camel at sea

The Big 12 is already ahead of the PAC, before Oregon and Washington have gone anywhere. Geography and local fan interest have seen to that. Adding the Four Corners, without UO and UW, would widen the gap. There's no real need to deliver a kill shot to the PAC. They can wait Oregon and Washington out. Those two can hold out on the CW / Ion / MeTV with their little brothers for one contract, maybe, but they won't do it for two. The ACC deal is so shockingly long that the B12 and PAC will both be back at the table again 4-5 years before the ACC contract is up, and the Big 12 should be in even better position vis a vis the PAC than they are now, at that point. As for a PAC/ACC merger? It doesn't make a ton of sense. There's not enough good Tier 1 inventory in those two conferences, even combined, to justify flying them from coast to coast. Oregon vs. Clemson, as a TV matchup, is a tier below Bama vs. Texas or Ohio St vs. Penn St. The bad inventory in that type of merger doesn't get more interesting either, only more expensive. BC vs. Cal? Wake vs. Washington St? If I'm Yormark, I'm not worried enough about that possibility to let it sway me into taking on dead weight.

This is certainly true. When I said the Big 12 wouldn't have expanded, I was referring to UCF/Cincy/UH/BYU.

No arguments. But it's also true that the Big 12 survived and that Texas and Oklahoma kept up financially during that window. The PAC's priority is giving Oregon and Washington a reason to stay and those two will care most about keeping up financially, right now, than building for the future. Staying at ten is the easiest way to keep those two happy. The PAC is in a tough spot where keeping their big brands happy, and building for the future, are somewhat at odds with each other. Even with Yormark as commissioner, the Big 12 probably doesn't expand if UT and OU remain in the conference.

They'd be the Big 12 (2010-present), psychological disadvantages and all. But staying at ten is how they keep up financially. They're dead in the water if they don't do that. They can talk themselves into the idea that something might break in their favor, in the future, with respect to expansion (i.e. "if we can just survive, maybe the Big 12 will get damaged in the future, and we'll not make the mistake of failing to raid them next time.")

Being at ten makes the most sense. They can divide up the CFP revenue into fewer slices, divide up whatever CCG revenue into fewer slices, etc. The problem is 1) this deal almost certainly fails the streaming/linear ratio that the presidents are looking for, and 2) it also fails to get member schools back in southern California for recruiting purposes (recruiting is more than athletics and it will matter to university Presidents as well as ADs.) If I were going to imagine a thread-the-needle scenario where the PAC feels like it "won" then they could probably lose Arizona and Colorado to the Big 12, then add SDSU and SMU/Colorado St to get back to 10. If the media rights deal still works with that trade-off, then maybe they can hit the pause button on realignment for several years. It's hard for me to imagine Oregon and Washington being okay with this, but maybe GK and the presidents get them on board by agreeing to let them play a disproportionate percentage of the linear games that the conference will have and by agreeing to unequal distribution of CFP money.

Oregon and Washington don't have that much leverage. If they hadn't been so public about wanting to join the Big Ten... then maybe. But you don't add the valueless little brothers, forever, just to get a 4-5 year rental of the Big Brothers.

Big 12 interest in SDSU is interesting. CU, Zona, ASU, and SDSU would be a nice group of four if Utah wants to go down with the PAC ship. Keeping the PAC out of southern California would be a strong move by Yormark and it would probably mollify the Cali alums at UA and ASU.

Yeah. I think realistically it was never very likely that both conferences would drop members. The ACC and Big East should have merged and dropped the weak members from each side, too. But practically, if the Big 8 was going to let its own history die anyway, then doing that should have been on the table (just like it should have been for the ACC.) A lot of the problem with how the merger happened was that the Big 8 did not go into it, initially, thinking it would be a merger. They realized part of the way into the process that it would have to be one, though, and that's why the butthurt up in Lincoln never went away. Maybe if everyone goes in knowing they need a new conference, then the construction of the new one ends up better. That said, if it's up to me and I'm running the Big 8, I invite Arky and BYU in the late 80s and then push for UT/aggy sometime later. One thing with your scenario that would have mattered is timing. K-State prior to Snyder was horrendous. Nobody would have predicted in the early 90s that K-State would sustain success for the next 30 years.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/comradery

Yeah, if the Big 12 could have formed sooner, then that probably happens. It also probably happens if the Big 8 had been run properly. If Roy Kramer is Big 8 commissioner, instead of SEC commissioner, then the Hogs probably get a Big 8 invite and the Big 8 would have put together a long-term plan to poach the SWC rather die in a merger with it.

The Big Ten's comradery gets more credit than it deserves. It's easier to have comradery when you've got a TV partner championing your existence. We saw how fractured they started to look when the COVID debate hit them. Nebraska was ready to leave their conference and Ohio State was floating threats, too. The Big 12 needed its own TV partner. That was always going to be a tall order. Either a lot of things needed to have gone differently leading up to that 2007 time period when linear networks became a thing (to help the Big 12 jump the Big Ten and SEC for either ESPN or FOX), or someone like NBC needed to be convinced to adopt a different sports media strategy. With the benefit of hindsight, I wonder how differently things go for the Big 12 if Bob Bullock doesn't get both Tech and Baylor into the Big 12. If you replace Baylor with BYU, maybe there is a butterfly effect that follows. North: BYU, CU, NU, ISU, KU, KSU South: A&M, UT, OU, TTU, MU, OSU Maybe that alignment gets everyone on board with permanent cross-division games. You'd have three north schools with recent-ish national titles to face the three powers in the south (rather than 2 and 3 in the original timeline.) NU gets less butthurt b/c they keep OU annually. CU doesn't fall off a cliff with better exposure in Texas. The Tier 1 inventory is better. Etc.

The PAC 16 would have worked but the Big 12 needed to be the predator instead of the prey. The Big 12's deadweight looks pretty similar to the deadweight in the Big Ten and SEC (schools that draw 50K+ in football at high tide.) When people talk about apathy out west, they're seeing good ADs sharing a conference with MWC level ADs. That's not what you'd have if Oregon or Washington visited Ames or Manhattan. To the extent that both Stanford and Cal are part of that dead weight problem (they are), I think SC and UCLA needed the last decade of PAC problems to accept that. The big thing though is that FOX wanted to bolster the B1G and the SEC wanted to bolster the SEC. The Big 12 - PAC 12 merger idea needed someone separate like NBC to champion it financially.

They're just kicking the "things are happening / we almost have a deal" can down the road until Arizona finally bolts. When that happens, they can blame the Wildcats for messing up a deal they were *thisclose* to getting done.

The PAC was screwed when 1) FOX wasn't interested in their inventory (pretty much from the jump), and 2) the B1G swallowed up every linear carrier who might have been able to partially replace FOX as a carrier. If the benchmark they've set is 50% linear, they're going to have a really hard time meeting the financial benchmark of being within ___% of the Big 12's deal. The way that everyone on the PAC side continues to kick the can down the road, it's starting to create an impression that they're hoping to save face - after being raided - by arguing that the PAC didn't lose to the Big 12, it just ran out of time.

On a second look, 2-5-5-5 doesn't really work well. Maybe if you're at 18 members, you go 5-4-4-4.

Yeah. I can't see 10 happening, either. I think that will be part of the difficulty of further expansion. You'd have to invite someone so desirable that you don't mind seeing everyone else less often. There are very few programs who bring that to the table for either the SEC or the B1G. That said, if the SEC or B1G went to 18, they'd probably have a 2-5-5-5 model, and if they go to 20, they'd probably have a 4-5-5-5 model. You'd rotate through the entire conference, home and away, every six years instead of every four.

He's not supposed to say anything. Why pop off on twitter about a Dennis Dodd article? Nobody forced him to do that. And there's no way they're better off as an AD going out of their way to piss off what might be their only viable lifeboat provider when the SS PAC 12 starts sinking in earnest. The people who will remember that Utah did that are running the Big 12.

Utah plays in a stadium the same size as the one in Manhattan, KS and they were in the MWC a little more than a decade ago. They don't have the biggest fanbase in their own state. Utah doesn't have a deep HS recruiting base. They're a couple of bad football hires away from being indistinguishable from Oregon State or Washington St. If their AD is popping off publicly, then it's probably being done with the blessing of their president and BOR. If they end up eventually wanting an invite, I'd have serious reservations about it on the Big 12 side. You don't want to recruit your own problems and welcome a malcontent into your room, when you've found stability for the first time in more than a decade.

Cal home attendance 2022: UC Davis: 34,984 UNLV: 38,180 Arizona: 37,216 Washington: 34,601 Oregon: 37,077 Stanford: 51,892 UCLA: 36,221 Stanford: Colgate: 26,826 USC: 43,813 Oregon St: 32,481 ASU: 25,061 Wash St: 26,515 BYU: 25,094 Oregon State (2021 since their 2022 numbers are down due to reduced stadium capacity for renovations) Hawaii: 27,701 Idaho: 26,797 Washington: 33,733 Utah: 30,203 Stanford: 35,129 ASU: 25,579

It's not just small, it's also rarely full. Washington State home attendance in 2022: Idaho: 25,233 Colorado State: 23,611 Oregon: 33,058 Cal: 23,021 Utah: 21,179 Arizona State: 24,039 Washington: 33,152 I'll see people compare them with ISU or K-State but both the Big 12 schools often more than double WSU's gameday attendance. Those two schools also triple WSU's gameday basketball attendance numbers.

They announced the B1G move after. I'm not sure that an agreement wasn't in place before the Texas/OU SEC deal. The only reason we found out about the SEC move in '21 was because aggy leaked it. Otherwise that probably stays quiet for another year or two. I assume SC knew that they were B1G bound when they put the brakes on PAC plans to raid the Irate8.

Colorado's path to the Big Ten probably requires a successful stop in the Big 12, first. They likely know that, which is why the Denver area media has been a lot more friendly toward the idea of the Big 12 than a lot of other PAC media. The Buffs need to not only start winning again, but also filling their stadium and doing well on TV. Generating local interest and TV interest will be easier in the Big 12.

Gundy has been great and he's probably going to end up in the college football hall of fame. He is Oklahoma State's version of the Purple Wizard. He's also had more to work with during his time on that job - by a WIDE margin - than any other coach in Oklahoma State history. Every coach prior to Gundy had to operate with some of the worst facilities in the country, and Gundy has had nationally elite facilities for most of his tenure. The difference is so big, it's hard to compare Gundy's tenure to anyone who came before him. It might be that with the facilities in place, the geography, and the competition, that Oklahoma State *should* be winning 9 games a year on average. I wouldn't be shocked if the guy they eventually hire to replace Gundy recruits circles around Gundy and elevates their roster talent quite a bit.

The benefit for the ACC is financial. Everyone took a COVID hit. The FSU/Clemson buyout money would be a big deal at a lot of their member schools. As for the conference getting worse, there's a tradeoff. You lose the schools that have been carrying you, but the league is a little easier now for the next rung down and you free up the best TV windows for Miami / UNC /etc. Those next rung down schools would suddenly be looking at more wins, higher rankings, CFP appearances, and brand growth. As long as someone rose to the top, the ACC would be fine on that front. Would the SEC want FSU and Clemson? Both schools probably pass the "it just means more" test. Adding those two locks the B1G out of the South (at least as to the high value expansion options.) On the other hand, I don't know that ESPN wants to pay for it and I don't know that the SEC really needs either of them. Adding them complicates scheduling quite a bit. This probably just comes down to the money. Do those two add ~$100M each to the media deal? As for ESPN? Yeah, I don't see why they'd facilitate FSU/Clemson's exit to the SEC unless the ACC deal is really undervalued currently. The Big 12 minus Texas and OU was able to expand and keep conference distributions around status quo largely b/c status quo was operating from a really old and undervalued TV deal. Once UT and OU were gone, then it was rightly valued so they just extended it. I don't know that it would work that way in the ACC but that's probably the hope in Tallahassee.

Hypothetically: If FSU and Clemson were both willing to shell out $100M+ each to the ACC, and if ESPN was willing to keep ACC per-school payouts the same, through 2036, even after those two go, then the ACC probably agrees to release them from the GOR a decade early. Does ESPN really want FSU and Clemson in the SEC? They both fit, and they're both big brands, but I don't know if they add enough to justify splitting the SEC pie into more slices. I also don't know if there's enough left in the ACC if those two left to keep per-team payouts that high for another decade.