Conference Expansion

I’ve seen some of those videos and I’m not sure where they’re getting their info. When the shoe dropped last year with UT and OU, they said SC was leaving for the BIG. SC’s president said no way, she likes the PAC. Anyone who says if they’re taking two teams and one of them isn’t UCLA, clearly has no f**king clue about anything. I wouldn’t pay it any mind.

If SC isn’t happy about revenue, each PAC school will have to give up something like $1m per year and SC will be on par with the BIG. My guess is SC will take this route and throw their weight around to get a bigger cut of the pie.

As fans we look at this from purely a sports perspective. In the PAC-12, academics is the driving force behind virtually everything. Academically USC is a perfect fit. They have HUGE endowment. $10M a year in football media revenue isn’t a big deal to them. The prestige and recognition is what matters most. They are the biggest fish in the western pond. Why would they leave a conference they have historically dominated? Their path to “glory” is so much easier through the PAC-12 than anywhere else. The parity in the conference has been really fun for fans but has killed the conference nationally because nobody emerges from the season unscathed. SC will always have the talent. What has destroyed them for the past decade or so is the culture. The culture is toxic. Could you imagine what you could do with the athletes at SC and the work culture of Whitt? USC has had superior talent at virtually every position but haven’t been able to get out of their own way. If Riley can figure out the culture they will be a force nationally. They are doing their best to buy winning team and they have the athletes.

I still don’t understand why UT and OU left the Big XII. Now they have to go through Bama, Georgia, LSU, A&M, Auburn, and/or Florida (all blue chip programs) to get to the CFP. Before this they just had to beat each other and handle whatever other Big XII was having a good year to be in the running. OU has been to the CFP 4 times in the last 7 years. How many times will they go in the first 7 years in the SEC? Do you think they can match it? I don’t think they have a chance. UT is a dumpster fire and Sark isn’t going to fix it.

I’m not the least bit worried about USC leaving. I think there is a higher likelihood of the Big X and the Pac-12 merging to combat the SEC.

The only scenario I hate is the Super League of the top 18-20 biggest programs in the nation telling the NCAA to suck it. They band together to create a football only league with all the backing of ESPN.

I’d pick C or D.

Curious why they’re only speculating USC + Washington. I would be extremely surprised if USC did that. IMO, what’s more likely is USC + all the California schools. I’m sure the BIG would love to have all those prestigious universities join + U$C football. USC likes this b/c tOSU. Berkeley, Stanford, and UCLA like this b/c Michigan and Northwestern academics. And it may also entice Notre Dame, which would honestly make it a pretty awesome conference.

In this situation, I bet you’d see the remaining Pac teams merge with the remaining Big 12 team.

USC’s easiest path to the playoff is in the P12.

The school’s boosters and leadership prefer the P12.

They won’t leave UCLA behind.

They could demand unequal revenue sharing at the next round of TV deal negotiations, and could ask for an amount that would be equal to B1G schools, thus negating their primary reason for wanting to leave.

I would be very, very surprised if USC ever leaves the P12.

USC likely isn’t leaving to the Big 10 for reasons already mentioned (academics/endowment revenue is well above football revenue, geography, playoff access, etc), but I’d they do, they’d need more than just Washington as a western team.

Concern would be if USC, Oregon, Washington and someone else (probably UCLA) went as a package deal to the Big 10, giving them a western branch.

In that case, the hope would have to be that Utah is also included in that expansion (either because Big 10 wants to remain contiguous and takes Colorado and Utah) or because Utah is on a relative high at that point

I choose E-other. I think you are forgetting that in the year 2023 Earth is colonized by the inhabitants of a planet belonging to one of our Heavenly Uncles. The populace will be enslaved and the only “sport” we watch will be the torture activities of our new overlords as we cower in the corners of our cages.

The Pac12 schools make more money doing research on projects together than with athletics. USC makes over a billion dollars on research projects. Why would they leave?

Wild guess (being somewhat facetious), the next conference alignment is decided by money, seems to be already heading that way. The top 20 or so most financially powerful teams (schools only by name) backed by boosters/whoever wants to pay with their bag of money and ego tied to their teams football success create their own gated football conference determined by an agreed credit score of sorts. Top schools in this group haggle and pay open market value for the best players in H.S or developing at other institutions through the transfer portal. Players go to the highest bidding team as they choose, much like what’s going on now. The financially elite teams collude and set a high cap and invite any teams rich enough to join the party. For example, MIT, a new business start up with deep pocket alumni, meet the criteria, build a stadium and start shelling out cash for coaches and players. X amount of funds from each teams money bag, endorsements, and media corp ESPN, FOC etc, fund the conference management/administration, similar to what the NCAA has failed to do.

The second tier, middle class conference where Utah likely lands, creates some sort of structured collective paying the next level of players left out of tier one group, agree to a cap they can all afford. Third level is current scholarship model where the kids go to school to get a degree in 4-5 years, graduate and pursue a career outside of playing football.

Of course the transfer portal will flow as it does giving developing players later in their college career like a number of Utah kids the opportunity to transfer to a tier one school, get a huge pay day than go off to the NFL or pursue other interests with a couple mil in their pocket.

Nothing but arm chair, off season ramble here, truly no one knows how this all plays out. No problem with the players getting paid, coaches, institutions, and administrators have been profiting from these kids for 40+ years. It will be entertaining to see how USC and others manage a handful of 18 y/o kids walking around campus with a million dollars in their pocket pretending to go to class. Going to sit back and enjoy this coming year of Utah football. Go Utes!

USC already has a path to more money, win the conference championship and go to the playoffs. A new conference will not help them win games, it may make it harder. What USC needs and the fans want is to win the conference much more often. IF they did that they would see the playoffs more often than other Pac champs and all the problems are solved. Likely the football cycles will see them have more success now than they have had the last 10 years and it will be good for the conference as a whole.