College Football Pac-12 All but Dead as Media Rights Deal Falls Apart, Five More Colleges Defect

[LindG1000]

 

Pac-12 couldn't figure out media rights deal, and then...this happened:

 

 

USC and UCLA were already scheduled to play their final seasons in the Pac-12 before heading to the Big 10 themselves next season.

 

This leaves one of CFB's "Power Five" conferences with just four teams remaining - Oregon State, Washington State, Cal, and Stanford.

 

[fletch]

Sad to me.  College sports have increasingly become about making more money primarily via football and basketball, as a means to support ever larger athletic departments.  I remember when I would have late nights on New Year's Eve and veg out on cold pizza and watch college football all day New Year's Day, because all the important bowls were scheduled that day.  The powers that be realized that they could make a lot more money with a playoff, and could crown a true national champion (rather than vote for a champion after the bowls).  The SEC and Big Ten media contracts, as the most popular leagues, put other conferences in a pinch.  And when you get institutes of higher learning defecting to the SEC and Big Ten to make more money instead of staying with traditional rivals... I get so sick of hearing about 'scholar-athletes.'  At least the students can now make money off their own names.  College students in revenue sports are semi-pros, and not the scholar-athletes the NCAA loves to say.  There's probably about twenty-thirty brand name universities that are athletic powerhouses 'the haves' that just have more resources than the rest that are trying to become haves.   I don't know how the system can continue to have Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan competing with their resource base versus the have-nots that will operate at a loss to try and become like them.  The gap between the haves and have-nots is widening, and seems to be a pretty shaky situation.

[SaveByRichter35]

2 hours ago, fletch said:

Sad to me.  College sports have increasingly become about making more money primarily via football and basketball, as a means to support ever larger athletic departments.  I remember when I would have late nights on New Year's Eve and veg out on cold pizza and watch college football all day New Year's Day, because all the important bowls were scheduled that day.  The powers that be realized that they could make a lot more money with a playoff, and could crown a true national champion (rather than vote for a champion after the bowls).  The SEC and Big Ten media contracts, as the most popular leagues, put other conferences in a pinch.  And when you get institutes of higher learning defecting to the SEC and Big Ten to make more money instead of staying with traditional rivals... I get so sick of hearing about 'scholar-athletes.'  At least the students can now make money off their own names.  College students in revenue sports are semi-pros, and not the scholar-athletes the NCAA loves to say.  There's probably about twenty-thirty brand name universities that are athletic powerhouses 'the haves' that just have more resources than the rest that are trying to become haves.   I don't know how the system can continue to have Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan competing with their resource base versus the have-nots that will operate at a loss to try and become like them.  The gap between the haves and have-nots is widening, and seems to be a pretty shaky situation.

I get that this goes beyond just football but this is what I am going to center my post around.  NIL, the transfer portal, and these conference media deals that are driving conference realignment are killing what college football once was.  These are no longer college athletes.  They're minor league professionals at this point.  They go to college to play school because they're not allowed to enter the NFL from high school.  Not sure how this will ever get fixed short of the NFL allowing players to enter the draft directly out of high school. The problem with that is, except for the very top tier 5* athletes, these kids bodies are probably not physically mature enough to handle the rigors of the NFL.  Maybe if the NFL was to officially adopt the XFL or the USFL as minor league systems to develop these kids, college football can get back to what it was.