Yeah, I was going to say, OSU and WSU have been doing a great job building the conference. I wish they would have done a better job helping to build up the PAC before.
It's too bad that Cal and Stanford decided 30% shares in the ACC would be better than full shares in a rebuilt PAC. Add them back to OSU/WSU and the 4 MWC schools, and you'd have a solid little conference.
You can go through every university in the old Pac12 and create a huge list of mistakes as in your post that they made. Sure if the Beavers didn't make mistakes they would've been better. USC, Cal Berkley, UCLA, Arizona State, etc just can make far more mistakes and still have a lot of success. The Beavers and Cougars don't have those advantages and were always trying to do more with less. They had extremely little margin for error in order to succeed. Yes Phil Knight was not the only reason for Oregon's success - but he was the single biggest reason the last 4 decades. Go back prior to his time and UO/OSU had similar success for more decades prior. Beaver fans shouldn't discount the other things the Ducks did well beyond Knight. Duck fans shouldn't act like Knight and Nike wasn't an instrumental part of their success either. We've seen with the Blazers how "ownership" and other key stakeholders can be a huge positive or huge negative to an organization. The Beavers had many years, probably even most years the last few decades, where they performed better than those Cal Berkley/Arizona State/UCLA/etc schools while having far less resources. So overall I think they had done a good job. Not a perfect job and maybe not a great job but a very good job. The conference ultimately collapsed in a manner nobody expected and OSU always having to do more with less ended up getting left behind.
Yeah I think there could be a chance of it, thats why I just want to see UNLV added and the conference stay at 8 teams at this time. Pac could even offer Stanford/Cal a larger share of the pie than 1/10. Not sure when Stanford/Cal can get out of the conference with fewer penalties? It also sounds like FSU/Clemson and some others are trying to challenge exit fees from the ACC so that could impact this too. Standford has such a large endowment I'm not sure how concerned they are with maximizing football revenue. Seems like the Pac being all west coast with little travel could be a huge selling point if the Pac can somehow get the revenue for them close to ACC revenue even if its less. Stanford/Cal are a big TV draw that it could increase the media rights enough to get the other Pac universities and Pac Presidents to agree to give up a larger share of that pie.
yeah, that could have been a better option...although a guaranteed 8-10M/year probably looked a lot better, at the time, than a speculative share of whatever a hybrid Pac-X/MWC share would be. That's especially true considering that guaranteed money started in August whereas the speculative payout won't start to 2026 obviously, travel costs will be more. But I'd wonder if people are really over-estimating those costs. If you're flying from the Bay area to the east coast, is the travel cost really that much more if the destination is the Carolina's or Florida rather than Colorado or Utah or Pullman? Either way, you still have to pack; get to the departure airport; make the flight; stay at a hotel; eat meals; travel to the venue; play the game; then do all the travel in reverse. It will take a little longer but all that longer time will be on the plane(s). That's a great time to study!!
I'm sure it did--though myopia is a pretty sad excuse for poor decision making. They also would presumably have kept a portion of the Pac12 money that went to OSU/WSU. I don't think there's a way, looking at it holistically, that they come out ahead with their current deal until their ACC share increases in 7 years--and that's only assuming the ACC media money significantly outpaces whatever the PAC is able to cobble together.
if you go back to the 70's and 80's, sure, both programs sucked...and that's being kind. (I'm forever grateful I was in Alaska in 1983 and didn't have to watch the Toilet Bowl) BUT....dollar one of Phil Knight's money didn't kick in (the Moshovsky practice facility) till late in 1998. in the 10 years prior, 1989-1998, Oregon went to 7 bowl games. OSU went to 0. Oregon only had 2 losing seasons out of 10; OSU had 10 losing seasons out of 10. The Ducks had turned their program into a winner a decade before Phil Knight joined the party. That's not meant to discount the impact of PK's money. Just meant to demonstrate that Oregon was well down the path to becoming a top-tier program prior to Knight's involvement. The foundation was already in place in Eugene. Not the case in Corvallis the Beavers didn't have a Phil Knight, but they have just as many wealthy alums as the UofO. But apparently those alums don't care about sports...for the most part another thing the Ducks had going for them that the Beavers didn't: Mike Bellotti. As a long time Duck fan and alum I think Bellotti's impact on Oregon is significantly underrated. He brought stability to the program. Yeah, Rich Brooks elevated Oregon from the toilet to mediocre-->average. But Bellotti only had one losing season out of 14 as HC and that was a 5-6 season. He won 68% of his games; had the first four 10-11 win seasons in school history; and took his teams to 12 bowl games in 14 years. He was the one who decided that Oregon needed to go to the spread offense and brought in Chip Kelley to implement the spread. It was Bellotti and Steve Greatwood who developed the templates Oregon used to create some of the best OLines in the country. Something else: when Bellotti was head coach, Oregon recruited great defenders and almost always had rugged, solid defenses. Too bad Oregon could have combined a Bellotti defense with a Chip offense. They'd have 2 or 3 national championships
And don't forget that the Ducks are the flagship college program for Nike and have been since at least the early 90's and probably even before that.
I'm not sure I'd agree that choosing to be in the ACC with Clemson, FSU, NC. etc. rather than the limbo of OSU/WSU is myopia also, keep in mind that the 30% share is only for the Tier 1 media payout that 30% share only applies to Tier 1 football revenue. IIRC there is tier 2 and tier 3 football revenue. It isn't a lot but it's something those March Madness shares are a significant inducement. This spring, the ACC earned 34M; that was 2.4M per school the estimates are that Cal/Stanford will earn at least 11-12M year for the next 7 years. So, somewhere around 80M thru 2030. I haven't found anywhere how much the CW network is paying OSU/WSU for the broadcast rights this year. My guess is that it probably isn't more that 5M for each school. If the Pac-X gets 10M/year per school starting in 2026, and that may be a high estimate, then thru 2030, that would be around 60M. Some guesswork of course and maybe my guesses are wrong obviously, if the ACC dissolves the equations are discarded ************************************************************** as for the settlement. If you assume the high end of the settlement estimates, it's around 240M. That's 24M from each exiting school. 120M each for OSU/WSU. But if Cal/Stanford 'stayed', it's 8 departing schools and a 190M pool. Split 4 ways that's 47-48M per school. the Pac-2 has already accrued exit fees to the MWC of 115-120M for 4 schools. There rumors today that Utah State will become the 5th MWC team to join. That would elevate the exit fees due the MWC to 140-150M. I think you have to assume that the PAC will add a 6th MWC team....I don't know where else they will turn....so the payout to the MWC will be 170-175M. That just about wipes out that settlement money something else: I'm not going to look it up, but those March Madness contracts with the conferences run thru 2030 or 2031, IIRC. So, any game units the former MWC teams earn until that time won't go to the Pac-X, they will be paid to the MWC. Just like OSU/WSU are collecting game units from the departing Pac-12 schools **************************************************************** the story of the collapse of the Pac-12 are simply chapters of incompetence that scheduling contract the Pac-2 signed with the MWC is just an adding another chapter to the Pac-12 incompetence story. I mean, for chrissakes, OSU/WSU are paying the MWC 170-175M to steal the likes of Colorado St. and Utah St....??!!!
I don’t know why it wouldn’t. People are forgetting that 95% of WSU/OSU teams are playing in the WCC. They will return to the PAC X in 2 years if they can land enough teams.
It doesn't matter. The fact he donated means more money was available for the football program that would have otherwise went to scholastic endeavors.
Yeah if the Pac can get some of the buyout reduced that will certainly help. The MWC should certainly get some sort of compensation though, just maybe not quite as much at the largest figures being reported. Although I'm not sure how much OSU/WSU even care about pocketing any of the pac12 settlement cash. They might just want to do whatever they can to make the conference as good as they can make it going forward.
If the Beavs try to field a competitive e-sports team, well yeah maybe NVidia helps. In regards to Football and athletics - the Nike connection was probably more critical to Ducks success than Phil's cash.
And neither of them means jack shit if you don't have coaches that players want to play for. It always comes down to coaching in college
