You guys ever spend a summer in Corvallis? I spent two summers in Eugene, whoa... What a completely different experience. It's how I ended up meeting and working on Ken Kesey's ranch.
Not Corvallis but spent some time in Pullman during the summer and if you hated the small town vibe of a city with 30k people and 25k of them being students, you'd loathe it when 20k of those students took off. For us it was a great time, cooking out in the hot weather, parties on the weekends with the few friends in town or going to the Dunes.
Beavers shifted to building the Pac12 because the Big12 didn't want them. It's like saying in the 90s my preference to date Cindy Crawford shifted to other girls.
Do you really think the Beavs had an option to join the Big12? Just look at a map. It was never a possibility. Or look at TV market size, booster $, etc. Only conference that had any rumors was AAC. The diminished Pac is better. Beavs AD and others might have done shit jobs during all of this. But regardless of who those leaders was this was basically unavoidable. Beavs just don't have the market appeal, $, or location of the other programs. Maybe Beavs/Cougs could have given up more for Stan/Cal to stay. That was probably a long shot. Or maybe they could have better lead the conferences year before the LA schools left. But this Big12 idea wasn't ever a possibility.
Sure, the Ducks have the bandwagon fans at this time in the Portland area, but Portland also has fans of other universities. And I would bet that more Oregonians have gone to OSU over the past 30 years than Oregon. Oregon seems to draw more students from other states. They benefit from the out-of-state tuition. The fan base at games in California is substantial because the ex-students are from there. Hell, there was a sports bar in NYC last Saturday that was packed 3 stories high with Duck fans. But the hatred for the Ducks is more evident whenever I visit Portland than it is living in LA. And the USC fans hate Oregon with a passion.
Maybe Oregon draws from some states, but I've met so many people from Alaska that went to OSU it is crazy.
My favorite memory is sharing a joint with Ken Kesey at his fellow Merry Pranksters' home (Ken Babbs) in Pleasant Hill, while watching an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A lot of fond memories of my time on the farm with those guys and their friends. Including Huey Lewis whom I spent an hour talking about SF Giants baseball.
So you dont even live here in Portland... yet you are telling those of us that do and see far more people wearing Duck gear than any other school... that the Ducks arent the most popular school in Portland right now?
Oregon and Oregon State are different schools. Oregon majors are Business and Journalism or Psychology. Oregon State has the big four land sea air space grant and engineering plus forest and agricultural Huge difference in the way the schools are attended.
Yeah that’s just not the way I see it at all and I’ve lived and worked here most of my life. Oregon also has the extension in Portland right at PSU. I went to OSU so I pay attention. It’s about 4 to 1 Ducks to Beavers but a bunch of us Beaver fans pull for Oregon outside of when they play each other. I certainly do.
Fun fact, I've worked with Oregon business grads and it could just be the people, but I find Oregon State and Portland State business grads to generally be better.
your logic is the one that doesn't make much sense; sorry. WSU is not the Seattle market. Washington is; plus the Seahwks and Mariners; & Kraken. It's 280 miles from Pullman to Seattle. Eugene is as close to Seattle as Pullman is it's a little more persuasive to give OSU some credit for the Portland market but Oregon is more dominant in that market; so are the Blazers and if you actually look at the numbers for TV ratings in 2023, almost always when OSU/WSU got decent ratings it's when they played a major P5 team. OSU 'drew' 1.4M when they played UCLA; 1.3M when they played Utah; and 418K when they played San Diego St. Same dynamic was generally there for WSU. A variable was time slot https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/2023-season/ I'm not going spend much time arguing with you about this. The current situation has already settled that argument. It's obvious that the conference(s) and media believed OSU/WSU brought insufficient cache, market leverage, and branding recognition to the negotiating table. It may be that IF either/both schools were in the Big-12 they might outdraw UCF or West Virginia. But those schools were already in the Big-12 and weren't going to get booted in favor of the beavs/cougs. now, without knowing exactly what the terms of the Big-12's Pro-Rata deal with it's media partners is, we can't know for certain if it was media rejecting OSU/WSU or the Conference itself; or both. Doesn't really matter; but certainly, if it was all on the conference, the geography and logistics of traveling to Corvallis and Pullman were very likely a major consideration
