Pac 12... 11... 10... 9... 8... 7...6...5...4... POOF!

yeah, if you've paid attention, there have been about 4 major pivot points for the PAC, and the PAC managed to fuck every one of the pivots up

* Texas and Oklahoma (along with OK.State and Texas Tech) were willing to join the Pac-12. The catch was that Texas wanted to continue running it's private Longhorn TV network. But they were willing to participate in an even split of all other revenue. The Pac-12 refused to make the exception for Texas and the merger died

* when the PAC negotiated it's 12 year media deal in 2012, Larry Scott convinced the Pac-12 presidents to allow him to form and independent Pac-12 network instead of partnering with ESPN (as the SEC does) or FOX (as the Big-10 does). Scott convinced the presidents that the PAC-12 network would be a major source of revenue...but it was an albatross instead. Not having a major media partner went a long ways in leaving the PAC-12 with no avenue for a linear TV contract in their failed negotiations for a new media deal, and that was what killed the deal a couple of months ago

* when Texas and Oklahoma announced they were going to the SEC, the remaining Big-12 teams were desperate and several asked to join the Pac-12. Now, this is when USC went ultra-sleazy and led the charge to say no when they were already secretly hoping to migrate to the BIG. USC's president was primarily responsible for the Pac-12 voting no to expansion. IIRC the vote was 8-4 against. I'm told the UofO voted yes

* and as you mentioned, the greed and stupidity of turning down 30-35M/year from ESPN was the next to last nail in the coffin

greed? hubris? stupidity?...all that and more

 

Kicked our ass, after trying to throw us a lifeline and being turned down.

So stupid.

 

Thats right! Thats arrogance big time.

 

I never thought that I would live to see the day when the Pac 12 became the Pathetic 2. One good thing is that OSU has a pretty good chance of winning the conference championship against WSU every year.

 

this is for the college football historians and sports trivia guys:

 

Mountain West made pitches to Oregon State, Washington State...yippy!!

 

It's crazy how virtually nobody likes these realignments... Everyone would prefer the PAC 12 stay the way it was... Yet here we are...

Didn't watch Oregon's opening game for the first time in years.

 

Yeah I think this might end up being a big loss for all the schools, even USC and Oregon which made it to the best conference might look back in 5-10 years and hate the change.

In theory might think the Pac12 could reform but with all the schools having such different expiring dates for TV deals that might be near impossible.

 

So pathetic but sadly doesn't seem like any other option.

I wonder if somehow OSU WSU can keep using the Pac brand and get those teams to merge maybe they can get a bit higher slice of future TV revenue or something. MWC just has a tiny pie to split up.

 

...well, the Pac12 is changing their logo to this so it could work!

 

I was in favor of the Pac staying intact but understand why OR/WA left when no acceptable path for a media pkg was reached. These recent changes with alignment are just he beginning and things will change again for more teams in 5-10 years.

 

While the break-up is unfortunate, money mistakes made it so. OSU is the only other team I truly give a crap about.

I won’t miss going to Tucson to watch the Ducks … and am glad to be rid of Stanford and Cal’s golf clapping.
I liked WSU and Utah playing with grit. And don’t care about about Colorado or ASU.

One final year. Might as well win it.

 

with the AAC seemingly only interested in adding Army, and none of those teams interested in adding a couple of schools 2 time zones away, it does look like the MWC is the only option

OSU/WSU have been pushing for a 'reverse merger' with the MWC because they want to have a 2-way split of current & future PAC revenue. Mainly they are looking at March Madness money because of the strange formula for distribution.

(IIRC the networks pay each conference $340,000 for each tournament game played by a conference team. The distributions are pooled into a 6-year cycle. I'm not sure, but I think the total number of appearances pooled and divided by 6 years, and the average is then distributed to the 12 teams. It's just about guaranteed to be a complex formula though. For instance, this year, 2018 is still in the pool. But is 2018's total revenue calculated as 100% or is it now 1/6th of the total? Last year, the Pac's record in the tournament was 3-4; but in 2021 it was 13-5. Those two years show 25 appearances by the PAC; 25 X 340K = 8.5M. If those two years are representative, then OSU/WSU could be looking at a 5 year distribution pool, starting in 2024, that has 20M+/- in it. When they will be looking at a media deal that pays them around 4-5M/year (the MWC current deal), an additional 2-3M year is significant)

so, OSU/WSU are very interested in keeping the PAC alive. At least they are at this point. Some of the stuff I've read suggests the PAC's assets, current & future, are significantly less than rumored; and the liabilities are significantly more. So the revenues Beavs and Cougs are hoping for may be quite a bit less than the dream

and obviously, the MWC teams would have to vote to disband the conference and jump to the PAC....which will not have any media deal in place. Meanwhile, the MWC's media deal has 3 years left. Further, the MWC deal has a significant linear TV component. The PAC was not able to secure any linear TV component when it had Oregon/Washingon and the TV markets of Portland/Seattle/SLC/Denver/Phoenix. The MWC teams would have to make a leap of faith that somehow, joining OSU/WSU in a reformatted PAC would be a good idea. That's a real stretch at this point. And the reformatted PAC wouldn't be able to just take the best teams from the MWC because in order to disband, there would have to be 9 of the 12 MWC teams voting yes. It would probably have to be all 12 teams, leaving their current media deal behind, and joining the PAC on spec and essentially a lot of blind faith that media would do right by the PAC....HA!

it could happen I guess, but at this point it looks like OSU/WSU's dream of keeping the PAC alive is a real longshot. And so is hoping for an uneven split of media revenue because all indications are that media doesn't value those two schools more than they value Boise State or San Diego State or Wyoming
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I agree that these are sad days for tradition. When I went to the UofO they were in the PAC-8. Even then, the PAC had won more NCAA championships than any other conference. And the competition among the conference members was intense, most times. But times change. The UofO used to get 15,000 people in Hayward Field for a dual track meets between Oregon and UCLA. Dual meets don't exist anymore. Oregon had a baseball team, then they spent 3 decades with no baseball team; now they have a baseball team again. And they will have to gauge how viable it is to keep a baseball team around with a travel budget that has doubled being in the BIG

OSU, the school, and the fans, have already strongly signaled they have no interest in continuing the Civil War in football/basketball. And I think the UofO, after initially saying they wanted to keep the rivalry alive has realized how difficult it will be and how little sense it makes for them to have an annual home-and-home trap game against a MWC-level school. It's just not logical

but here's the thing: the NCAA was living in a fool's paradise. They spent 70 years operating as if they had an anti-trust exemption when they didn't. They were just incredibly fortunate that no major legal challenges to the hollow system they erected had migrated thru the courts. But those challenges have migrated now. They can't put the genies of re-alignment, NIL, and the transfer portal back in the bottles. SCOTUS has strongly signaled they are ready and willing to gut what little authority the NCAA is still clinging to

it's a brave new world...the rich get richer; poor get poorer. Money doesn't talk, it swears, and that profanity is extremely loud right now

 

If OSU & WSU merged with MW or Reversed Merge with Pac, they would have an easier path to make the 12 team playoffs, stay regional and be competitive year in, year out.

 

I think eventually the pac 12 will return years from now

 

Maybe as a division in a nationwide conference of the top 100 teams or something...

 

Not sure how they will survive the next 5 years with such a tank in revenue and signing up for a stadium expansion / coach. They might have to gut all staff throughout the athletic department. Going to be a mess.

You might be right, I guess thats best case for the Beavs. They'd have to go undefeated though and probably win a big time out of conference matchup but yeah its probably more likely than not making a rose bowl since the 60's.

One problem is within 5-10 years the Beavs will have had so much less revenue and possibly less recruits being in the MWC so they might not have the talent they have this year or have had the last couple decades.

 

Even if the AAC was interested in the Beavers is that really a better situation than the MWC? I don't see one big football program and would think they're revenue isn't that much if any better. MWC has some schools that have had a big BCS bowl season. At least the MWC has a regional benefit none of the ACC/AAC/Big10/Big12/etc have.