PAC 12 is rebuilding. Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, and Colorado State are joining the conference in 2026.
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Although I support having a handful of strong conferences, it will be tough to call that a ‘Power’ conference. A TV deal likely won’t be close to the prior one that expired last year. The Pac12 still needs to add two more schools by 2026, which should be interesting…could Cal and Stanford be persuaded? The ACC is kind of a poop show right now.
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Exactly, basically a relabeled Mtn West, so mid-major. CalFord would only return if they get relegated in the next releagueing round.
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That’s not a rebuild. That’s a re-branded Mountain West Conference. The guts of the history of the Pac 10/12 are gone.
Larry Scott … perhaps the worst conference commissioner ever.
Edit: sorry @bluebayou . I hadn’t read your post. Oh well, great minds.
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Agree, glad he’s gone.
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agree about Scott, but I put that on the University Presidents who hired him and kept approving his pie-in-the-sky ideas, when common sense said there is no way that the P12 Network could compete with espn and then fox sports, not to mention his egregious contract. He told the Presidents what they wanted to hear – more coverage of women’s sports, among other things – and they bought it hook, line & sinker.
The demise of the P12 is on them.
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There is no question. When you combine the university presidents that wanted to emulate Cal, coupled with a lack of the rabid fanbases that you see in Big 10 country, it was bound to happen eventually. Some of the schools have loyal followings … USC, Washington, Oregon, WSU, Oregon State … but for the most part we don’t have anything like a Penn State, Michigan or Ohio State fanbase out west. It would have taken that kind of pressure to overwhelm the university administration at most of these schools.
For the most part, the schools that bolted to the Big 10 are the schools that care about football. UCLA not so much.
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this all started bcos USC wanted a bigger payday from the Pac, i.e., an unequal share. So, they started negotiating with the BiG, and took UCLA along for the ride.
But in the irony of ironies, USC’s current Prez, hates sports and woudl prefer if they all went to Club level. But it didn’t take long for the big time donors – and Fox Sports $$$-- to show her the error of her ways.
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Yeah, she’s not going to be Prez long if she doesn’t remedy that particular point of view. Sports is in USC’s DNA, and no sport more than football.
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The PAC 12 was never nice to Utah or Colorado and they had bad schedules, especially TV games that STARTED at 9 pm and ended well after midnight, the PAC 12 network never got local cable companies to ADD the PAC 12 network so there was no way to watch the games even if did want to stay up past midnight… Last year Colorado started the year with three games at 10 am, which had me leaving Denver to go the 45 minute drive to Boulder at 6 am to get parking (and do ESPN Gameday and Fox Big Noon kickoff, which started at 7 am. It was ridiculous.
Colorado has been/will be on ESPN, NBC, CBS, and ABC for the first four games this year, all starting at 5 or 6 pm. Thanks for nothing PAC12 network. PAC 12 also charged to watch games online like women’s soccer and lacrosse, so saying it wanted to promote women’s sports was a big fat lie.
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Doubtful. They went to the ACC for the purpose of not having to associate with those very schools that just got admitted to the P12.
I really think it’s Big 10 or bust for those two, to the point I think they’d take zero revenue shares just to get in. I’m sure they thought (rightly so) they were a shoo-in to be accepted the first go-round, and were left scrambling when Fox Sports put the kibosh on it.
And while it’s early, looks like that could be their wake-up call. Cal’s come out like a house afire, and Stanford gave a team that played for the national title 2 years ago all they could handle and overall looks much improved over the last couple seasons.
Stanford is a football school. Cal is not. Cal just doesn’t care about it, but the Stanford faithful, and I know plenty of them, really like being good at football. During the Harbaugh run and before Shaw jumped the shark Stanford mattered. Brutal intellectualism they call it.
I could see the Big 10 wanting Stanford but Cal seems like a bridge too far. Which is too bad.
If I recall correctly, neither Stanford nor UC-Berkeley were given serious consideration for membership by the Big Ten. Might be based on the realities of the Bay area market. Also, Cal–like UCLA–has a serious athletic dept. deficit (new stadium financing ?) that may have been a factor.
Some talk was focused on the value of adding Stanford because it was an annual rival of Notre Dame, but recent writings have stated that Notre Dame is not really concerned about Stanford’s presence or absence.
FWIW UCLA was not a primary focus of the Big Ten Conference either. After USC approached the Big Ten, the Big Ten’s interest focused on USC & U Oregon.
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That is my understanding as well. The Stanford / ND rivalry has always been a bit overplayed in my view. USC / Notre Dame is another matter.
And yes: UCLA is there only because USC brought them along. The Big 10 cares about the LA TV market and making more inroads with Cali recruiting grounds. They also like USC’s brand as a football school, which is national.
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That does not matter one iota. What matters is what Fox Sports (and espn) care about, and that is TV ratings (over the air, cable carriage rights, and streaming). Stanford (& Cal) football is not accretive to their bottom lines. Neither school travels well, neither school brings millions of eyeballs/subscriptions. The BA is a large market, but not a large sports market where people will adjust their schedules so that they don’t miss the game. And being on the Left Coast, games are later, and the night games don’t even kickoff until the east and midwest have already gone to bed.
The Prez of ND was out leading the charge to get Stanford & Cal admitted to the ACC, ‘bcos it was the right thing to do’. But it had little to do with the one game per year that they (ND-Stan) play each other. (ND’s home game is already on its ‘personal’ channel, NBC!)
If they take one, and that’s a big IF, they’ll take both to help reduce travel for non-football sports.
But none of this matters, as the BiG and SEC will not remain in their present form once the new Championship Football conference is developed in a few years. ~45 D1 football programs will bolt their existing conference for a 9 figure payday. Survival of the fit. Northwestern, Rutgers & Indiana maybe left behind in the successor BiG, which will become a non-football conference. Ditto Vandy in the SEC.
Once football leaves, and takes its money with it, the Olympic sports will get cut significantly everywhere. Even rich schools like Michigan, tOSU and Penn State and Alabama will have to take a hard look and decide whether going forward they want to spend student fees/endowment to fund D1 athletics.
Circling back to CalFord. Both schools are in a race to become relevant in football before the next Championship realignment. If they cannot, they will be relegated to mid-major, with a huge financial hit due to loss of TV revenues. Stanford can afford it, but Cal, which funds ~30 varsity sports, cannot. Expect major cuts at both. Cal might even drop football altogether.
If they get relegated, which, along with Cal, is highly likely at this point, we’ll see how much they care about competing against San Jose State or Nevada…
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Not one iota? Why must we discuss these things in such absolute terms? The Big 10 is a conference, they have a commissioner, the schools vote, etc. etc. Of course, Fox factors into that in a massive way. But other things factor in as well. This is a conference of schools managing expectations among stakeholders who are largely “passion” driven. Rivalries, tradition, prestige … all things that don’t always sum to the bottom line matter and at least influence decision-making. Money talks, but emotions don’t walk. Not in cfb. The people running things know that the real enterprise shareholders are the fans. When / if the sport jumps the shark, the fans will too, and then what will Fox have to say?
Put it this way. If Fox in their infinite wisdom decided that Michigan and Ohio State didn’t need to play every year, the conference, and those two schools, would tell Fox to take a hike and they’d find another media company.
Edit to Add: I wouldn’t park Alabama in the “rich school” category. It seems like it the way they throw money at kids who score 31 on the ACT and pay their football players. But the largesse is largely due to donors who care about football. When those people have nothing to hold their interest in the school, those gifts will go away. Then they will be a large public university with a $1.22 billion endowment, which isn’t all that big for a school of its size. So, sans the football feeding machine, I think other sports will suffer significantly at Alabama both because of a lack of money and general interest.
All the leagues except Big 12 have their own networks. They make more money if Fox or ESPN or NBC pick up the game, but if no one wants it, it goes on the ACC or SEC Big10 networks.
THANK GOD Colorado now plays in the Big 12 and we don’t have to deal with the PAC 12 network any more. So far this year (and this weekend) we’ve played on NBC, ESPN, ABC and CBS, all games at the normal, reasonable time of 5:30 or 6 pm. Last year the PAC 12 was selling the games to Fox or ESPN and we played our games at either 10 am or a 8:30 pm. I think 4 games finished past 1 am Mountain time, and past 3 am eastern time. Colorado isn’t that good, but Prime draws in the viewers (for now). When they start losing, they’ll float us to another network.
There is plenty of money in football and so many games that ESPN, Fox, and other sports cable can cherry pick the games they want and leave the rest for broadcast TV or the league networks. You’ll still be able to find Boise State v Hawaii at 2 am on FS1.
Thank goodness! 
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Gonzaga will join the PAC 12 in 2026.
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