(01-26-2023 11:08 AM)YNot Wrote: (01-26-2023 10:33 AM)GTFletch Wrote: (01-26-2023 09:03 AM)andybible1995 Wrote: The Pac needs to stay at 10 members. Unless any of the remaining Big 12 members get really good at football and basketball, there's no point in adding anyone at this time.
If they stay at ten members they will not have the content to demand 30M per year. They need inventory to create content. We already know they will lose 2M per year off of Tier Three rights (Comcast overpaid for PAC12N). Maybe they can sell the PAC12 N to Apple or Amazon and combine that with ESPN to get close to 30M at 10 members, but I think the path FWD is to follow what the BIG12 did, they expanded add new markets, created inventory and increased their payout. I do not think the Pac would be able to lose USC & UCLA and the LA market and expect a pay raise. In essence while they were offered the same contract as last time it is a pay raise because it is divided 10 ways not 12. To get to 30M they will have to expand, The Presidents will have to decide to they want to be a WEST Coast Ivey and take less money or losen up on the R-1 requirement and take into account what TV Markets Amazon/Apple and ESPN desire.
I can also see scenario where Oregon and Washington will get a greater share than everyone else just to get a grant of rights signed.
You need good inventory to increase the value. I don't see how SDSU's and SMU's mediocre inventory would somehow bump the PAC's value from $250 to $360M...or even something above $300M.
Plus, with two new teams, you risk that the expansion eliminates quality games like Utah-Oregon and Stanford-Washington to fit in weaker matchups like SDSU-Stanford and SMU-Utah.
As I've noted elsewhere, I don't think that's really the calculation the Pac-12 should be making, just as I didn't think the Big 12 should have gone with a small (or even no) expansion in 2021 in the wake of the UT/OU defections (and in that case, the Big 12 made the right choice by restocking with 4 schools as opposed to the bare minimum).
At the end of the day, the Pac-12 expanding back to 12 members is essentially purchasing an insurance policy against future defections. It's one thing when there are 2 obvious schools that would be future defections over everyone else, such as the case with the old Big 12 with UT and OU. In that case, UT and OU had so much power over everyone else that they could stop expansion in its tracks and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it.
That's not the case for the Pac-12. Most people *think* that Washington and Oregon are the schools that would be most likely get Big Ten invites, but it absolutely wouldn't shock me at all if the Big Ten ended up adding Stanford and Cal instead while Washington and Oregon are left behind. Likewise, Stanford and Cal can't bank on getting into the Big Ten themselves. For everyone else, no one wants to be *forced* to join the Big 12 in the event of further losses from the Pac-12 for a multitude of reasons. (To put it bluntly, the institutional snobbery of the Pac-12 is REAL, even among the Four Corners schools.) That is truly an Armageddon scenario last resort that all of the schools except maybe Arizona don't want to touch if they can avoid it at all.
So, the Pac-12 might not get full value for adding SDSU and someone else (which I think would be SMU more than UNLV). However, that's the price of an insurance policy. Most of us will pay a lot more for various types of insurance than we'll ever have in terms of claims (at least outside of health insurance), but we still buy it because that 1% chance of a total disaster would financially ruin us. Better to "lose" a relatively small amount of money to protect against that 1% disaster scenario. That's the Pac-12 - further defections could lead to the outright dissolution of the league entirely, which no one in the league wants because none of them can feel 100% confident that they're getting another conference home that they want.
I think people are VASTLY underrating how much the Pac-12 schools (outside of maybe Arizona) don't want anything to do with the Big 12, so while a lot of us here can say, "They'll get paid the same or more money in the Big 12, so it's no big deal to move if there are future defections," the reality is that the institutional snobbery combined with sheer pride (e.g. Colorado having to stoop to rejoining the Big 12 that it left or Utah having to ask to join BYU's conference) within the Pac-12 is massive (and once again I'm not talking about Stanford and Cal, but Colorado and Utah and even Arizona State trying to change its image to be more academically-oriented).
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UNLV AD Eyes Potential Move to Power 5 Conference
