The logistical challenges are pretty obvious. Bob Huggins and WVU complained for years about the travel issues in the Big 12, and I think their farthest road trip is about equal to what USC and UCLA’s closest road trip will be outside of each other. This will create a massive competitive disadvantage, not to mention an enormous burden on student athletes that I think will hurt recruiting.

Football will be the easiest sport for the travel issues, and it will still be a bear. UCLA will not be competitive. USC will be, but four trips a year to Big Ten country (plus perhaps ND depending on how the schedule rotation shakes out) is going to be really tough on a team. And if they slip up and lose games they should win and it costs them a CFP spot or a bye in the playoff, the fans obviously won’t be thrilled. Speaking of fans, relatively easy road trips to Phoenix, Salt Lake City and the Bay Area have been replaced with Champaign, Piscataway, State College and East Lansing.

Yes, the money will be better, but UCLA will have to pay their toll to Cal and who knows where these media rights valuations go in the next cycle as more people cut the cord and non-sports fans no longer subsidize ESPN’s insane carriage rates. Lastly, if you haven’t been paying attention to Europe, they’re going insane over climate change…gluing themselves to airport runways and literally restricting citizens’ movement. That will soon come to America and California will be an early adopter, which will lead a lot of people to ask why all of an LA university’s sports teams are being flown to New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, etc for games.

The easy solution is add Oregon and Washington to alleviate the travel burden, but they’re likely dilutive to the revenue pie and thus apparently nonstarters for the current Big Ten membership. So what if it doesn’t work out?