We've now entered the "conflicting reports" part of this particular saga, but at least someone is putting it out there & letting me dwell on the concept of the Huskies joining the B1G.
Last Edit: Jun 30, 2022 20:51:44 GMT -5 by Deleted
FWIW: This account's tweet documenting when USC started talking to the B1G again matches up with the alleged timeline (everyone saying USC-B1G talks started back last year when Texas & Oklahoma did their thing, cooled off after that, but were re-initialized a couple months ago and heated up from there), so I've been keeping tabs on them & will continue to do so.
Anyway, everyone's saying Oregon and Washington have submitted B1G applications, but the B1G wants Notre Dame (USC is recruiting Notre Dame apparently), and Notre Dame will take the weekend to mull over joining the B1G. But sometime next week (likely early), things will get moving again.
If Notre Dame accepts, the B1G likely tries to get to 20 teams by adding three more. It sounds more likely that they will eventually accept than reject.
It's unclear how the B1G will act if Notre Dame rejects the B1G, but they might simply just add four more to still get to 20.
Or the B1G may hold off on reaching 20 teams (unclear to me how magic a number 20 is in this scenario with regards to the tv rights thing) and be content with a number of total teams below 20.
It's all really fascinating and completely unprecedented, but still maddening in the moment and overarching-ly depressing lmao.
It's important to wait for official announcements before any conclusions are prematurely drawn.
—The Big 12 is only taking X amount of teams from the Pac-12 once it's announced that it is. —Notre Dame is only turning down the Big Ten once it's announced that it is. —Conference A and Conference B are only merging or partnering once it's announced that they are.
Until then, everything remains on the table, up for negotiation. The real question is, how long do these negotiations last before more moves inevitably start happening?
Some personal Washington-related thoughts, mostly just for myself:
—If we can't make it into the Big Ten, then I don't wanna go to the Big 12 – I'd honestly rather stay in the Pac-12-10 even if it means making a few less millions in tv money than going to the Big 12. I genuinely don't want to see the Pac-Whatever dissolve – though I acknowledge that if the Conference were to dissolve, then it'll have been absolutely earned given the sheer incompetence of so many decision-makers who were/have been atop the Conference for the past 10-15 years. If an ACC partnership keeps it all alive – even if temporarily – and gets us to stick around, then cool.
—I don't even know if I want us to go into the Big Ten anymore, cuz even though our athletic department would get rich quick, I'm very skeptical we'd become a better football program than a Nebraska or any other mediocre Big Ten program that was expected to enjoy success upon moving into the Big Ten but never did & still hasn't. Does anyone really think UCLA is about to become a solid football program in spite of this? Lmfao please. (USC might not even!) There are plenty of pros to moving to the Big Ten, but the few cons are not negligible in my mind.
—In terms of emotions and just feeling anything, I mostly just hate that damn near everything hinges on whether or not f*cking Notre Dame opts to join the Big Ten. At this point, I don't even care what they decide – I just hate that their decision is getting dragged out and putting everything else into a holding pattern. Like many, I wish them a very fast demise no matter what they choose. Otherwise, I feel nothing at this point; College football, besides being such a mess nowadays, has now become a joyless shell of itself.
—Ultimately, wherever Oregon goes is where I want Washington to go. Those are our modern-day rivals after WSU, and what I would hate the most is seeing them get into the Big Ten without us. The rivalry would fizzle out, while simultaneously they'd hold that over us forever. And then it would lead to the Pac-X dissolving as well, since us & Oregon are the two schools with the highest value in the Pac & Big 12 combined (is what I'm told lmao I'm truly not trying to be elitist like that #AcademicallyProwess ).
—If college football as a whole has to suck now, I at least want to enjoy it in the way that one can – trying to go to the top Pac bowl while playing against our usual rivals along the way. Maybe we'd suck vs the rest of the country, but at least we'd get to enjoy our little slice of heaven in the form of tradition. Forget the College Football Playoff – an SEC team wins that basically every year anyway lol.
The fictional dream that was college football is no longer possible to believe in -- primarily because the whole structure was based on a lie that could not be hidden once the dollars got too big.
The lie was that college football was played by student-athletes who just happened to enroll at a particular school because they wanted to represent that school and their fellow students. The truth, in the vast majority of cases, is that the players opted to play in a particular football program and/or for a particular coach and the school itself -- the alumni, the fans, the other students in their classes (should they go to any) -- was pretty much irrelevant to the process. (Again, the majority, not all ...)
And then, as the dollars mounted, the disparity between the coaches and administrators who made millions and the players who made nothing became impossible to ignore. (Yes, a scholarship has value but the marginal cost to the university to add 85 scholarships was barely a rounding error. So though the scholarship was of value to the students, its cost to the university was near zero.)
So with the NCAA exposed as the powerless sham that it is (remember when UNC players were proved to have not gone to classes and one player was functionally illiterate but the NCAA said it could do nothing?), it was every dollar for itself. And here we are ...
I like watching college football and will continue to do so, as the conferences themselves are pretty meaningless. The games are what matter, and the same is true for basketball. The women's teams will be pulled into the same conference as the men's teams and given the success of the Pac-12, should continue to do well. It won't matter to me if Cal plays Illinois instead of Arizona, or N.C. State instead of Utah. It's shame to lose the USC and UCLA games, but it's not close to a deal-breaker for me.
And in the end, I think honesty is the best policy, and clearing away the smoke and mirrors of "student-athletes" will be a long-term positive -- once the dust settles, of course.
At this point I’ve become as disgruntled as I've become distorted & messed up by the ‘Power-Two’ / ‘SuperConference’ direction things are going in that I just want that process sped-up. Sure seems like we’ll reach it eventually anyway, so we may as well get there ASAP to figure out what the next step after that is. (Will the B1G and SEC become like the NFC/AFC, or the NFL/AFL? 🤔) Screw waiting ‘til 2036 – I want that ACC Grant of Rights nullified now, and I think many other people and entities out there feel the same. Some say it could happen if Notre Dame goes to the Big Ten, or if the Pac-12 strikes up just the right partnership with the ACC, or even if the ACC just takes in some Pac-12 schools for themselves. But it seems that once that ACC GOR inevitably dissolves, the college football/college sports landscape will turn into the Wild West. (Pun intended.) The Big Ten and SEC will be free to raid whoever from wherever. And then we’ll go from there once we see where everyone’s at, including who’s left out and on the outside looking in. I don't think the latter category will eventually include my Huskies, but if it does, so be it. At least we’ll know. No one wants to be kept in suspense for years. (I haven't even liked being kept in suspense these past several days.)
I will say, it would be nice if the Pac-12 found a way to survive somehow, even if it’s as a complete-shell-of-itself Group of 5 conference sporting a bunch of former Mountain West schools. Someday in the far future, the original 8/10/12 of the Pac might just opt to get the band back together and reunite… The moral of this whole story seems to be, nobody knows what the future may hold.
Commissioner Kliavkoff's kickoff speech at Pac-12 Media Day was a mess. He clearly tried putting on this 'machismo' act in order to save face, but it came off to mixed reviews at best. I mean, look at this delusional soundbite of his, egad.
Anyway, at this point, I've already written up hypothetical Big Ten divisional alignments in the event that it expands to 20 members. 🙃 I'm ready to be conference foes with lynxmania and snowman2 's Golden Gophers, as well as toad455 's Scarlet Knights. Just gonna keep in mind that anything could happen between now and mid-October!
Commissioner Kliavkoff's kickoff speech at Pac-12 Media Day was a mess. He clearly tried putting on this 'machismo' act in order to save face, but it came off to mixed reviews at best. I mean, look at this delusional soundbite of his, egad.
Anyway, at this point, I've already written up hypothetical Big Ten divisional alignments in the event that it expands to 20 members. 🙃 I'm ready to be conference foes with lynxmania and snowman2 's Golden Gophers, as well as toad455 's Scarlet Knights. Just gonna keep in mind that anything could happen between now and mid-October!
Honestly, just make it 24 at this point and make it a country-wide conference. I would've preferred to stay at 12 after Nebraska but we're well passed that. Also, there's too many teams wearing a shade of red in the Big Ten lol.
Oregon Washington Kansas Georgia Tech Virginia Any 3 of these: UCF, Utah, Colorado, Texas Tech, Oregon State, NC State, long shots from the SEC: Missouri, Vanderbilt
I know Stanford is good at like every women's sport and would be a good add athletically/academically, but I just don't want them in the Big Ten especially if they have to bring Cal. Probably my least favorite Pac 12 schools.
Stanford may not have to bring Cal. It’s really all about what Notre Dame wants, honestly.
I want to see the ACC dissolved so that they get out of their awful Grant of Rights that lasts until 2036. Notre Dame going to the Big Ten could get the ball rolling on that. Pretty much every pundit agrees that the ACC GOR isn’t actually gonna last until it’s scheduled to. But one way or another, the ACC will eventually get poached like the Big 12 and the #PovertyPac have in recent months.
Last Edit: Jul 30, 2022 17:00:43 GMT -5 by Deleted
If players are paid, then football and men's basketball would have to be in their own system. Public outcry might bring women's basketball and volleyball along for the ride, but there's no way cross country runners deserve to get a salary.
And dividing those sponsorship rights by 20 instead of 16 means a 25% reduction. Who's going to vote for that?
I do at this point wish that football & basketball conferences were separate/completely different entities from conferences of non-revenue sports.
With regards to Kevin Warren having to convince B1G-school Presidents to let in more schools that would split up the pie: Maybe this is where research-school $ comes into play. I’m not really familiar with how that part of this equation is a factor – though it undoubtedly is. Otherwise, Notre Dame’s the only school that would definitely increase the pie, and it sounds like they may stay independent after all.
Last Edit: Aug 19, 2022 15:32:55 GMT -5 by Deleted
Post by Cardinal22 on Aug 23, 2022 16:25:54 GMT -5
Yeah, at this point, I'm just waiting for Notre Dame to join the Big 10 along with Stanford?
Honestly, while Oregon has a ton of new money, I see it as a hard sell for them to join the Big 10. I wonder whether the Big 10 would consider some combination of Stanford/Washington to go with Notre Dame.
I think Cal/Stanford is a pair, just as UCLA came with USC, because TV would like to lock up a particular market.
Stanford, though, will face an existential crisis with NIL and paying players, because they very likely may draw the line at that point. Stanford does not need big-time athletics at all and may opt for some kind of Ivy League kind of program.
But really, no academic institution really "needs" college sports, except for a few in the South. My thoughts on the whole thing are here: