Who said anything about cross country flights every week? It's a 4 hour flight to Michigan. 3 hour flight to Seattle. They spend an extra hour or 2 on a plan. If they can't handle that they really should not be playing big time college athletics. A WCC school probably has a spot for them.
According to ESPN, 2048 miles to Rutgers. Arizona was the furthest at 1200 miles. Big difference. Not to mention dealing with time changes. They could have a 9AM EST game with their bodies telling them it’s 6 AM. Not everyone deals well with longer flights and time zone changes.
5-6 road games is only for college football. Athletes for all the other sports will have to make many long flights. And going from LA to Rutgers or Maryland is a big difference from LA to WA.
ya but Rutgers and Maryland are just 2 schools. Most of the Big 10 schools are a 3-4 hour flight. surely not the 45 min to Arizona or Cal, but people are making it out like we are flying to NYC every week.
Yes, but think back on your school experience. Now add practice, film, training, tutoring, and games. Many will be able to study on flights. For those that can’t, it’s added wasted time, taking away from the little spare time for a social life.
not really. only 5 or 6 road trips in the other sports as well. Rutgers and Maryland won't be in our division. Sure we'll play them every few years, but we'll be in the Big 10 west.
My bad. Late night, semi sleep deprivation, and skimming closed captions are a bad combo. Furthest flight in PAC is Washington to Arizona. Over 1200 miles.
I hate the Big 10…that said why not just have one league where all the big players get to go, call it the National College Football League. Because that’s really what College Football has become, an NFL farm league right? Talk about revenue…
I'm on board with this move. No more Pac-12 network and I can finally switch to a cheaper TV service with BTN. Plus increased level of competition should make the games more exciting. There is some talk that the olympics sports wouldnt be competing in the Big 10, but would compete in a conference in the west that would take them (presumably the Pac-12 (10?) won't), so that will be an interesting development to watch
LA Times clarified that all sports that the Big Ten carries would go over. This leaves out men's volleyball, water polo, and beach volleyball, so all of those would stay with MPSF.
I feel like UCLA and USC moving makes whatever conference they’re in the Conference of Champions, as combined they would have to be close to beating most conferences in national titles.
At least on the academic front, it's not like UCLA is going to a less-prestigious conference. If anything, now they get to rub shoulders with Michigan and Northwestern instead of the Arizonas.
Academics? We were in a conference with Arizona State, Oregon State, and Arizona. Now we are in a conference with Michigan and Northwestern. Who cares about academics when it comes to sports. Pac 12's tradition post John Wooden sucks ass.
Mixed feelings about this. Good for revenue and recruiting to the major sports. Good to ditch the Pac-12 Network. Bad for tradition and regional rivalries. Longer travel time for athletes. (Can't wait for that Thursday night game at Rutgers.). For those of you dismissing the burden on the athletes, being a D1 athlete is a huge commitment of time and energy. (Full disclosure, our daughter is on the rowing team, so we have a first hand look at our athletes' sacrifice -- they work their tails off, work through injury, and give up a lot.) The extra travel makes it harder.
Right - due to football, since there's no equivalent "pair" with it (baseball-softball, &c) when it comes to scholarship numbers so in many cases on many campuses, fewer men's Olympic sports are offered or have fewer scholarships to better even out the numbers
I really really hate this. One one hand, I completely understand the relative necessity of making this move. It is the sad consequence of two decades of myopic and impotent "leadership" at both the Pac12 and at UCLA Athletics that left the Pac12 on the outside looking in, and it didn't appear that anyone had any plans to rebuild the Conference's stature on the national level. I just really hate that UCLA had to be the first school (discounting *$c as an actual school) to trade in so much meaningful tradition and integrity for the almighty dollar in an effort to stay relevant. It makes us look like the first rat to bail on the sinking ship and it's disgraceful.
Of course the NCAA and especially college football started colleges on this trail a long time ago. Today's announcement and the essential death of the Pac12 is its natural, and ugly, result.
I think Texas would count as the first school to make this choice when they did it last year. This is more UCLA and USC being proactive for the first time in forever.
I hear ya. I was more referring specifically to UCLA gut punching the Pac12, not that we were the first major school to bail on its conference. Nebraska bailed on the Big 12 more than a decade before Texas and OU jilted them, though that may have been their hail mary to get out from under Texas's thumb.
The Pac12, which by virtue of its geography and tradition, could have built and maintained something unique in the country. Instead the conference was arrogant and lazy and let outside forces take something that was once very strong and turn it to rubble. It's very Ozymandias.
This sucks. As someone who’s been a UCLA fan since watching Cade McNown lead the Bruins to a victory over Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, I hate everything that this move represents for the LA schools and the future of college sports.
I mean it’s great for UCLA and secures their athletes’ and the athletic department’s for the mid term, but it never should have come to this.
Culturally this makes little sense outside of academic affiliation; geographically it makes zero sense. At least Texas and OU are somewhat to other SEC teams when they moved.
But ooh boy, we get to play Michigan and Ohio State now on a semi-annual basis for BrAnDiNg aNd PrEsTiGe aNd MiLlIoNS!!!!!!!!!
I hate Texas and OU for moving to the SEC and being the precursor to this last insane domino.
I hate this arms race that’s turning college football into a glorified semi-pro league.
I hate how 150+ years of college athletics is about to go down the drain because of pure economics.
Some of that did need to go — archaic amateurism rules and restrictions on student-athletes, for example — but this ruins the traditions and local/regional aspect of college sports. This also kills any national presence mid and low major D-I schools will get in non-football sports.
This is basically what the European Super League was supposed to be for club soccer. At least Europeans had the good sense to riot against the owners for the sake of the smaller clubs, and FIFA, cartel it may be, at least threatened players with not being able to compete for their countries in international competition so they could put pressure on the owners.
I wish our sports organizations —“amateur” or otherwise—had the same kind of integrity, especially in the face of the NCAA being so toothless at this point.
But most of all, I hate that UCLA —like gbruin said— was the next university to sell its soul, with its rich tradition in both academics and athletics.
I think I may have to take an hiatus from college sports indefinitely.
To say UCLA sold its soul at the expense of its tradition of academics and athletics is kind of silly. The Big 10 is indisputably a superior athletic conference, and was even, if not superior, to the Pac 12 academically.
Is it though? Business wise I get it. Athletically the B1G is superior right now and academically it’s a push.
But the LA schools turned their back against their conference mates —years of relationships and cultural ties—for financial security.
And if the end game is getting toward this super conference model everyone says is inevitable, there’s really no point watching college sports anymore. It’s really disheartening.
And yes, we can blame the NCAA for being a cartel, but let’s or pretend the networks—especially ESPN—aren’t responsible for the lions share of this mess.
So you want us to preserve the UCLA/Cal.....cough......rivalry, and the UCLA/Stanford.....cough.......rivalry at the expense of hundreds of millions of dollars? Ya it was nice to play the bay area teams every year, but the conference camaraderie was pretty miniscule. Can't wait to develop legit rivalries with the likes of Michigan and Ohio State.
Also, how is ESPN at fault? All they've done is bring games into our living room.
Again, I completely understand why UCLA and USC did this from a business and survival perspective. But don’t be daft about the rest of what I said.
ESPN didn’t just “bring games into our living room,” they used their monopoly on the CFP to favor the conferences that they were most in bed with to further their coffers.
Can you please explain how having the majority of the SEC’s inventory, distribution rights for the SEC network and ALSO sole access to the CFP broadcasting rights doesn’t incentivize them to stump for the SEC every chance they get on their network?
You think the guys who also share ownership with the Longhorn Network gave Texas and their strongest rival zero advice on potential benefits of switching over to SEC before the new media right negotiation?
You’re gonna tell me it’s just a coincidence that the Big Ten was slow footing their media rights negotiations with Fox before the Playoffs contract expired “just because?” And they had no interest in other teams?
That Fox Sports, which has its HQ in LA, had zero back channels with UCLA and USC officials on how mutually beneficial this was for both parties if they “explore options on their own” to join the SECs only true rival at this point?
If you think there’s no conflict of interest here, or any type of collusion between the two biggest conferences and the these giant networks, and that it has nothing to do with the mess college sports is about to be in, well I have a bridge to sell you.
I guess I’m actually one of the few thatdid want to preserve those relationships because that shared history as a conference meant something to me and others out west. Same with the Rose Bowl and it’s place in the history of college football.
Developing legit rivalries with Michigan and Ohio State also assumes that we’re not a doormat in next 5 years and that the B1G doesn’t have more to gain from having greater access to the SoCal talent pipeline, which means we may lose out even more. If Oregon, Washington and Notre Dame join that may hurt us further even with the added resources.
Also, this doesn’t just have implications for football. Basketball will be shifted seismically across D1, and probably destroy what little relevancy FCS and non-football schools have left. You may not care, but the sport will be worse with all of these smaller programs being cast by the wayside and getting even less exposure than they do already.
You can think what you want and call me a fool, but those elements of college sports — tradition, cultural ties, the chance for smaller schools to have a chance to build their brand — that to me was worth saving.
Instead, The NCAA’s ineptitude and the networks’ greed left us with this mess.
Please explain how ESPN has a monopoly over the CFP? They BOUGHT the rights. That is not a monopoly. They exert ZERO monopoly power whatsoever. There is nothing wrong at all with the best of the best wanting to play with the best of the best. What was the big 12 offering Texas? Games with Baylor and Ok St? College football is going to be a lot more exciting now. No more will we have a good team from a weak conference wondering if their 12-1 record is legit because nobody else was good in their conference. You win the SEC or Big 10 or even finish 2nd or 3rd and you are GOOD. And what is great about these super conferences, is there is ZERO CHANCE IN HELL that the CFP is going to even entertain allowing a mid major into the CFP.
I would 1000% keep regional rivalries than take the big fat paycheck. Clearly, that is not how our AD thinks about things. But some of us here value the tradition and the history of the Pac-12 and don't want to move to another conference / time zone / etc just for the $$$$$.
And I agree with E2148, what makes you think we will develop a rivalry with Michigan and OSU? We have no shared history with them, so they will probably just treat us as another general member of the Big Ten.
UCLA/Stanford is a regional rivalry? I guess? Same state i suppose. Face it, the Pac 12 history sucks. Most schools barely have an athletic history to speak for. Outside of USC and Oregon, who really has a storied football program. Outside of Arizona and UCLA, who really has a storied basketball program?
Just off the top of my head Cal and Pete Newell. Washington football can claim 2 championships. Some people also care about the Olympic sports. Thanks for proving your youth!
Another thing is some of us actually like for our home grown athletes’ families to be able to go to the majority of the games. This move makes that much more of an endeavor and cost.
I have to give UCLA credit for joining a substantially more competitive league!! What is to be seen is where both teams will land in their divisions. Could UCLA compete in the Big10 East Division? If the Big10 puts USC in the East Division, it would make that division clearly too talent heavy with Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State and Ohio State already there. So most likely USC goes to the West to kind of balance things out. Where would UCLA land? Exciting times coming for sure in 2024!! :)
I assume ucla and USC would both go to the West and they would just move a different team over to the East. I don't see why they would split us up, or put one of the LA teams in the East.
It would make sense to move Purdue to the East, but also important to note the Big Ten is moving to drop divisions in the near future, so it's all moot.
As a brief "Yay, me!" moment, I'll copy a paragraph from an article I wrote here on TMB last year:
"Expansion will happen. Physics and money dictate it. But if the Pac-12 sits by, it will become a smaller and less powerful player in the arms race that is college football and risk getting our existing schools poached by bigger and more powerful conferences in the future. But since circumstances allows us a chance to direct the outcome, it’s critical that the Pac-12 be the driving force that brings its selected Universities into its orbit."
I actually wrote that article a couple years earlier but it got lost amongst other issues at the time, and then the OU and Texas to the SEC rumors got hot and I updated it and published it. Sadly, if this idea occurred to a schmo like me 3 years ago, it should have occurred to professional athletic conference leaders long before that. But instead we had guys like Larry Scott and Dan Guerrero sitting around collecting checks and dust, and so today, as if Thanos just snapped his fingers, we watch the Pac12 itself turn to dust.
Please explain how this move negatively impacts our athletes' academics.
Who said anything about cross country flights every week? It's a 4 hour flight to Michigan. 3 hour flight to Seattle. They spend an extra hour or 2 on a plan. If they can't handle that they really should not be playing big time college athletics. A WCC school probably has a spot for them.
According to ESPN, 2048 miles to Rutgers. Arizona was the furthest at 1200 miles. Big difference. Not to mention dealing with time changes. They could have a 9AM EST game with their bodies telling them it’s 6 AM. Not everyone deals well with longer flights and time zone changes.
yes but he said cross country flights EVERY week. 5 or 6 conference road games. maybe one is cross country?
5-6 road games is only for college football. Athletes for all the other sports will have to make many long flights. And going from LA to Rutgers or Maryland is a big difference from LA to WA.
ya but Rutgers and Maryland are just 2 schools. Most of the Big 10 schools are a 3-4 hour flight. surely not the 45 min to Arizona or Cal, but people are making it out like we are flying to NYC every week.
Yes, but think back on your school experience. Now add practice, film, training, tutoring, and games. Many will be able to study on flights. For those that can’t, it’s added wasted time, taking away from the little spare time for a social life.
Doesn’t Pullman include a 2 hour bus trip? It may not be the furthest but it took the longest.
Over 1.5 hours. But that lowers the chance of facing turbulence and not being able to do anything with your time.
exactly
not really. only 5 or 6 road trips in the other sports as well. Rutgers and Maryland won't be in our division. Sure we'll play them every few years, but we'll be in the Big 10 west.
That’s just conjecture at this point.
My bad. Late night, semi sleep deprivation, and skimming closed captions are a bad combo. Furthest flight in PAC is Washington to Arizona. Over 1200 miles.
I would think that the conference will not schedule the west coast schools for a 9am EST game.
I hate the Big 10…that said why not just have one league where all the big players get to go, call it the National College Football League. Because that’s really what College Football has become, an NFL farm league right? Talk about revenue…
Geographic reasons prob.
I'm on board with this move. No more Pac-12 network and I can finally switch to a cheaper TV service with BTN. Plus increased level of competition should make the games more exciting. There is some talk that the olympics sports wouldnt be competing in the Big 10, but would compete in a conference in the west that would take them (presumably the Pac-12 (10?) won't), so that will be an interesting development to watch
Reports are the only sport that wouldn't go to the Big Ten is beach volleyball, which already competes in a different conference so it's fine.
lol at Pac 12. so what, are they going to pick up Pepperdine and LMU now? Maybe Pacific is looking for a new conference. Oregon has to go.
If they stick with no church schools then Fresno St and San Diego St are more likely.
Not the other MPSF sports?
LA Times clarified that all sports that the Big Ten carries would go over. This leaves out men's volleyball, water polo, and beach volleyball, so all of those would stay with MPSF.
It would be nice to actually be able to watch the games.
Haven't been able to watch many local sports teams lately....
The number 1 casualty of this? We no longer get to hear Walton rave about the Conference of Champions during UCLA games.
I feel like UCLA and USC moving makes whatever conference they’re in the Conference of Champions, as combined they would have to be close to beating most conferences in national titles.
too late. Pac 12 trademarked it about 10 years ago.
100% hate this move. What happened to caring about tradition and academics? I hate that all everyone cares about nowadays is money and TV deals.
At least on the academic front, it's not like UCLA is going to a less-prestigious conference. If anything, now they get to rub shoulders with Michigan and Northwestern instead of the Arizonas.
Academics? We were in a conference with Arizona State, Oregon State, and Arizona. Now we are in a conference with Michigan and Northwestern. Who cares about academics when it comes to sports. Pac 12's tradition post John Wooden sucks ass.
Rumor has it that Notre Dame and Oregon are about to follow us. Clemson, FSU, Miami to the SEC. Big 12 to swallow up most of the Pac 10.
Yep might as well disband the Pac.
Dimitri, since football is not NCAA, couldn’t the football team just go by itself?
This may significantly hurt the other sports, depending on competition within the conference and increased travel expenses.
Yeah…sadly.
this increased travel expenses will be offset a thousand times by the increased revenue
Officially announced
https://uclabruins.com/news/2022/6/30/bruin-athletics-ucla-to-join-big-ten-conference-at-start-of-2024-25-season.aspx
Same
Yes!
Mixed feelings about this. Good for revenue and recruiting to the major sports. Good to ditch the Pac-12 Network. Bad for tradition and regional rivalries. Longer travel time for athletes. (Can't wait for that Thursday night game at Rutgers.). For those of you dismissing the burden on the athletes, being a D1 athlete is a huge commitment of time and energy. (Full disclosure, our daughter is on the rowing team, so we have a first hand look at our athletes' sacrifice -- they work their tails off, work through injury, and give up a lot.) The extra travel makes it harder.
Whatever comes of it, Go Bruins!
Well it’s a done deal. I guess we make the best of it.
why are you mad? This makes us better.
No more SPTRs
Oh, you are so right. I hadn't realized that yet, but this could be the biggest asset of the entire move.
The second biggest asset is that this could get UCLA to go in for real on men's and women's ice hockey.
not if IX has anything to say about it (on the men's front)
I imagine if you add both sports at the same time, it would be fine.
Yup, and I know 1 D1 level women's player on her way to UCLA this fall. ;-)
logically, that is how Title IX should work. But it's not.
Right - due to football, since there's no equivalent "pair" with it (baseball-softball, &c) when it comes to scholarship numbers so in many cases on many campuses, fewer men's Olympic sports are offered or have fewer scholarships to better even out the numbers
I really really hate this. One one hand, I completely understand the relative necessity of making this move. It is the sad consequence of two decades of myopic and impotent "leadership" at both the Pac12 and at UCLA Athletics that left the Pac12 on the outside looking in, and it didn't appear that anyone had any plans to rebuild the Conference's stature on the national level. I just really hate that UCLA had to be the first school (discounting *$c as an actual school) to trade in so much meaningful tradition and integrity for the almighty dollar in an effort to stay relevant. It makes us look like the first rat to bail on the sinking ship and it's disgraceful.
Of course the NCAA and especially college football started colleges on this trail a long time ago. Today's announcement and the essential death of the Pac12 is its natural, and ugly, result.
I think Texas would count as the first school to make this choice when they did it last year. This is more UCLA and USC being proactive for the first time in forever.
I hear ya. I was more referring specifically to UCLA gut punching the Pac12, not that we were the first major school to bail on its conference. Nebraska bailed on the Big 12 more than a decade before Texas and OU jilted them, though that may have been their hail mary to get out from under Texas's thumb.
The Pac12, which by virtue of its geography and tradition, could have built and maintained something unique in the country. Instead the conference was arrogant and lazy and let outside forces take something that was once very strong and turn it to rubble. It's very Ozymandias.
and it's all because Larry Scott failed to bring Texas and OU to the Pac 12 ten years ago
Spot on!
This sucks. As someone who’s been a UCLA fan since watching Cade McNown lead the Bruins to a victory over Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, I hate everything that this move represents for the LA schools and the future of college sports.
I mean it’s great for UCLA and secures their athletes’ and the athletic department’s for the mid term, but it never should have come to this.
Culturally this makes little sense outside of academic affiliation; geographically it makes zero sense. At least Texas and OU are somewhat to other SEC teams when they moved.
But ooh boy, we get to play Michigan and Ohio State now on a semi-annual basis for BrAnDiNg aNd PrEsTiGe aNd MiLlIoNS!!!!!!!!!
I hate Texas and OU for moving to the SEC and being the precursor to this last insane domino.
I hate this arms race that’s turning college football into a glorified semi-pro league.
I hate how 150+ years of college athletics is about to go down the drain because of pure economics.
Some of that did need to go — archaic amateurism rules and restrictions on student-athletes, for example — but this ruins the traditions and local/regional aspect of college sports. This also kills any national presence mid and low major D-I schools will get in non-football sports.
This is basically what the European Super League was supposed to be for club soccer. At least Europeans had the good sense to riot against the owners for the sake of the smaller clubs, and FIFA, cartel it may be, at least threatened players with not being able to compete for their countries in international competition so they could put pressure on the owners.
I wish our sports organizations —“amateur” or otherwise—had the same kind of integrity, especially in the face of the NCAA being so toothless at this point.
But most of all, I hate that UCLA —like gbruin said— was the next university to sell its soul, with its rich tradition in both academics and athletics.
I think I may have to take an hiatus from college sports indefinitely.
That's what I was getting at but you said it all much better.
You were more succinct tbh, plus I kept getting word vomit so I had a lot of edits 😅
Glad I’m not the only one who feels this way even if it puts UCLA and its SAs in a better spot.
Blame the NCAA.
To say UCLA sold its soul at the expense of its tradition of academics and athletics is kind of silly. The Big 10 is indisputably a superior athletic conference, and was even, if not superior, to the Pac 12 academically.
Is it though? Business wise I get it. Athletically the B1G is superior right now and academically it’s a push.
But the LA schools turned their back against their conference mates —years of relationships and cultural ties—for financial security.
And if the end game is getting toward this super conference model everyone says is inevitable, there’s really no point watching college sports anymore. It’s really disheartening.
And yes, we can blame the NCAA for being a cartel, but let’s or pretend the networks—especially ESPN—aren’t responsible for the lions share of this mess.
So you want us to preserve the UCLA/Cal.....cough......rivalry, and the UCLA/Stanford.....cough.......rivalry at the expense of hundreds of millions of dollars? Ya it was nice to play the bay area teams every year, but the conference camaraderie was pretty miniscule. Can't wait to develop legit rivalries with the likes of Michigan and Ohio State.
Also, how is ESPN at fault? All they've done is bring games into our living room.
Again, I completely understand why UCLA and USC did this from a business and survival perspective. But don’t be daft about the rest of what I said.
ESPN didn’t just “bring games into our living room,” they used their monopoly on the CFP to favor the conferences that they were most in bed with to further their coffers.
Can you please explain how having the majority of the SEC’s inventory, distribution rights for the SEC network and ALSO sole access to the CFP broadcasting rights doesn’t incentivize them to stump for the SEC every chance they get on their network?
You think the guys who also share ownership with the Longhorn Network gave Texas and their strongest rival zero advice on potential benefits of switching over to SEC before the new media right negotiation?
You’re gonna tell me it’s just a coincidence that the Big Ten was slow footing their media rights negotiations with Fox before the Playoffs contract expired “just because?” And they had no interest in other teams?
That Fox Sports, which has its HQ in LA, had zero back channels with UCLA and USC officials on how mutually beneficial this was for both parties if they “explore options on their own” to join the SECs only true rival at this point?
If you think there’s no conflict of interest here, or any type of collusion between the two biggest conferences and the these giant networks, and that it has nothing to do with the mess college sports is about to be in, well I have a bridge to sell you.
I guess I’m actually one of the few thatdid want to preserve those relationships because that shared history as a conference meant something to me and others out west. Same with the Rose Bowl and it’s place in the history of college football.
Developing legit rivalries with Michigan and Ohio State also assumes that we’re not a doormat in next 5 years and that the B1G doesn’t have more to gain from having greater access to the SoCal talent pipeline, which means we may lose out even more. If Oregon, Washington and Notre Dame join that may hurt us further even with the added resources.
Also, this doesn’t just have implications for football. Basketball will be shifted seismically across D1, and probably destroy what little relevancy FCS and non-football schools have left. You may not care, but the sport will be worse with all of these smaller programs being cast by the wayside and getting even less exposure than they do already.
You can think what you want and call me a fool, but those elements of college sports — tradition, cultural ties, the chance for smaller schools to have a chance to build their brand — that to me was worth saving.
Instead, The NCAA’s ineptitude and the networks’ greed left us with this mess.
Please explain how ESPN has a monopoly over the CFP? They BOUGHT the rights. That is not a monopoly. They exert ZERO monopoly power whatsoever. There is nothing wrong at all with the best of the best wanting to play with the best of the best. What was the big 12 offering Texas? Games with Baylor and Ok St? College football is going to be a lot more exciting now. No more will we have a good team from a weak conference wondering if their 12-1 record is legit because nobody else was good in their conference. You win the SEC or Big 10 or even finish 2nd or 3rd and you are GOOD. And what is great about these super conferences, is there is ZERO CHANCE IN HELL that the CFP is going to even entertain allowing a mid major into the CFP.
You kinda bodied this dweeb
Thanks bud. If GSOM/DNHQ has taught me anything it’s to come correct and come with receipts.
Now that you’re here, what do you think about all this?
For me, YES.
I would 1000% keep regional rivalries than take the big fat paycheck. Clearly, that is not how our AD thinks about things. But some of us here value the tradition and the history of the Pac-12 and don't want to move to another conference / time zone / etc just for the $$$$$.
And I agree with E2148, what makes you think we will develop a rivalry with Michigan and OSU? We have no shared history with them, so they will probably just treat us as another general member of the Big Ten.
UCLA/Stanford is a regional rivalry? I guess? Same state i suppose. Face it, the Pac 12 history sucks. Most schools barely have an athletic history to speak for. Outside of USC and Oregon, who really has a storied football program. Outside of Arizona and UCLA, who really has a storied basketball program?
Just off the top of my head Cal and Pete Newell. Washington football can claim 2 championships. Some people also care about the Olympic sports. Thanks for proving your youth!
Another thing is some of us actually like for our home grown athletes’ families to be able to go to the majority of the games. This move makes that much more of an endeavor and cost.
I have to give UCLA credit for joining a substantially more competitive league!! What is to be seen is where both teams will land in their divisions. Could UCLA compete in the Big10 East Division? If the Big10 puts USC in the East Division, it would make that division clearly too talent heavy with Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State and Ohio State already there. So most likely USC goes to the West to kind of balance things out. Where would UCLA land? Exciting times coming for sure in 2024!! :)
I assume ucla and USC would both go to the West and they would just move a different team over to the East. I don't see why they would split us up, or put one of the LA teams in the East.
It would make sense to move Purdue to the East, but also important to note the Big Ten is moving to drop divisions in the near future, so it's all moot.
wouldn't surprise me if they go back on that if they add 2 or 4 more schools.
I agree. They would have to move a team to the East to make room for both teams from Los Angeles to stay together.
Also, fuck ESPN, fuck Fox, and fuck the CFP.
You said this much better, also.
As a brief "Yay, me!" moment, I'll copy a paragraph from an article I wrote here on TMB last year:
"Expansion will happen. Physics and money dictate it. But if the Pac-12 sits by, it will become a smaller and less powerful player in the arms race that is college football and risk getting our existing schools poached by bigger and more powerful conferences in the future. But since circumstances allows us a chance to direct the outcome, it’s critical that the Pac-12 be the driving force that brings its selected Universities into its orbit."
https://www.themightybruin.com/p/the-physics-of-college-football-expansion
I actually wrote that article a couple years earlier but it got lost amongst other issues at the time, and then the OU and Texas to the SEC rumors got hot and I updated it and published it. Sadly, if this idea occurred to a schmo like me 3 years ago, it should have occurred to professional athletic conference leaders long before that. But instead we had guys like Larry Scott and Dan Guerrero sitting around collecting checks and dust, and so today, as if Thanos just snapped his fingers, we watch the Pac12 itself turn to dust.
The Pac 12 network has been always terrible. I can never get in on Direct TV. Maybe UCLA will also be on a better TV network so we all have access.
I just hope that UCLA gets better at sports rather than worse like Nebraska. Nebraska made the switch because they get a ton more money.