The real impact of this latest conference reorganization is the image that one of the world’s most powerful athletes is “using the phone.” That’s how one source this week explained the level of Phil Knight’s despair.
Marketing genius, benefactor, philanthropist, and billions of billionaires, Shoedog himself seems to be using all his resources to find a home in Oregon. Empire.
Knight has become a cold call telemarketer. And that’s a sad situation.
That’s what happened with the move of USC and UCLA to Big Ten in 2024. Last week we reminded us of the ruthlessness of this system.
Pac-12 may or may not survive, but will change forever after the loss of the two flagship programs. Reminding us that ACC is scrambling to keep the top team, the Big 12 could be reorganized for the fourth time since 2010.
What we are witnessing in real time is the integration of the best brands at the pinnacle of sport. Don’t worry about everything else. Well, it takes potential exclusion to another level when the knight is reduced to a speed dial to save the ducks.
As you may have noticed, the SEC and Big Ten are Notre Dame (or so much) away from doing their own playoffs. Maybe they don’t even need a fighting Irish. Fighting Irish has again decided whether to attend the conference after 130 years of independence.
What you can see is the loss of access and relevance for everyone except the elite, and for those who are lucky enough to attend their meetings. Certain ACC schools are surprised. They see an annual royalties lagging behind the SEC and Big Ten by $ 50 million a year.
Given the league’s strong entitlement that schools can attend meetings until 2036, according to one industry source, it could cost a school $ 500 million to exit ACC. You can buy many superstar coaches, $ 1 million coordinators, facilities and stolen copter. Such money.
Some of the pressure has shifted to boosters. Will they make up for the difference? Can you maintain your current spending rate?
Donors are being used, according to sources in a high-resource soccer program.
One day, the SEC and Big Ten may decide to be flexible by funding 95 scholarships instead of the current 85 scholarships.
On top of that, the leadership and thinking of the four latest Power Five Commissioners hired after 2020 is more diverse than ever.
Last week, CBS Sports A three-part series on the future of college football.. One of the conclusions? The 130 FBS schools will probably sooner or later break out of the NCAA.
Well, that number seems less and more dangerous. Maybe 50-80 will cut. You can see why Knight is sweating.
This should have happened all the time. People were surprised when the SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina in 1991. The same is true for the Big Ten, which added Pennsylvania in 1990. The Southwest Conference has collapsed due to multiple NCAA violations. The Big 12 first appeared in 1996 and has almost collapsed since then. The original members are only 6 (Bailer, Iowa, Kansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech). Big East Soccer ended in 2013 due to the reform of the conference.
Today, the SEC and Big Ten have most of their power and leverage, given that brands have never been at the top of the game as they were at these conferences.
All that remains is a crazy rush from other major conferences to get the biggest brands left. No other conference can bring to the table what the SEC and Big Ten will do by 2024-25. The current battle will see if one or more of the ACC, Big 12, and Pac-12 can accumulate enough notable programs to prevent the SEC and Big Ten from making their own credible playoffs. That is.
It brings us back to Knight’s cold call. It’s happening in a world where you could leave Oregon and Washington without a chance to compete in national championships. A world that isn’t thinking about flying volleyball players across four time zones to play a match. A world where two power five conferences of their souls have been removed in consecutive summers.
Oregon and Washington are the two best football programs “in play” given that the Pac-12 has dropped to 10 teams. However, there is a reason why it is not considered prominently in the reorganization. Neither brings the value needed for the Big Ten ($ 80 million to $ 100 million annually), according to industry sources. The most prominently mentioned Pac-12 schools in the Big 12 are the so-called “Four Corners” schools. Arizona, Arizona, Colorado, Utah.
Big 12 has been told by TV rights advisors that the two most important considerations for expansion are brand and geography. Geography pushed Oregon and Washington to the limit. (It doesn’t necessarily mean that something like Arizona or Arizona is a “brand”.)
When the Big 12 expands, it’s not necessarily for money, but rather for survival and relevance. A famous industry source who called the difference between the expanded Big 12 and Pac-12 a “coin toss”. Think about the reason for the expansion like this. Can Oregon and Washington perform a credible playoff without being allowed to compete for the spot?
ESPN answered that question when Texas and Oklahoma moved to the SEC and didn’t think about throwing the Big 12 into the scrap heap last summer.
The network told us without saying that the world wouldn’t end without a chance for Oklahoma State, Iowa State, TCU and others to finish in the Top 4 of the College Football Playoff. Questions were answered further when Pac-12 was left behind last week.
Evaluation is important. They are more important if the SEC’s 9-3 Oklahoma are more likely to enter the playoffs than the Big 12’s 12-1 Oklahoma State.
An industry source called the “Twiner” in Oregon and Washington, which is undergoing reorganization. It’s certainly not USC or UCLA in terms of branding and marketability, but it’s not Arizona or Arizona. That was revealed by the reorganization. The real thing about college football relating to the only important people (television executives, programmers, advertisers) is being exposed to more and more specific details.
Without Oregon and Washington, Pacific-12 could collapse. With them, it may not be a problem.
Precautions regarding reorganization of meetings
The next major focus is Big Ten’s announcement of a new $ 1 billion television deal. It could come in a gala and is probably a splash of media rollout for the league later this month. Big Ten may be expanded. Notre Dame Cathedral has time and leverage, so it doesn’t really matter. If you decide that the money is too big to refuse and / or the playoffs are too difficult to maintain success, you may join the Big Ten.
The conclusion to this reorganization round, leaving the entire new Big 12 is a league victory.. We are happy with the 12 current teams going into 2025. The worst-case fallback of Pac-12 is some kind of hybrid merger with Mountain West. It was left behind in two football powerhouses, Oregon and Washington, winning national championships, playing in two titles since 2010, and participating in a total of five Rose Bowls since 2001. These two schools are also the only participants in Pac-12. CFP.
The possibility of a merger between Big 12 and Pac-12 remains, but … One source told CBS Sports that the process of finalizing membership (at least from the Big 12 side) could be completed in weeks instead of months.
Of the four new Big 12 schools (BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, UCF), three are Americans. This forms part of the story surrounding the Pac-12’s path forward when the league hit the market for television rights earlier this week. Why do you want to go to a meeting where the members are a quarter group of 5 teams? Why is there a risk of bringing “instantaneous” stability to the history and traditions of Pac-12?
Why really? The Pac-12 is sold on ESPN and Fox, and the 10 teams have not pledged allegiance to each other. The Big 12 is already hovering and ready to pull members off the west coast. But the right holder has already asked: what are we bidding on? What kind of school do you have?
ACC Clemson, Florida, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia Mentioned as potential reorganization dance partners, at least they are attending meetings with television contracts. This reveals a further reality: it’s really scrambled right now. The super conference is here and I don’t go anywhere. Insert Notre Dame and perhaps Stanford (as a partner in ND), Clemson and Florida or Miami. Suddenly, the playoffs of the two meetings become a reality. Everything else can be an unpleasant group of 6 or 7. At that point, the obvious play is to form a new subdivision to stage your own playoffs.Money-not Huge Money-will be there.
