Jon Joseph

https://athlonsports.com/college-football/multiple-schools-have-applied-to-join-pac-12-following-colorados-move-to-big-12

The ACC/Pac merger makes the most sense IMO for Oregon at this time. Lawyers loop the holes and this could be construed as a break up of the ACC which means the existing media deal with ESPN that runs through 2036 goes away. The ACC base deal stinks; however, the ACC due to ACC Network revenue distribution, delivered $40M to each member school in 2022. More than the B12 and the Pac-12 distributed. Call the combined conference what you will, Coast-to-Coast or otherwise, Oregon would get a viewing bump by being folded into what is today's ACC network owned and operated by ESPN and available on all major cable channels including DirecTV. Oregon would be a far bigger presence in the ACC than in the B1G. A full partner instead of a partner junior to Rutgers and Northwestern. I'd prefer to be a bigger Duck in a smaller pond than be behind Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Iowa, Wisconsin, and UCLA in terms of having influence in the B1G. Oregon's viewer numbers are better than any ACC team other than Clemson. UW and Utah are right there with FSU. These would be the national rankings based on 2022 football viewership 6. Notre Dame - this would be the prize and could happen with ND getting a favored nation deal and the existing ACC football scheduling agreement with ND going away. 10. Clemson/ 12. Oregon/ 15. FSU/ 33. Utah/ 34. UW/ 41. Washington State/ 43. NC St/ 45. Cal/ 46. UNC/ 47. Stanford/ 48. Syracuse/ 49. Georgia Tech/ 56. Pitt/ 57. Oregon State/ 59. Miami/ 60. Wake/ 61. Arizona/ 62. Louisville/ 68. BC/ 70. ASU/ 75. VA Tech/ 78. UVA/ 93. Duke. This would be a merger of equals with 4 Pac teams, excluding ND, being in the top 6 most watched. Oregon would have a great deal of influence in this scenario. And the numbers for CBB would be far better than the Pac-9 viewer numbers. Travel would be abated by going with divisions or with pod scheduling. I think that in the long run, this would be far better than following the B12 and adding a patchwork of G5 teams. This would drop more money to the bottom line today and this conference would clearly come in #3 in a Power 4. The ACC has already agreed that teams making the CFB and CBB playoffs will receive a bigger piece of the pie. Certainly, Oregon has more in common with ACC schools than it does with B12 schools. I wouldn't simply ignore this possibility for realignment.

Oregon - 2024 - at Hawaii - makes sense for recruiting Pacific Islanders. 2024 - at Boise State/ 2028 - at Utah State. SENSELESS. You need to do a 2 for one to get Alabama once in Autzen I get it. But to play at Boise and Utah St so you can get MW teams in Autzen twice makes IMO, no sense. Where is the financial and on-the-field benefit of this kind of scheduling? Too late to dump Texas Tech but not too late to dump Baylor and Ok St. Why give any additional pub to the B12 and basically play no-win games? Why give Fox an upgrade in B12 inventory? Games you are expected to win and are dissed nationally if you take the L. I saw no reason to schedule these teams, to begin with. What kind of tradition does OR have playing B12 schools? Other than Rob following the TX Tech AD as chair of the football playoff committee. With the PO going to 12 teams in 2024 and with the top 6 ranked conference champs in the field, Oregon needs a spotlight OOC game every season. The game 'at' UGA drew 6M+ eyeballs and even with the beat down Oregon, had Bo stayed healthy, had a great chance at the Final 4. A win in Lubbock would not have done more for Oregon than the loss in Atlanta. I don't expect the Pac-8 to smarten up but today, Oregon has to make smart, calculated moves to make an impact nationally and escape the nation's nonchalance when it comes to the northwest. The Oregon brand is strong but it will not sell itself. In many respects, I think Rob and the OR SID are missing in action. Where are the Joey Heisman billboards? And the promotion of basketball, men, and women both, is sorely lacking. With bonuses, Rob makes over $1M a year. No more excuses as to how difficult it is to sell teams on coming to Autzen; especially, when Wisconsin is playing in Pullman, Florida in SLC, and Auburn in Berkeley. Do the darn job!

After CU? I smell smoke from whatever source and I'm looking for fire. All we heard from the Pac-9 emergency meeting was SSDD. I have absolute trust and faith in the Oregon brand and zero trust in GK and the people who hired GK. Forget a patchwork Pac, leave ASAP for a full share in the ACC or a lesser split in the B1G.

Fun thoughts and no B1G deal but New Orleans and Memphis are both in the Central time zone. Makes for easier travel than SC and UCLA will face in the B1G and CU has to trip to West Virginia and Orlando. I'd take UNLV over Fresno. The viewer numbers for #45 most viewed Cal - 857K and #47- Stanford - 846K are not all that bad. Fresno comes in at #79 with 220K viewers And I doubt that the 2 SFO schools would want to compete with Fresno for recruits. UNLV is not a much-watched team but Clark County opens up a new market and back in the day UNLV won an NCAA CBB title. With Allegiant Stadium, new practice facilities for football, and the Thomas + Mack Arena for CBB, UNLV has facilities superior to those of Fresno. UNLV has also won NCAA golf championships and has been very competitive in baseball. SDSU and UNLV would be scheduling partners. UTSA is a hidden gem. San Antonio in football-mad Texas does not, of course, have a pro football team. A great partner for SMU. One of Boise State or Colorado State would appear to be a good potential scheduling partner for Utah. But assuming the Pac stays at 9 without further defections, I'd add SDSU, UNLV, and SMU and stay at a very manageable 12 members. Salt Lake to Dallas is a 989-mile flight distance taking 2 hours and 17 minutes. The flight time from SLC to Seattle is 2 hours and 3 minutes so close to the same travel rigors. But, is adding 3 or more G5 teams really the best long-term approach for Oregon? The NCAA, somewhat unbelievably recognizes a conference of 6 or more schools. 9 schools work through the 2025/26 season and the CFB Playoff and the Pac are contractually bound playoff partners for this and the next 2 seasons. Drop to an 8 game schedule. for 2024/2025 with an eye on joining a more profitable home before 2025. The problem. What media affiliate broadcasts the games in 2024 and 2025? And what would be the cost of buying another regular season game if the conference drops to 8 games? In the long run, I believe that some kind of a merger with the ACC as a full share member makes, but for the geography, the most sense. Oregon would not have to be an ACC junior media revenue partner. And I would be shocked if some kind of back-channel, at least, communication with the B1G is going on today for Oregon to join as a junior partner. Off-the-wall, the SEC adds OK St, 1.68M viewers, Utah, 1.16M viewers, Oregon, 2.210M Viewers, UW, 1.150M viewers, and Arizona and ASU for the Phoenix market. All would join as junior SEC media revenue partners. But why would the SEC do this instead of looking east? Size goes to size in business. Conferences will continue to evolve and devolve. A merger with the ACC, especially if Notre Dame was to join as a most-favored-nation football partner would result in a Power 4 with the ACC/Pac being in a solid third place. I think this is far more favorable than adding a patchwork of G5 schools. Lot's to ponder.

Nice flip from (BOOOOOOO) TCU. Joins 2025 OL recruit Sandman Thompson who could bring Puddles a trophy dream?

As an old ice hockey player who lost a few chicklets to errant pucks, I can say with certainty that Yormack has taken Kliavkoff into the corner and gotten away with a cross-check, an elbow-check, and a high-stick.

Most of the ladies who look like Swifty back in the day choose not to allow me to consummate the pursuit. Then again, I was nowhere near as attractive as is Puddles today. The operator below was more in my league.

Oregon football: Dan Lanning is absolutely deserving of huge extension SATURDAYBLITZ.COM It's the offseason so that just means that college football critics and self-proclaimed experts come from all corners of the map to give...

You need a ticket to watch Taylor Swift and an invitation to relocate.

Oregon needs the Big Ten, but the Big Ten needs Oregon just as badly DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM A perfect outcome for Oregon is a seat at the table next to USC and UCLA. The Big Ten may need to jump on that while they...

How do you write expansion checks when you have no money in the till?

Thanks, Charles, very interesting. It turns out that Yormark made a brilliant move jumping ahead of the Pac-12 after Bob Bowlsby made the astute move to add BYU and 3 of the most valued G5 teams. Even more brilliant was Yormark getting Fox/ESPN on the hook to fund further B12 expansion. With ESPN/Fox committed to come with $31.7M a year per school to fund B12 expansion no wonder these 2 are dragging their feet when it comes to doing a deal for what is now Pac-9 inventory. And as Desmond Howard noted the other day, Pac teams can get divorced today without having to pay alimony. My only disagreement with this article is that Larry's failure to destroy the B12 was not in hindsight close to Carol Folt leading the way to squash the Pac-12's obvious business move which was to add 6 or so B12 orphans and create a P4 without a B12 competing for media rights money. GK did not have the gravitas that a Jim Delany and perhaps even a Bob Bowlsby would have had to overcome the presidents of the 'Elite Club' and put the B12 out of existence. Today, with Fox owning the LA market and ESPN floundering amid cord-cutting and having to come up with its share of $31.7M a year for CU through 2030/31 and on the hook for the add-on of other 3 Four Corners schools, where is the money going to come from for Pac-9 inventory. Oregon finds itself in the middle of the most disruptive media market in the last two decades and without leaders who have the ability to overcome today's terrible media logistics. I find the idea of the Pac-9 gaining more media power the longer it waits as simply more financial nonsense. It galls me to have to say this but Yormark appears to be having the last laugh. Oregon today needs to do what's best for Oregon, period. It stinks that decades-long relationships might have to be flushed away but that's the cold business reality of where SC/UCLA, Fox, the B1G, and the B12, along with incredibly short-sighted decade+-long business stupidity has placed Oregon today. An Oregon that did all it could to raise its own profile and the profile of an entire conference while SC and CU among others, sat on their wallets. The sad question is, what alternatives is Oregon left with? Unfortunately, the alternative may be at least through 2030/31, to join the B12 that should no longer exist. The Oregon brand will lead to a solution but there are likely to be more bumps in the road.

Log, I doubt it. Money matters more than coaching a small market team up. Oregon State has had modest success on the football field but the Corvallis market does not move the financial needle. When the expansion dust finally settles I see Oregon State and Washington State in the Mountain West. The B12 would get no national love whatsoever from bringing on Oregon State.

The idea of CFB needing one true champion when it didn't, the BCS that followed, and greed have 'ruined' college football. Money 2 decades+ ago trumped any semblance of ethics attached to college sports. Oregon happens to be part and parcel of the poorest managed, if managed even applies, conference in the nation. The Pac-9 today is reaping a subsistence crop that clueless 'business people' sowed. Yet, for my money, time, and interest there is still no sport I'd rather watch and follow than college football. But the powers-that-be and do-not- be, are making it harder and harder to care about what happens on the field. GO DUCKS! And Fox, ESPN, et al can go to Hades.

Interesting. But a friend in the B1G Athletic department? No comprende. A friend in 'the' Ohio State athletic department I could understand. The B1G to my knowledge does not have a one size fits all athletic department. But the way the world of CFB is today all of these re-posts have merit. I pooh-pooed what I believed to be unfounded speculation before and I have learned a smoke/fire lesson. As others have noted above, Fox, CBS + NBC/Peacock will make any B1G further expansion decisions. But looking at the B1G and knowing, in particular, USC's history, will the B1G prefer Cal and Stanford over the Northwest schools? I'm sure SC would rather compete (not compete) versus Cal and Stanford instead of Oregon and UW. Other than perhaps for the COVID off-season, this is the worst off-season I can remember. PLEASE kick the darn ball off!

Not just football from an academician's POV. (Do academics mean anything anymore in big-time CFB?) 7 of the Pac-9 schools are AAU member schools. Come 2024, 15 of the 16 schools in the B1G will be AAU member schools. The only outlier is Nebraska which was an AAU member when it joined the B1G and likely would not have been extended an invitation without being an AAU member. The B1G can't defeat, in general, the SEC on the field, court, diamond, track, golf course, etc., so academics matter as a way to claim superiority over the SEC. The SEC will have 5 AAU members out of 16 schools come 2024. Of course, this is the kind of flawed thinking that allows one to make flawed business decisions such as deciding not to put the B12 to sleep. From a personal perspective, I can attest that 2 fellow alums of mine were C students; one formed Subway, and the other formed Netflix. And let's not forget that 2 Harvard dropouts almost took down IBM.

TCU draws 2.2M. OK St 1.7M, Baylor draws 1.3M and K St draws 1.23M. BYU is slightly under 1M at 977K. But from a Pac-9 president's POV, I think the synchronicity with the ACC would be more attractive than with the B12. BTW, I was out and about today and heard Rick Neuheisel, who once was the HC at CU, suggest that Oregon and UW should consider going collectively independent (oxymoron?) for the short term. I think scheduling would be a nightmare but it would be interesting to see what Oregon and UW together bring to the bottom line. How much value do the other Pac-7 schools add to the bottom line? IMO this would not work but media folks are coming forth to suggest new P-9 expansion formats whether sensible or not. Shocking, I know.

Frankly, I'm not certain. But the Pac viewer numbers drop way off after Oregon, Utah, and UW, and decent numbers for Cal and Stanford. I think that Clemson and FSU, in particular, would give the combined conference a decent media push, and UNC and NC St #s along with Miami, are not terrible. And I would think that 'merging' with the ACC would likely result in a good CBB bump.

But any alternative to the existing situation requires vision and leadership from the conference commissioner and the school presidents. Something that from what we have seen since GK came on board does not exist. Good call on LA. Without the LA market, the B1G media deal would be well behind the SEC deal. One of the P3 will finish in 3rd place behind the SEC and B1G and one if it holds together in 5th place. Today, the Pac-9, pending the media deal's #s is in 5th place. Going to a Power 4 with a 'merger' with the ACC would move the combined ACC and Pac into a solid 3rd place. Both Clemson with an average of 3M viewers and FSU with 2.03M viewers move the financial needle along with Oregon, 2.21M, Utah, 1.16M, and UW, 1.15M. Cal comes in at a decent 857K viewers and Stanford draws 846K viewers. Both draw better than the Arizona schools but AZ would be vital for CB and I think Dilly will get the job done at ASU.

How many teams do you envision as members? I think B12 schools are likely off the table until the new media deal expires in 2030/31. If the Pac-9 and the ACC merged in theory the ACC could re-work its existing deal with ESPN. And the ACC network, Coast-to-Coast network could take over the Pac-12 network facilities and broadcast apparatus. The money maker would be to get Notre Dame to buy into conference affiliation for football with the understanding that Notre Dame would get a bigger piece of the pie as would Clemson, FSU, Oregon, and UW.

I like the take but I think Pac presidents are day and night different from their counterparts in the SEC. Had the SEC presidents made the decision to add the B12 orphans expansion into the Central time zone would have been a slam dunk and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey if the commissioner of the Pac would have insisted on adding the B12 schools and would not have bent over for the duplicitous Carol Folt, or later in the day, be sucker punched by Kevin Warren. Long ago SEC presidents figured out that a Rising Tide lifts all boats. Figured out that they are managing a big business when it comes to sports and not a lemonade stand.

ACC commish Jim Phillips says league ‘would absolutely be open’ to expansion SATURDAYROAD.COM ACC commissioner Jim Phillips says the league has spent 'considerable time' discussing the possibility of expansion.

Some prospective. Senseless negotiating by ESPN and Fox to be on the hook to fund B12 expansion but sound negotiating by Yormark. Give the devil his due. . Adding Colorado doesn't fix the Big 12's problem WWW.YARDBARKER.COM The Big 12 keeps getting bigger but not necessarily better. Colorado will join the conference in 2024, following the leaps...

I'm saving a ticket for you while hoping that the train soon departs the station.