Duck Fan 76

Boise St. and Hawaii are non-starters due to academics. SDSU has major research activities and SMU is building theirs up. Colorado St. fits the academic mold and is viable.

That's a great point honestly. As a side point I tend to view USC and UCLA very differently with regards to the move. UCLA really was forced into a bad position due to their debt and the lack of a stadium near their campus. They had to choose between the PAC and keeping a lot of Olympic sports they are great at but don't bring in the $$$. I'm absolutely not happy with UCLA leaving and it should have been an above the board conversation but the secrecy was due to the university PR people requiring them to keep quiet about their debt problem. USC however... didn't have this issue/motivation. I believe USC was a victim of their own delusional BS. They are just lagging Oregon in recruiting, wins, donors and TV viewership... I don't think USC could stomach being little brothered by Oregon anymore. I think they felt they were now too good for the PAC and felt they "belong" in the Big-10 with Michigan and Ohio St. I think that is going to be a real wakeup call for them especially if they can't get to the playoffs in 2023. Maybe they can use the money to really build out but they have a long history of getting in their own way. Ironically the only remaining school in the PAC that can move to either the SEC or Big-10 without being a drag on ratings is Oregon. We're twice the ratings of the next remaining school (Washington). I actually do believe that the Big-10 is interested in continuing to expand but there's only a couple of schools on their list. Their dream add is obviously Notre Dame which is not happening as Notre Dame would take a pay cut to join the Big-10. I think Oregon is #2 on their list but as has been mentioned, nobody wants to destroy the PAC (other than USC). To get Oregon they would probably need to bring along Washington, Cal and Stanford giving them essentially a west coast mini division to keep most of the sports trips on the west coast. From a money point of view the Big-10 after dark games would be a cash cow. The downside to that move is that Cal and Stanford viewership is really in the dumpster. Both schools would have to commit to major football program investments and the Big-10 would have to lower each schools share by a fair bit to build up Cal and Stanford again. There are two reasons I think the Big-10 isn't going to make a move. Reason 1, the Big-10 doesn't currently have a commissioner so the outgoing guy wasn't going to implement that and the interim guy can't. Reason 2, the primary motivation to do it would be to maintain parity with the SEC if they were to grab Clemson and Florida St. The ACC is currently on lockdown for 10 years barring some legal magic so the Big-10 has time to digest its current meal. If FSU should find the legal equivalent of Excalibur then they and Clemson would BOLT for the SEC and the Big-10 would jump on plan-9 from the west coast. Otherwise I expect Oregon, Washington, Stanford and Cal all know this and are telling GK to keep the contract short. That way all four schools have confidence they will be good to go.

Nothing is inherently wrong with the idea, that's how ML Baseball pretty much works. If Oregon pushes the PAC to fair market compensation then certainly the ACC will follow and then everyone else. I'm personally not a fan of going down that road because in general it has the effect of locking in the winners and losers. Not absolutely of course, but the Yankees do seem to win a lot of games. Would you be okay with Oregon taking on corporate sponsors (besides Nike) to build up enough revenue to make a run at the natty? To be fair there's a solid argument that Oregon started this arms race for resources in the first place so we shouldn't be shocked that CFB is heading towards a $$ dominated endeavor. CFB was built on the old model that resources didn't determine W-L records beyond a basic level of investment. With NIL, exposure and coaching salaries driving recruiting it's now an arms race to be in the top-5. Do we work to disarm or try a preemptive strike?

The discussion on expanding to "stabilize" misses the point that it dilutes revenue under a larger group of schools. Probably not something Oregon is good with as the flag bearer. SMU and SDSU are the sweet spot for PAC12 growth via SoCal and Dallas I think. The $31Mil number is possible but it would likely come with some serious baggage. What I mean is to get that number from a combination of media networks we're probably talking about liquidating the PAC12 networks assets into one of the streamers (Apple most likely) and signing for 7+ years. It's not a terrible outcome and it keeps the PAC alive.

If you want a crazy idea that gets Oregon to Big-10/SEC money then you have to picture Oregon without a conference. Notre Dame has obviously gone this route but their current contract is just terrible. If however a 4-team independent alliance was formed between Notre Dame, Oregon, Clemson and FSU and they all agreed to collectively bargain for media rights, post-season payouts etc. Then the collective media share for those four teams is 9.2% of the market. That would land each of the four media earnings of around $79Mil per year. Of course Clemson and FSU would have to pay $150+Mil to bail on the ACC but that's only a two year hit for them so entirely doable. If you were to then have an agreement for those four to share post-season earnings amongst each other (simple risk mitigation strategy) then they would have eclipsed Ohio State's annual football earnings. Probably much more so as those four schools would then be in primetime media markets almost exclusively and scheduling some of the most exciting matchups possible for CFB. It would most likely lock all four in the top-10 for recruiting for as far as the eye can see due to NIL, exposure and coaching salary advantages. It would just cost Oregon it's soul... Incidentally Nike has relationships with Oregon, Clemson and FSU. Notre Dame has Under Armor but that deal ends in 2025 and they aren't very happy with it.

So yes, I've heard of this and it solves one potential problem for both FSU and Clemson. Their potential payout to leave the current ACC contract comes in two big chunks. One would be to pay the penalty to the media partners and the other is the ACC grant of rights. The grant of rights buyout is about $100+Mil by itself and is essentially what either of those schools has to pay to leave the ACC and get into the SEC. If the ACC and PAC were to merge there would be no grant of rights payment but the ACC Media contract buyout would still be in place and it's not exactly peanuts. In my post on conference realignment and media contracts from yesterday I broke out some of the numbers. The 24 members (14 ACC and 10 PAC) would have about an 18.5% viewer market share of CFB's regular season. Normalizing to the Big-10's $1Bil per year would give the proposed APAC an annual media valuation of around $636Mil. An even distribution of that among the 24 schools would be about $26.5Mil per school. That definitely improves on the ACC's reported $13Mil per school but both Florida St. and Clemson are grating under the equitable distribution model so they would likely demand a bigger cut than Arizona St and Duke. Incidentally at current market value ACC's per school buyout should be about $25Mil per year so that contract locking them in until 2036 is TERRIBLE! We should definitely take that lesson to heart and realize that the PAC needs a short contract to maximize its position and a shorter contract at a lesser number is going to be better for us. Looking at the BigPAC conference merging the 8 remaining Big12 schools (ignoring BYU, Cinci and Houston) and the 10 PAC schools would have a 17.2% viewer market share yielding an annual revenue of about $596Mil spread over 18 schools and that would give them a $33Mil per school payout. Again these are purely football numbers here but that's the lion share anyway. If you are interested, just looking at the Big-12 post expansion my numbers would give them about $32Mil per year which is about $1Mil off what they just signed so that gives me some confidence in my model. The idea of the Big-12 and PAC merging is pretty much a non-starter though due to significant academic differences from the PAC schools and the Big-12. Currently the PAC comes in second behind the Big-12 but ahead of the ACC with our 10 remaining schools we have a per school payout of about $28Mil. Adding the ACC gives us a bigger share but diluted through Duke, VT, etc. I don't think merging with the current ACC solves anything but it could help Clemson and FSU get to the SEC.

To me the key is to remind myself that media rights are only one part of the Oregon football revenue pie. I see a lot of Oregon gear being worn all over the country and we don't have a mortgage on Autzen. 50k fans at $60 per seat for 5 games... $15Mil per year not accounting for my $75 can of beer or a better ticket sales estimate that is probably double my napkin math. Then you throw in CFB's most generous alum and Oregon is sitting in a pretty good spot. If Phil wants us in the Big-10 he will get us there I'm sure. If the Really-Big-32 happens I'm sure we would keep playing the 8 teams we've been playing since leather helmets. That includes the home and home with USC and UCLA. As I implied above, the NCAA does have some power here. A more restrictive rule that limits how many hours a collegiate athlete can travel in a semester could force some sanity back into the cash grab.

So my feed is currently stuffed with a thousand sources that claim to have inside knowledge about what's going on with the PAC so I decided to get some publicly available information to see if I could getter a better gauge on what might even be real or not. The core of the discussion is of course $$Money$$ and most directly the money available from media rights deals. I've previously posted that this is actually only part of Oregon's athletic budget but in fairness it is a big one so I'm going to focus solely on those numbers. Specifically though, here is my data source: Which college football programs were the most-watched in 2022? | by Zach Miller | Run It Back With Zach | Medium MEDIUM.COM Another college football regular season is in the books, so we have another year’s worth of TV viewership data to dig into. The article lays out viewership numbers by school and only for the regular season which is the slice of the pie that the conferences are mostly negotiating with so it's a decent sample of relative media value. Ignore merchandising value, ticket sales and all other variables. This conversation is about conferences negotiating the rights to broadcast regular season football games. The method I used is simple and you can repeat it by dropping the list of schools into excel and adding in the conferences as tags. Primarily here what I'm looking at is the new 16 team Big-10 and 16 team SEC as the super conferences that drive this train. Summing up the viewership you can see the new SEC in 2024 would have had about 32% of all CFB viewers in the 2022 regular season. The new 2024 Big-10 would have had 29% of all viewers. That is an astounding market share for the two super conferences and explains the numbers they are getting. Every other school (so the 87 schools that aren't one of the lucky-32) sums up to the remaining 39% of CFB views. That's some potential bargaining power for sure but it's spread over all of the remaining conferences who are currently eyeing each other like the Donner party at a Christmas feast. First question, is there going to be a third super conference emerge? I summed up the 16 next most viewed schools which are: Notre Dame, Clemson, Oregon, TCU, Florida St., Oklahoma St., Baylor, Kansas St., Utah, Washington, BYU, Navy, Washington St., NC State, California and North Carolina. The Next-16 conference (tm) controls 22% of the viewership. That makes them little brother but it's respectable enough to not sit at the kids table for the aforementioned Donner party Christmas feast. Second question, How big would a conference need to be to give the SEC noogies? About 32 teams given that we are dealing with random variables here is a decent estimate. The ReallyBig-32 conference (tm) would also control about 32% of the viewership so they would be Poking ESPN and Fox in the eye on a fairly regular basis. That conference would range from Notre Dame to Colorado St. but have to divide itself up into regions, so sub-conferences. Third question, why hasn't a third super conference emerged yet? This one isn't directly tied to the numbers but it's closely related. Point one, the ACC is locked up like those guys in Awakenings (Google it). That prevents Clemson and Florida St. from moving anywhere. Their buyout before 2036 is in the $100Mil range so that's a pretty big hit. Point two, there isn't a lot of trust right now between conferences or schools (see Donner Christmas party comments). Point three, Notre Dame: Great News: Expanding CFP Keeps Notre Dame From Joining Big Ten And Other Conferences WWW.FORBES.COM With the bulk of the college football season starting this Labor Day weekend, Notre Dame has bad news, good news and better news. Let's jump to the better news: Notre Dame is pretty much... Truthfully a third super conference would likely need to consolidate the top of the remainder to make it viable. So, Notre Dame, Clemson, Oregon, TCU, Florida St. etc. It just doesn't seem viable to glue them all together and fly across the country. Fourth question, How much money is the PAC-12 even worth with SMU and SDSU? The 12 schools would account for about 8.6% which is a bit less than 1/3 of the Big-10. The Big-10 is getting paid about $1Billion per year so using that as a normalizing constant the PAC is worth about 1/3 of that so $333Mil per year which divides out as ~ $27Mil per school. Again, random variables so this is how I get to the we're fine at around $25Mil per school statement. Does SMU and SDSU bring much to the table? Not really, they would be behind Arizona St. in value though SMU is truthfully about the same value as ASU. As I've said before their potential value is splitting the Southern California and Dallas markets to get more than their individual fan bases. So, think of them as something for the PAC12 to grow into. Last question, what does the PAC do? I honestly don't know but I somehow think "Panic and throw spaghetti at the walls!" isn't the best plan. If the "solution" of pay schools based on actual value catches on then Oregon's share of media rights are worth about $68Mil per year. Arizona States would be about $9.8Mil per year. That differential would most likely LOCK Oregon at the top of the PAC (Yankee's style) and is a non-starter for ASU. The truth is Oregon needs the "Palooka of the week" to keep the product entertaining and keep us paying the bills. One way to think of that differential is that Oregon pays the PAC about $45 million per year to be our punching bag each week. That's about $4.5Mil per game which is higher than the $1Mil per game Portland St. payout but honestly the PAC games are way more entertaining so it seems fair. Now if we could just get those Arizona schools to realize they are our sparring partners and to stop knocking us out of the playoffs.... details, details. What do I think "SHOULD BE DONE"? Exit my analysis and enter stage left my completely subjective judgement of relative fairness. The Not-So-Lucky-87 conglomeration (tm) have a 39% controlling stake in CFB as a semi-pro football entertainment enterprise. Since the Big-10 and the SEC represent the have's in CFB I think CFB as a whole is best served by all of the remaining conferences making an informal (or possibly formal subject to legal review) collective bargaining agreement. They can essentially lock out the SEC and Big-10 from further raids on programs and force ALL of the remaining media to deal fairly with the remaining small time farmers, er, eh, football programs. The relative positions of Fox and ESPN are a significant threat for the remaining sports broadcasting endeavors and the landscape of the sport will get ugly fast if we end up carving CFB into two super broadcast networks let alone super conferences. Do I think that a conglomerate is likely? Not really but maybe, it could provide a legal footing for Clemson and FSU to exit the ACC chokehold but first the remaining schools need to get an agreement in place to prevent scabs from heading to the Big-10 or SEC. If only college athletics had a national association with enough power to prevent all of this from turning into naked cash grabs.

How the Sports media analyzes the PAC-12 deal... How George Kliavkoff analyzes the PAC-12 deal... How CFB fans analyze the PAC-12 deal... How Rob Mullens analyzes the PAC-12 deal... How Phil Knight gets the PAC-12 deal...

Very true, when you look at Lamar Jackson in the NFL vs a traditional pocket passer QB mobility adds directly and indirectly to the offensive production. The indirect addition is a broken play reception and those are potentially huge for the QB's that can connect while on the move. Obviously they also have the ability to find a lane and get yards directly which forces defenses to either have a less aggressive pass rush to contain the pocket which itself extends the play or bring in outside help which kills the hat count. Both of these aspects are painful for a defense to balance against especially if a mobile QB is backed up with quality play from the other positions. I'm hoping that Bo in 2023 uses his mobility more for the indirect advantages to extend plays rather than pull the ball down and become a runner. There's a time for that certainly but he will have a longer healthier career if he scrambles a bit more laterally and finds an open receiver. Obviously with a lot of Oregon's RPO that isn't an option as the O-line is run blocking which removes any long developing passes from the scheme. RPO is great but it also has its limits especially against simulated pressure schemes.

While a lot of people from the north might lump "Texas" in as a southern state most southerners wouldn't include them or Oklahoma in their cultural identity. While Sankey is correct with regard to to the distances traveled adding Texas and Oklahoma or to the SEC was purely motivated by money. The SEC's history is storied and the character of the teams from 1930's is the SEC's identity just like the character of the teams from the 1920's PAC and the 1890s Big 10. Sankey is sitting on top of the heap and he knows it.

Via the portal Jordan Burch is a huge add for Oregon at edge and stands out as the biggest change to the biggest position of need. Especially with Brandon Dorlus and Mase Funa returning Burch will have an instant impact. As you know, pass rush has to come in pairs to be truly effective and Burch and Dorlus have the traits to get pressure and Funa has shown the ability as well when they focus on blocking Dorlus. Matayo will be young and it's a pretty big step from HS to CFB but he will get some downs and may be able to surprise some O-lineman at times. Popo was out all last year and is coming back along with Rogers for the interior run stuff. The most important thing is to have enough depth across the line so DL aren't gassed in the 4th quarter and the inevitable injuries don't devastate production. The position group should be a bit faster and bigger and that usually helps. If the line coaching is there (some technique work needs to be done for sure) then the Oregon pass rush has the athletes to make a significant jump from last year (thank God!). At Linebacker I expect Keith Brown (ILB) to continue to develop and show some more of what he did at the end of 2022 (and the Ohio State game) along with transfer Jestin Jacobs. Brown is decent in pass coverage and with the pass rush taking a step up that's a potentially great combo. Jacobs if he remains healthy could be a stud as the Hawkeyes definitely play some defense but post-surgery play is always a bit lagged so he may come on later in the season. Depth at ILB is a bit of problem with Oregon running the 4-2 as often as they do. Some young talented guys may need to move into the rotation. The DB room is stacked with talent and spring ball is going to be a survivor island situation. Trikweze Bridges showed major improvement over the year and I think he steps in as the #1 corner but losing Gonzales is a big hit obviously. At Safety Oregon has Hill and Stephens returning and Williams brother transferring in. There should also be a good amount of competition here to push play forward. I expect the DB play to be more consistent across the field but losing Gonzales means Bridges will be in the lock down corner role which will require him to develop quite a bit. If the pass rush takes a good step forward then the DB's will have a lot less pressure and overall Oregon could flip from 2022 and be towards the top of the PAC in pass defense (which would be huge) but the question is can they maintain effective run defense at the same time.

That had me rolling! Your point is spot on that the relative talent gap between Clemson and the Beavs is ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE! So in theory he's surrounded by lesser talent and will have a lesser outcome. The one thread I will give the Beavs here is that they were knocking on the door last year with a cross-eyed kicker playing QB and Smith is a pretty dang good coach and a former QB. Smith could work some magic with DJU. It's a low probability outcome but non-zero.

Agreed! The SEC should be sending two teams to the playoff in 2023 and I think it's very likely Georgia and LSU. Maybe Alabama figures it out in the West but the magic 8-ball says "outlook not so good". Incidentally if Georgia 3-peats... man... just... man... As for the Big-10 their champion will get in, that's not exactly prognostication and Ohio St is tough to beat. The remaining seat is likely going to be occupied by whoever has a hot hand in the ACC, Big-12 or PAC. By hot hand I mean has the buzz mid season and doesn't drop ANY late games. If the not-as-super conference champs drop 2 games then the Big-10 runner up could squeeeeak in. I think Oregon and USC's fate in the PAC is going to come down to which team makes a bigger jump in defensive play (specifically pass rush). If neither do then it's 2022 again and neither should go to the playoff. The PAC could see Oregon, USC, Utah, Washington and God help us even Oregon St. take the PAC's crown. Of those only Oregon, USC or Utah could likely drop a game and still get in to the playoff. Washington and Oregon St. need a perfect run to get there and I just don't think that's likely. What I really want to see from Oregon in 2023 is keep the offense rolling. Seriously, keeping the offense fun to watch is what Oregon needs to keep the program growing. On the defensive side I really want to see effective 4-man pass rush. Simulated pressure is great at throwing off hat counts but only if the pass rush is a legitimate threat. With the additions to the defense we have the potential to take a good sized step forward for 2023 but we're going to need to see some serious motor in the defense to win in Seattle, Salt Lake and Vegas.

There are two super conferences and they are the SEC and the Big-10. Two super conferences... and two major sports networks. If there was a third viable major sports network then we'd probably see a third super conference emerge. One thing I'm confidant in is that all of CFB isn't going to collapse into just 32 schools playing in the SEC and the Big-10. The market will support plenty of major programs outside of the Big-10 and the SEC especially with the 12 team playoff. The Big-12 is in pretty desperate circumstances right now despite the seemingly solid footing of their media deal and is spending a lot of effort pointing at the PAC to keep everyone from noticing that their house is currently on fire. The ACC is going to be fine, they have plenty of assets to keep them going for the long haul. The power five is likely sticking around for awhile. Here are some numbers from 2020 that put the media contract slice into perspective. The Pac-12 universities that could lose the most money from canceled sports season WWW.KGW.COM The Oregon Ducks football program brought in $72.1 million and the Oregon State Beavers collected $35.8 million. UofO athletics brought in $108.5 million a year with a lowly $72 million from football. The crappy 2011 media contract was about $21 million of that $72 million... so does Oregon NEED to jump to the BIG12 for an extra $10 million a year? This is why I say the $25 million a year contract for 3-5 years is a good outcome, it would make the BIG-12 move worth an eye watering $5 million a year. They probably lose more than that at Autzen cleaning the plumbing out for all those terrible Nacho's. Increasing the media contract by $5 million is a small improvement but more than fine considering Oregon isn't carrying significant debt for athletics. UCLA is over a $100 million in the hole so they were FORCED into the Big-10. It remains to be seen how the PAC will come out of things but for my money the PAC will be just fine with Oregon, Washington, Utah, Stanford and now Colorado to entertain fans. The rest of the schools are good enough to stay but they just aren't likely to emerge as major assets. I actually think bringing in SDSU and SMU makes sense and I'm a fan of that plan. They don't bring in much directly for their fanbase but it means their regions will be interested in watching PAC games and it gives an area for the PAC to grow more fans in.

I hear you, I'm saying that "sabotage" isn't the right word if that's honestly what's best for Oregon. The remainder of my comment was centered around my position that Oregon doesn't actually see going to the BIG10 as a desirable outcome. I maintain that Oregon sees that as a worse position then staying in the PAC for at least the next 3-5 years and continuing to increase its relative value.

As has been said the incident occurred off campus (right above the Nike store lol). The lofts are very nice and close to campus. The charge of menacing wouldn't be valid if he was threatening to stop an assault that was ongoing and at a minimum there was not enough evidence to charge anyone at this point. That doesn't necessarily mean he's out of the woods with the team however. The circumstances of the incident could have been legal but still a violation of team rules. Players are supposed to remove themselves from any circumstances where trouble is likely. It's all conjecture and I'm certain the team will keep a lid on this so we'll probably never know. The only way he gets to keep playing as a Duck however is if he was absolutely doing the right thing... like he came out of an apartment and saw an ongoing assault and intervened. That would be tough for the program as it would mean they dismissed him without all of the facts in hand. My best guess as to how this plays out is that the team will file the exception paperwork with the NCAA allowing him to transfer without losing any play time (win-win). He get's to go to another school (carrying an NDA on all of this) with less baggage and the school doesn't have the distraction (and media conversation) about him in the 2023 season. He just wants to get to the NFL so my guess is he goes out of the PAC and to a smaller program where he's the immediate #1 receiver. Probably UNLV or something. If he's cooperating with the program then DL will make some calls and get him an opportunity to play and get his best shot at the draft.

I don't think "sabotage" is the correct word, I hate to quibble but what Oregon needs to do is exactly what it is doing which is to stand up for it's own best interests. I think it's very likely that the reason GK hasn't got a deal inked is that it's not easy to get the remaining 10 schools to agree with the deals on the table. GK might be the negotiator but the school presidents are the deciders here. What does Oregon want? To stay in the PAC and get enough media revenue from decent time slots to kick this ball down the field and see what's what in 3-5 years. What does a broadcast network want? To lock in Oregon and the PAC at a value for 10+ years. GK just wants to keep the PAC alive. Where is the likely deal going to land? Who knows but we have multiple professionals at work here and Larry Scott isn't in the room so we just have to wait and see at this point. What does a home run look like for Oregon? Marquee matchups offered on a competing network that eat into ESPN and Fox timeslots making them pay a hefty price for not taking Oregon and the rest of the PAC off the table. How likely is this? Who even knows outside of the negotiating room. I will say that discussion about bringing in SDSU is meant to make Fox grind its teeth about splitting the SoCal media market into PAC fans and BIG10 fans. What does a manageable deal look like for Oregon? 25+ million in a short term contract (3-5 years). Aka, Punt! What does a disaster look like? The PAC12 network. Aka, use Bo as a running back late in the season. There's also a possibility that a major shakeup could occur at some point. Disney could sell ESPN and decide to revive ABC sports as a third major competitor. CBS sports could find it's butt in the dark and decide to compete with ESPN and Fox instead of picking up breadcrumbs. Maybe PBS is interested in CFB. I think the streaming only discussion is mostly smoke to be honest and possibly part of a negotiating tactic for GK regarding bringing in more competition to Fox and ESPN. I'd honestly sooner believe the PAC12 network is moving to the pay-per view model.

From a media value perspective the BIG10 maximized its west coast time slot gains with USC and UCLA. That gives them two "night games" when most BIG10 teams are forced to fly west and those games will draw eyes away from PAC12 broadcasts. When Ohio St plays in the Coliseum that game obviously will be noon PST which is 3PM EST leaving the noon EST slot open for a Michigan or Penn St game. When Rutgers plays in the Coliseum it will be 7PM PST, 10PM EST. If they bring in Oregon or Washington those games (against Ohio St, Michigan, Penn St) will also likely occupy the noon broadcast and could actually eat viewership out of their current marque broadcast for a lower net gain. The bottom line is they don't shoot from the hip in these scenarios, they run analytics and simulations of schedules with expected viewership/returns. They know what their expected gains are and bringing in Oregon or Washington without paying out less is a mostly looser scenario for the BIG10. Brining in USC and UCLA also isn't about getting BIG10 viewers to watch USC and UCLA games, it's about getting the LA footprint to watch BIG10 games instead of the Oregon vs. Utah games so they get more than the sum of the individual parts for their current deal. Rutgers is the NYC media area and Maryland is the D.C./Baltimore media area so those regions are now watching BIG10 games all day. Those games are later EST games anyway that directly compete with PAC12 media timeslots. Seattle would be in theory a nice edition BUT as I said above it requires them to self compete in time slots which means diminishing returns so ultimately not worth it. The Oregon ad brings in national viewers BUT causes scheduling competition so lower returns. The deal the BIG10 has is valuable because of their ability to maximize the number of marquee Saturday time slots across the US but they have saturated the available time slots just like the SEC has so a low value on continuing to expand. The PAC12 media deal only wins by putting up better marquee matchups in timeslots that hold their viewership and draw eyes away from competing network games. So the Oregon vs Utah games at noon need to draw eyes away from the SEC and BIG10 3PM EST games. That's really hard to do when the 3PM EST game is Ohio St. at USC or Alabama at Texas. So the PAC's best strategy is the Oregon vs. Utah game at 3PM PST, 6PM EST which isn't as valuable of a time slot. How does the PAC12 fight this? Start scheduling who plays who 6-9 months prior to the season to maximize the buzz and value in timeslots. Schedule "entertaining" marquee matchups that draw ratings for non-conference games. Oregon vs. Miami in game 2. Put some non-conference games later in the year for "spice". KILL the PAC12 Network with its garbage content and terrible distribution. Ultimately put a more entertaining product out there for CFB fans to consume.

I couldn't agree more. These stories are post season media click bait for CFB fans. Consider the ACTUAL evidence as to the risks to the Oregon football program. Larry Scott signed that disaster of a media contract in 2011... Oregon football is not only still here it's prospering. When is the last time you heard a recruit say "Oregon who?" The final payout number is very concerning to Oregon's golf team but the football program is building a new NFL class practice facility no matter what the media deal is. As for the streaming content who thinks Apple TV or Amazon are a worse option than the PAC12 network? I'd say either is a step up for Beaver and Coug fans but most of Oregon's games are going to be broadcast on whoever gets the cable portion just like the 2022 season did under the current media rights disaster. As for the death of the PAC12 let's do a basic vector check here, who's the flagbearer for the BIG12? TCU, Kansas St, Texas Tech or Oklahoma St? TCU had an amazing season in 2022 that nobody saw coming but its signature win came against a Michigan team that got caught looking past TCU. What are the actual long term prospects of the BIG12 vs the PAC led by Oregon? Why would a bunch of BIG12 media homers write a millions stories about how the PAC is dead and the BIG12 is going to eat the 4 corner schools? Why would the USC,UCLA media homers write a bunch of stories about how the PAC is dead without their debt laden butts? The PAC needs Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Utah and now Colorado for ratings as the other teams don't really drive football ratings at all. WSU, OSU, Cal, and the Az schools aren't major media draws for football and they are the ones actually sweating the numbers. If Oregon keeps the PAC alive then we're the flagbearer for the conference which means when our AD & President talk the conference will smile and nod. Where would Oregon sit in the pecking order in the BIG10? Why would Oregon leave the PAC for the BIG12 to save their sinking ship? To keep the Oregon football brand alive and well Oregon needs to do ONE thing and that is keep playing entertaining football and that mostly means winning football games by scoring LOTS of points. Having a great defense will lead to the Natty but as long as Oregon looks like FSU in the late 80's and 90's people are going to watch and kids are going to dream.

There are some interesting comments from Bo at 14:30 that I thought were potentially revealing about what the 2023 offense is going to look like. I've been of the mindset (it's not much of a stretch) that Bo's injury was the difference maker between Oregon getting to the PAC Championship or not. As such I thought we might see a bit more of Bo's arm and a bit less of his legs. In the interview he says he's "training his lower body like a running back" this offseason to be able to "take some hits" and "run through contact". That might indicate Bo feels his best path forward is to double down on his athletic traits in RPO to keep counts to Oregon's advantage. I think there's little doubt that would work for Oregon's offense (spectacularly) but the obvious concern is that he risks another injury. On the other side he also said he's training to execute "layered downfield shots that you see in the league". He's definitely had success there but it's hard to maintain an in game rhythm with those throws unless you take a higher percentage of those shots than Oregon did last year. He clearly wants to get his draft stock into the first round and to do that he's gotta show some enhanced skills that will translate well to the NFL.

It would have been seized as evidence. Even with no charges filed the police keep everything that could pertain as charges might be filed. If no charges are forthcoming it still takes more than a month to get property back from an evidence clerk. If charges are filed, he would have to be acquitted to get it back. If he's convicted it's stored as evidence through appeals until eventually it gets destroyed.

Considering Oregon's collective is run by Nike execs I'd be absolutely shocked (and angry) if there wasn't a clause to cover this. Advertisers (Nike included) constantly run into issues where the talent's actions make them a liability and the sponsorship is pulled. This kid will get his day in court to render his defense but the school has pulled his scholarship and the collective will have pulled his sponsorship deal so he will not be getting any future payments. FYI, the collective doesn't write these kids a one time lump sum check. Their deal may have an upfront award but it's monthly payments based on maintaining the terms of the deal, e.g. not being an advertising liability. We're not the Florida Gators here...

I'm not sure what to make of this hire to be honest. DL has earned our respect in these decisions so right now I'm in the camp of "He must see something here". What stands out to me is how YOUNG AT is for a coach. I know DL likes youth and energy but this is younger than I expected. As for the players loving the hire that does speak well of AT's personality and that is a good sign for recruiting but lest we forget Mario was essentially "picked" by the players to be HC. I will be extremely interested in seeing what AT has to say in interviews about how he's going to approach building the 2023 OL into a national leading group. If he has a good plan and can execute it then he certainly has the pieces to be successful. Coaching an NFL defensive line is actually I think a nice advantage because he spent a year focusing on how to beat great OL play... so he's primed to teach what really works for the OL.

Media rights are pretty complicated negotiations in general for the PAC since the fanbase is pretty widespread and the time zones create problems. The SEC has the best situation to be in because they have an extremely loyal fanbase concentrated near their schools but also a high level of national interest so advertisers view their product as lucrative across the board. The PAC schools have a more widely distributed fanbase that in general isn't as loyal (Oregon excluded of course). It's not a straightforward calculation of regional populations nor total fanbases to get to a number. In the PAC Oregon is clearly in the best position though and that's good for us. In the long run though, we do need the PAC to be financially successful to avoid being forced to another conference or going the independent route (a very bad choice). It's ultimately I believe going to be best for Oregon if the PAC gets a pretty good contract but we don't have to fight over the peanuts to stay relevant. I think it's most important that the PAC maintains some adaptability in the contract so I would prefer to see a 4 year ESPN contract with a 3 year ESPN+ streaming contract. I'm ultimately not as worried about the final number because "the remaining" PAC schools aren't drowning in debt and there will be plenty of cheese left over for football operations which is the part we really care about. I mean Badminton is a hell of a sport but I don't really care if they get a travel budget or get stuffed in 12-pax vans for the weekend...