interests. A signed contract, as an attorney who works in college athletics pointed out, would invite immediate anti-trust scrutiny.
Lots of apologists out there today claiming the alliance doesnât matter. That thereâs nothing to it. But the three-headed alliance was a clear punch back, folks.
I think it landed, too.
The SEC is running away with college football. ESPN has a glaring conflict of interest in making sure its primary event partner gets showcased year-round. Be sure that the coverage will extend to Heisman hype, playoff run-up propaganda, and lots of shoulder coverage that touts the SECâs brand. Whatâs good for the SEC is now good for ESPN. This alliance doesnât fit that narrative, which is why itâs being brushed away as a non-factor.
Weâre not like Alabama or Auburn, are we?
The Pac-12 isnât Tennessee or LSU, either.
The stadiums in the Pac-12 Conference are mostly smaller, cozy joints. The fans arenât as unhinged. That hurts when it comes to negotiating things like television contracts and buying up tickets for bowl games. But what we saw on Tuesday was three like-minded conferences coming together in an impactful way. This wasnât a ship dropping anchor, struggling for stability. It was more like three deciding to draft through a choppy channel together instead of going it alone.
Wave your hands at it.
Dismiss it.
Call it a brief dalliance or pretend that itâs powerless.
But know youâre wrong when you do. The presidents and chancellors of the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 value academic membership, enjoy high-brow company, and view success on the university platform as more than simply winning national titles in football. Oh, theyâd like one very much, thank you, but itâs not oxygen to them.
Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens said of the Pac-12/BigTen/ACC alliance, âI think it just opens up all kinds of doors⌠when you put all the brain power of those three in the room together.â
I asked Oregon State AD Scott Barnes if this meant Pac-12 teams would get all sorts of new and interesting non-conference match-ups. He said: âNo question about it.â
The alliance was an important strategic move. It lets the SEC and ESPN know theyâre not all that matters in college athletics. It was a bold step in the right direction by three powerful entities that can now collectively out-vote the SEC. Absent on Tuesday was any hint of the NCAA. Itâs lost clout. Make note of that. Itâs a significant detail. But the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 donât want to go out the same way.
7 Likes
Great article, @UtahFanSir. Thank you for posting.
1 Like
Andy now picking Utah to win it all:
2 Likes
Kliavkoff is talking about a balanced, eight game conference schedule. In addition there would be one home and one away game against the two other conferences. With a four game OOC USC, Stanford could keep their ND game and we could keep our Zoo game. We could still honor our SEC and Baylor series as well. This may start sooner than we think.
2 Likes
I think that it will eventually (again, sooner than later) involve the SEC. Control of the CFP, and having it returned to whatever governing body replaces the NCAA, is the ultimate goal. Not allowing ESPN to control the sport and the payouts. That is the end game, or so it would seem
I donât think itâs that simple. Itâs not so much punishing the SEC. Theyâve thrown in with espn, and thatâs the entity that wants to monopolize the sport. If the SEC was able to separate from espn theyâd likely be welcomed with open arms. Thereâs no other reason to freeze them out.
Also, I donât think it was the PAC12 that initiated the talks with Texas and friends ten years ago. As I recall Texas did that to leverage payouts and their network.
1 Like
Well thereâs also the issue of contraction at the top level. Itâs coming. I just hope our team is in that mix. My opinion is that weâll see four divisions of ten teams.
1 Like
There will not be 4 divisions of 10 teams. I would be shocked if the alliance gets past year 4. Putting faith in the Commissioners of the P12 and B1G in recent years has been a bad bet in recent memory. If the Pac 12 doesnât start getting yes in the playoff soon it may just be three conferences talking.
As the article above stated, the Pac 12 doesnât have an unhinged Fanbase. Itâs not like signing the Pac12 and their late kick games brings eyeballs to screens.
All of this is window dressing and misdirection of discussing the real issues the conference has currently.
OMG, I havenât heard âHarrison Highâ since I was in high school at Bonneville. I kissed my first girlfriend in a parking lot above Weber State.
1 Like
claiming no schools currently fit PAC12 academic fit was the reason the conference didnt expand.
I posted this simply to get under Sancho and Bama fans thin skin 
4 Likes
Just the fact that the âdespicableâ Wyoming fans hate BYU more than we do endures them to my heart.
6 Likes
This proves again this is bad management. Iowa State and KU are AAU schools and one is good at Football and the other hoops. The alliance is nothing more than three badly managed conferences trying to take the wind out of the SECâs sails. Itâs a dumpster fire in those three conferences and they expect to beat the SEC (and allegedly ESPN) with current schools (and FS1)?
Side note. This doesnât happen week 1 in most conferences:
This is what matters in TV contracts.
That wouldnât have happened at Utah or Oregon or Washington.
If the Week Zero game had happened at any of those schools youâd have seen a rockinâ raucous full house, SRO. None of the California schools really cares about football. In that sense it really sucks that the pac12 power base is in California.
1 Like
Using that photo the way BamaFan did is kind of silly, but we get the point. (The Rose Bowl seats 100,000, and is full only for gigantic eventsâso even a crowd of 40 or 50,000 looks sparse there. Also, Los Angeles County is in the middle of a freak-out over the Delta variant, so people are generally very cautious about going to large gatherings.)
Also, we are talking about UCLA football 
and a pretty inconsequential week zero game.
All that said, @BamaFanNKY, we get it.
The PAC has always been a more laid back fan base, with a (PAC friendly description) a lot of âsmaller, cozierâ stadiums.
Oregon, UW, Utah, USC have more intense stadium atmospheres.
But the PAC is just 12 schools out of 41 in the Alliance.
Notre Dame, UM, tOSU, Florida State, Clemson donât have UCLAâs laidback fanbase, apparently share some of the common values and concern about the direction of things under the SECâs and ESPNâs initiative.
It may be revealing what happens with Bowlsby - if he gets canned is it because he couldnât keep OU and Texas on board, or because of the threatened litigation against ESPN?
2 Likes
I mean, it was a point of honor in that Oregon article that your fans arenât crazy about their team. I think that photo highlights that.
That said, BOTH of us being from LA we know there is more pride in beating the traffic out of the parking lot than staying for the game. This exemplified by the brake lights in the video of the Kirk Gibson World Series home run. We do love âbeating the traffic.â
The UM is Michigan, not Miami, right?
I honestly think small college towns and less coastal schools do better because there are less things to do. Thatâs why a craptastic team like Mississippi State will always have a packed stadium.
Next week UCLA hosts LSU. Over/Under that the tigers fill 70% of the stadium?
1 Like
Iâd be disappointed if LSU fans didnât fill most of the stadium, unless theyâre home cleaning up after the hurricane. But a trip to Southern California would be a nice respite from clean up too.
The storm is 1 mph short of being a Cat 5. I hope most left the area already.