Jon Joseph

This is what the ACC said to Maryland when the Terps went to the B1G. Maryland litigated and ended up paying about half of the contractual exit fee. This is all just gamesmanship in the game of CFB realignment musical chairs.

The college football playoff brings in and pays out a boat load of money and the boat is about to dramatically expand with the field going to 12 teams and possibly 16 teams come 2026.boatload Come 2026, far more media entities will be bidding for broadcast rights in addition to ESPN, today's sole CFB playoff media provider.

I do not disagree but like everything, the decision for each school will come down to economics. How much of a media haircut will Oregon be willing to take compared to say Rutgers and Northwestern to move to the B1G? Of course, this assumes that Oregon will have a decent alternative. The B12 does not have a printing press. I do not see any 4 Corners school if there is an alternative, agreeing to take a lesser cut than BYU. I don't believe any Pac-10 school wants to travel to West Virginia and Orlando, Florida. What could change the entire college sports calculus overnight is if the Sword of Damocles issue in regard to college athletes being employees drops.

Thanks, David. A few thoughts. The Longhorn Network is a bust and will disappear when UT joins the SEC next season. ESPN's LHN will be absorbed by ESPN's SEC network. USC was receiving a bigger piece of the pie before Larry added CU and Utah. 1st on his to-do list should have been GK assuring that SC was happy. (UCLA isn't going anywhere without SC.) SC was dysfunctional under Helton in football and was dealing with more important issues such as trying to overcome an admissions scandal. Carol Folt fixed this problem with the help of the judiciary but there are still leaks in the dam such as not properly vetting the New AD hire. IMO, the LA schools should have been getting a bigger piece of the media pie. I feel the same today with Oregon and UW likely to continue to receive the same media cut as Wazzu. I expect the idea of a one for all, all-for-one media revenue cut will disappear in the next decade. I have seen nothing to date that convinces me that GK, another guy with no ties to college athletics, is a vast improvement over Larry. Closing down the SFO HQ and network relocation was a no-brainer. And as noted above he failed miserably in dealing with the LA schools. Lots of incompetent folks are still on the Pac-12 payroll. For the conference to retain the California football scheduling model in 2023 was a stab in the back to the loyal Pac-10 schools. And to give SC the week off prior to the conference champ game is absolutely absurd. More importantly, how could the man and the conference be so out to the media lunch that it allowed the B12 to do a deal ahead of it? As much as SC stabbed the Pac-12 in the back there were others holding knives, FOX, and a lying B1G commissioner in Kevin (now gone) Warren. Warren left the new B1G commissioner with a $5M (and counting?) hit to the projected $70M per team annual distribution from the new media deal. Warren also promised NBC the B1G football champ game media rights, something he had no right doing. Additionally, the role of NBC's streaming affiliate, Peacock with its 20M subscriber base, was not detailed. SC also piled on by leading the charge to prevent expansion into the Central time zone and killing off a P5 competitor and thus a competitor for media rights. Academic bona fides is an anchor back to the past in today's media cutthroat world on CFB business. Kansas for CBB moves the needle but overall as a media market, Kansas is irrelevant. The big brands left on the board besides Oregon and UW are Notre Dame, immersed in the ACC but for football, and other schools in the ACC including UVA, UNC, Clemson, FSU, and Miami. The ACC is far more simpatico for the Pac-10 than are B12 teams the Pac could have had and passed on. There is a way in which the two conferences can merge and restrict travel. But my guess is that CFB is too parochial to consider the logical business fit. BTW, Georgia Tech and the Atlanta market are farther west than Detroit, Michigan.) I do not see UCLA returning to the fold. UCLA's athletic department in 2022 finished $34M in the red. I think it is far more likely that FOX/B1G will add additional west coast teams to abate UCLA's and USC's travel issues. The B1G has to have its eye on Cal, Oregon, Stanford, and UW. Schools that can likely be added for a discounted B1G media revenue share. Will the conference survive? Probably for the next 5 to 6 seasons but if a media deal is not concluded before Pac football media days in July all bets are off; especially, if the B12 can entice FOX, CBS, and/or NBC to come up with the money to grab the 4 Corners schools. And if the conference survives being in the streaming forefront with Apple or Amazon this could give the conference a long-term shot at thriving. Both Apple and Amazon have far more inroads into households than does Peacock and a big tech company is not going to agree to stream college athletics and then not market the product. Thanks again, great article.

Thanks for the heads up! I knew ASU had made AAU status. I thought that ND and Miami were too small to do so. I stand corrected, USF? As in the University of South Florida? I thought there were 2 qualifications for admittance at USF: Heart beating; check clears.

Good call, John. But only CFB and Men's CBB pay the big money.

Both UNC and UVA are AAU member schools which matters to the B1G presidents. (Duke, Georgia Tech, and Pitt are the other ACC member schools.) Clemson and FSU are not AAU member schools. And Miami, also not an AAU member, is a relatively small private school in a media market smaller than the Orlando market, without its own on-campus stadium and with a brand that puts the tarn in tarnished. I think if the B1G decides to add teams from the East that UNC, UVA, Duke, and Georgia Tech will get invites. I think the B1G would love to stick it to the SEC by having a member school in Atlanta.

Nix folks walked the walk with the adoption of Tez Johnson. Actions always speak louder than words.

Happy to see AD Barnes is health-wise back on track. IMO, an uneven split should apply to both the CFB playoff and the CBB tournament.

What a great ambassador for Oregon. Humble and articulate in all of his post-win interviews. In the post-win press conference, he went out of his way to thank Casey Martin for getting him mentally back on track and getting his golf game back on track.

Show Me the Money! U.S. Open win helped Wyndham Clark land historic payday WWW.YARDBARKER.COM Wyndham Clark posted an unprecedented win at the 123rd U.S. Open Championship at Los Angeles Country Club. However...

Wyndham has $3,6M reasons to be happy today, The last time the Open was played in LA in 1948, the champion won $10,000.00😂 Plus, he's in the US Open field for the next decade and in all of the major tournament fields for the next 3 years. OT - Christian McCaffery was a high school classmate of Wyndham's in Denver and they are very good friends.

Elevate? SDSU played for the CBB title last season and has a winning record in CFB versus the Pac. Love your comments.

HATS OFF to the 1st Duck to win a major!

Over the last decade, SDSU has had a very good CFB record against Pac-10 opponents and with UCLA and SC leaving town will be at the top of the conference in CBB. SMU? Kind of off the west coast radar. Has been OK in the AAC in CFB. Has been up and down nationally in CBB.

Man, I'm glad Rivals wasn't one of my college profs! What do you have to do to get the 4th star? Be offered by the Chiefs?

Actually, I hope UW is the 2nd Pac team to make the expanded playoff every year behind conference champ Oregon. We need the dues!

Conference reshuffling is fun. But I expect no P5 expansion anytime within the next 5 years (I am probably wrong here) other than the Pac-10 adding SDSU and SMU. I think the below would make sense and would prevent CFB from going to 2, 20 to 24-team conferences and officially becoming NFL-Lite. (This could happen regardless if players are found to be employees.) The Atlantic and Pacific Conference (A+P if the name is available if not the Coast-To-Coast Conference) would be a solid #3 in a CFB world of Power 4 conferences and would be far stronger in every metric than the B12. Pacific Division - Pod partners would play every season. 10 conference CFB games with 8 intra-division and 2 cross-division. CFB and CBB would be contested cross-division. All other sports would be contested intra-division with cross-division post-regular-season tournaments for CBB, baseball, softball, golf, tennis, etc., and cross-division dual meets in track, etc. (10 games would allow Notre Dame, see below, to continue to play USC and Navy every season and Stanford could be designated as a permanent Irish cross-division opponent.) North - Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State South - Cal, SDSU, Stanford, Utah East - Arizona, ASU, CU, SMU Atlantic Division - With the number of ACC teams in this division the ACC would be eliminated and the onerous media deal that runs through 2036 would disappear. ACC schools would 'leave' the ACC with no exit fee issues. Hopefully, ESPN and other third-party broadcasters such as NBC would come with the money and the ACC network would expand to cover the A+P Conference. Notre Dame would have a difficult choice. Notre Dame's scheduling deal with the ACC would go away and ND would have to choose between the A+P and the B1G. In order to incent ND to play football and all other sports in the A+P, the A+P would allow ND to keep its NBC deal and receive a 90% A+P media share. Syracuse is in if ND is not. South - FSU, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami East - Duke, North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest North - Clemson, Notre Dame (Syracuse,) Virginia, Virginia Tech Size goes to size in business and we will see further CFB expansion, contraction, and perhaps a move to Ivy/D3 for a number of programs.

Both Clark and Fowler hung in there today on a course playing much more difficult with the June Gloom having disappeared. Scheffler made a nice late run to get into contention. Should be a great battle today. I have the feeling that someone could be the clubhouse leader out of the 5 or 6 last groups and hang on for the win. Go Clarkie! This would be a like-altering win in front of fellow Duck and announcer Petter 'Jake' Jacobsen. Clark would be the 1st Duck to win the US Open and I don't believe that any Oregon golfer has won one of the Majors.

ansided.com/2023/06/17/big-ten-sec-rumors-north-carolina-virginia/?utm_campaign=FanSided+Daily&utm_source=FanSided+Daily&utm_medium=email&sc=c7d8647c6247db8d08c59fe44bc30380a147aa90b9e3309

Unless the media deal is a complete bust, CU, Arizona, and all of the other Pac-10 schools are going nowhere. Even if the two you mentioned decided to leave where will the B12 get the money? ESPN/FOX are not blindly committed to funding the addition of more B12 inventory. Streaming via Apple or Amazon will be far better than having games on Peacock, a network with 13M subscribers. The Pac will come with a media deal at least equal to the B12 media deal or close enough not to justify a lateral move to another 'Power 3' conference. Blind loyalty to the Pac has nothing to do with a decision to stay in the Pac. That's a decision that will be based wholly on economics. And you cannot move without an invite and money behind the invite. As to the 2 LA schools making a 'sound financial move' that remains to be seen especially for UCLA. The prospects of even 1 LA school in the expanded playoff in 2024 are not all that great. I do not see SC, especially with Williams gone and UCLA football as superior to Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State football. And good luck to the CBB teams, let alone non-revenue teams, having to travel two time zones plus for every away game. The deal has already seen a $5M haircut and no one told the LA schools that a number of their home games will be broadcast on Peacock with its small 20M customer base. Hang in there. The media deal will get done before Pac-12 Football Media Day in early July in Las Vegas. Be careful what you wish for.

How about a merger with the ACC sans BC and Syracuse with a Pacific Division and an Atlantic division? ESPN media deal that runs through 2036 goes away with The 'Atlantic-Pacific Conference' able to negotiate a new deal and with the ACC network expanding to cover the new conference. CFB and CBB played cross-division. All other sports would be focused intra-division to cut down on travel costs. Combined champ tournaments for baseball, softball, golf, etc. This would be a solid 'bronze medal conference' that would leave the B12 in the dust and keep Oregon, UW, UNC, Clemson, and FSU 'at home.' With a 12-team playoff format which I think will go to 16 in 2026, 10 conference football games would likely provide a strong enough SOS to ease up OOC. Perhaps 6 CFB games intra-division and 4 cross-division? I love your thoughts but why not the whole enchilada?

The gripe I have is Kevin Warren lying to GK and ACC commissioner, Jim Phillips. And I also harbor a grudge against USC and Carol Folt for leading the charge not to expand into the Central time zone and wipe out the B12. (Was she already playing footsie with Warren, the B1G, and FOX?) UCLA is going nowhere without SC and SC at the very least could have tried to score a better Pac revenue share before pulling the rug out from under the conference.

The MW doesn't have the leverage to play softball let alone hardball. MW is making the savvy business move to protect its own interests.

SDSU already has a behind-the-scenes invite to the Pac-10. It once gave notice to the MW that it was leaving for the Big East, reversed course, and was welcomed back as would be the case this time around if SDSU decided to stay in the MW. Not to give notice would be a $17M dollar mistake. Giving notice that it will likely be giving notice is the 'gentleman's' approach regarding giving its fellow MW members a heads-up. Something that we rarely see in this day and age of college sports back-stabbing.