(06-28-2022 03:49 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(06-27-2022 01:46 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(06-27-2022 10:39 AM)Eichorst Wrote:  

(06-26-2022 07:41 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  The California schools are not joining the Big Ten and the Big Ten is not going to invite them.

Based on Swarbrick's comments, I think AD's across the country feel that super leagues are inevitable, and it only takes 1 school to completely upend the Pac-12. If USC feels like they are strategically disadvantaged by remaining in the Pac-12, they will make a conference jump, and the flood gates will open.

Swarbrick was predicting conference realignment in the mid-2030's and he did not give any specifics, like California schools joining the Big Ten. His opinion is one of many on the subject. The California schools don't like to travel anymore than they have to travel. I am sure the Big Ten schools feel the same way, In football, USC's furthest trip east this year is to Salt Lake City. Next season they have a trip to Notre Dame and in 2024 they play LSU in Vegas and Notre Dame at home. Then there are the Olympic sports. The USC AD has already said that makes the idea of leaving the conference almost impossible, if they wanted to leave.

USC has won one conference title in the past 13 years in football. That is not on the Pac-12, that is on the incompetent hiring practices of the previous athletic leadership at USC. The Trojans have helped to put the Pac-12 at a strategic disadvantage with their underperforming football team. Lincoln Riley will fix that.

The four California schools have a lot of influence in the Pac-12 and they would lose that in the Big Ten. As Jon Wilner of the Mercury News said last year in an article, "The Pac-12 presidents care deeply about protecting their brand, which draws heavily on geographic alignment and the institutional ethos of the West Coast." The California schools have their academic egos and a lot of money. I just don't ever see these schools joining the Big Ten or any other conference.

I agree with these points. Yet I also see the money difference could become too great to bear by the 2030s that some might move.

To work the Big Team would have to take 6 of the Pacific Coast schools, and they'll have to have some kind of bridge with Colorado and Arizona at the minimum. At 8 schools you have enough to contain Olympic sports costs.

That's an interesting scenario. I just don't know if either side is ready for that, if it comes to that point.

(Yesterday 07:12 PM)Transic_nyc Wrote:  

(06-28-2022 03:49 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  I agree with these points. Yet I also see the money difference could become too great to bear by the 2030s that some might move.

To work the Big Team would have to take 6 of the Pacific Coast schools, and they'll have to have some kind of bridge with Colorado and Arizona at the minimum. At 8 schools you have enough to contain Olympic sports costs.

That's an interesting scenario. I just don't know if either side is ready for that, if it comes to that point.

It takes 9 votes to dissolve the conference. And there are 9 AAU schools.