Geographic sense is not pointless, nor is basketball irrelevant. Several Big XII schools try to pull in AZ athletes. Strengthening ties to that recruiting and giving some semblance of geographic continuity for whatever PAC schools might make a jump are not worthless endeavors. And engagement issues? AZ has the highest basketball attendance/ engagement/ TV audience in the conference, no?
Yes it is completely pointless, you are talking about a conference with West Virginia and a team in Iowa trying to lure 3 west coast teams. They clearly don’t care about teams fitting in geographically.
I don't think ISU helps the B1G. Their last adds were about expanding coverage for their network, and they already have Iowa. I could see the B1G potentially being interested in CU, but I don't know who might be brought in along with us.
So agree to disagree. I'm really not following what you're pissy about anyways. The article said "USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington fit that description. Arizona and Arizona State, meanwhile, are a geographic fit for the league in a fast-growing state that could make the territory valuable for football recruiting and for brand purposes."
It definitely wouldn’t be marginally, you are adding a big school with a large alumni base, but yes the impact probably isn’t as big as it would seem. It’s why market size doesn’t matter nearly as much as it did before and another reason why the pac is struggling even though it has the markets to compete nationally.
I think that's reflective of how many alums the B1G schools pump out each year. Those are a lot of massive state universities, and Denver of course is a very attractive new home that many move to.
The big 10 can poach plenty of teams like Mizzou, West Virginia, Georgia tech, North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado.
They'd never take WVU. Mizzou would trip over themselves accepting an invite though.
I think there are three paths 1. And the most preferable is for the pac 12 to add Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma state and whatever other one. That keeps the conference core together, adds revenue and helps us with our alumni base on the west coast and in Texas. 2. The big 10 wants to jump west which would suck for the actual university and where the students come from but would be a huge cash influx for the athletic department which would definitely need it without having direct access to Texas and California in recruiting. 3. West Virginia and Kansas go to the acc and big 10 which opens up 8 spots in the big 12 for usc, UCLA, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, arizona State and cal. Texas will maintain the unequal revenue sharing and we have just traded dead weight in the pac 12 for ****tier dead weight in the big 12.
Mostly reflective of losing the two largest college fan bases in Colorado at once. But yeah it just seems like the mid west flocks here.
How?
I agree that's the best solution from a PAC-centric viewpoint, I just don't believe it's even remotely possible now. Now the Big XII is negotiating from a place of strength, and the PAC from one of the exact opposite.
B1G would never come close to touching them for academic reasons.
Obviously agree on WVU.
Internet wisdom (FWIW) has always held that Mizzou has long coveted membership in the B1G. I think they'd still jump, and would fit in better there, with their natural rival in Illinois and rejoining semi-rival Nebraska.
THe big 12 isn’t negotiating from a position of strength though. They are where the they are right now because they only have 10 mouths to feed but adding any team outside now of usc won’t raise the bar for them. Oregon and Washington will keep them right where they are.
Academics no, but they are fourth in the big 12 in tier three the revenue behind Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas so they obviously do bring good revenue to the table.
Financially, they're still negotiating from relative strength. They earn more per school than the PAC does, and the per-school payouts are what matters. USC, UCLA and some combo of others likely raises the money for everyone, especially if whatever primary media partner greatly divests from what remains of the PAC. Where the additions bring the overall new sum to only break-even for Big XII schools, none of us know.
I thought this was in reference to football. I will go back and read it then.
You do sort of know what these teams bring though, they are getting paid their market rate. The pac 12 schools don’t generate enough fan interest to get directv so clearly something is off. Pac school were paid something like 6 million less than big 12 schools in 2018 (I took out the pac 12 nets distribution). So to think that any school outside of usc would be able to make up that gap and then some because they are paying more school so is laughable.
I mean I think we essentially agree. USC would give the Big XII a bump. I'm not sure where the point of diminishing returns comes in after that.
