Washington and Oregon to Join the Big Ten
Looks like we finally have confirmation that they'll be joining in 2024. My understanding is that McMurphy has been a pretty solid source on realignment.
https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf/oregon-washington-join-big-ten-leave-pac-12
+1. I may have forgotten you mentioning this, but I didn't know you're in California too, a fellow B1G fan expatriate. There are a lot of great things about CA.
A few times I've mentioned an existential worry I have --- I'm in business analytics and building mathematical models and I'm good at it, but I feel I'm now a part of the problem. I worry data and optimization and maximizing monetization has gone too far. We do that with everything, while not weighing heavily enough the "fun" factor.
Yes: U-M/PSU playing USC annually makes more $$$. But U-M playing Purdue/Illinois/MSU/etc (PSU playing Pitt/WVU/OSU/etc) annually is more FUN. Regional games, easy road trips, more interaction with fans. And besides, U-M/PSU can play USC OOC and/or in the playoffs/Bowls.
Yea may not have mentioned it, but I'm up in the Bay and I believe you're down in LA?
The other aspect of that - as someone with a STEM background and who really believes in numbers - is that Goodhart's Law is real. When you measure something to correlate with performance, you start to believe that number alone IS performance. Do TV dollars represent the worth and value of an athletic department? Well, if those dollars are based on ratings, they likely overrate football compared to other popular sports. And like you say, we do this with EVERYTHING. We measure the efficiency of a global supply chain and ignore the knock on effects of losing localized industry - both from a community level perspective, and from a supply chain resiliency perspective. It took years to determine the garbage in/garbage out aspect of those numbers and the impact made of decisions based on those numbers. We're only now really starting to, from a policy perspective, admit there was some error in doing that.
Heck even in baseball - bat speed correlates with more OPS. So everyone tries to hit as hard as they can and that's how they advance. But if you're telling me that Ichiro and Kirby Puckett couldn't still excel in today's Major Leagues, you're wrong. But do they have the stats to even get a shot anymore?
Yep, I'm in LA.
Goodhart's Law definitely fits here. And its corollary: After a certain point, too much efficiency makes things overall worse.
The B1G is very focused on maximizing "the objective function." In this case, the objective function = "eyeballs and $$$ in bank accounts."
You provided real-life examples - my analogies are more fictious: M3GAN (if you saw the recent movie) and the paper clip maximizer. But despite being fictious, I see them as relatable. Both were very efficient at maximizing their particular objective functions, while they undoubtedly made things much worse.
Poor Washington State and Oregon State. It was reported this morning that they were willing to give up half of there revenue and give it to Washington and Oregon for them to stay.
That is so sad.
Can we schedule a home and home with them out of pity (and for a little revenue boost)?
Thinking out loud here, but at this point it seems like big playoff expansion is actually necessary to protect the integrity of the sport. That's a meaningful statement because in the past I've been a "small/no playoff guy" depending on the epoch precisely for "integrity of the sport" reasons. The great regular season being what it is, etc. But now you have too many important historical programs that are left in the dust, and extra playoff berths that they know they will have a chance to earn is the best/only way to keep them relevant.
Otherwise, frankly, it's the B1G vs the SEC every year; might as well just hold a single game between the conference title game winners.
The super league is the next logical progression -- big ten and sec football leave ncaa entirely and form their own football league with their own championship.
I speculated on this after the LA schools joined. I think they have the power to do it if they want to.
But: As much as Brian says "just leave the conference then if it's all about money," there are still pulls to being in the conference in the existing system. It's not that nobody cares about anything BUT money anymore, just that money drives the train. There are still other priorities that need some balance, and the original concept of college football as a traditional institution still has some pull.
As much as we see it crumbling, it's not completely gone. It's still wonderful. A B1G/SEC pullout is still a massive step that has knock-on effects that may not be a financial impediment but are, nonetheless, real impediments in a way that raiding the PAC 12 for spare parts is not.
Basically it's this: There's a constituency that cares about stuff besides money. It may grumble about realignment like this, but it doesn't rebel. You go too far, you risk them rebelling.
The best endgame possible is the big ten and sec becoming super conferences that just break down divisions regionally. The big ten can pick up a Stanford and cal have a big ten west division. The conference championship can be in the rose bowl. Than it’s basically where we were before expansion with a few losers and winners and just more concentrated power from a tv negotiation standpoint
Not a fan of realignment...
but the horse left the barn a long time ago...This was inevitable when USC/UCLA reached out to the B1G and they reciprocated.
I'm a traditionalist, so I am disppointed in this news, but it is what it is.
It's not just realignment. It's NIL, too. The "student athlete" is not the model anymore for big-time football, basketball, or some other teams (see: a certain someone on LSU gymnastics). This is now professional, sort of a minor league system. It will further change as schools decide if they want to participate or not in paying big-dollar athletes to play. Why even make them to go school. (A serious question from me.) You will have universities sponsoring these teams of pro athletes -- it happens in other sports, e.g. UNAM Pumas and UANL Tigres in Liga MX.
The other sports all do this. Hockey, baseball, soccer... there are professional minor leagues, but also colleges offered a no-pay option for those who want an education while playing. Basketball has stepped into that path (G-League Ignite). Why not football?
Ten, fifteen years from now, there won't be a Division I-A with 120 schools. There will be a "pro" division with Bama, OSU, etc., and probably Michigan too. Maybe some BigXII schools doing it too. Then a true 'college' division with schools who can't and won't compete (Vandy). And tweeners who won't know exactly what they should do (Northwestern).
Power corrupts... absolute power corrupts absolutely... and money is power.
Yeah it would be best if the college athletes formed a union, then there was revenue sharing with the schools. An NBA style soft cap with a large luxury tax could be implemented.
Eventually they won't be made to go to school. That's been the inevitable next shoe to drop for 2-3 years now.
Someone, probably some teams in the SEC, will be the first to say it -- "We're not abiding anymore by the requirement that our players go to our school. What are you going to do about it??" And at that point no one will do anything about it.
And that -- not realignment -- will be the real end of college football. I've made my peace with compensation, even unequal compensation, and the transfer portal/free agency -- but I have no interest in Michigan football being played by guys who aren't Michigan students (honored in the breach from time to time as that is.)
I don't think that will happen, and doubt even SEC fans would want it. The idea that these guys are students is an important part of college fandom.
Now, will the NCAA continue to turn a blind eye to academic fraud? Sure.
I'd like to keep the school aspect, but I do think it could be changed. Loosen the credit requirements. Make it so that an athlete must remain on pace to graduate in 6 years instead of 4. Recognize the reality that these guys basically have full time jobs in addition to full course loads. Cause in a competition for their time, football is going to win every time against studying. If you did that, you'd have more guys wiling to go into more intense majors. You could have some sort of stipulation that if they go pro they need to finish their degree within 10 years of enrollment or something. Basically 1 class a semester till they finish. Because if NIL has taught us anything it should be: bend a little now, or the flood gates will come bursting open.
Lesson the schoolwork burden now, otherwise the players won't be students very soon.
I think what you'd see is more the opposite: players would take extremely light courseloads and would finish their four years of athletic eligibility a long way away from graduation.
You could have some sort of stipulation that if they go pro they need to finish their degree within 10 years of enrollment or something.
There is absolutely no way you could enforce that. We don't ask this of non-athletes.
Literally the first ever college competition was a rowing competition between Yale and Harvard. It was sponsored by a resort trying to drive business and both schools cheated by paying rowers who didn’t attend their schools to row in the race. This is college sports from the beginning
Except boosters had been paying players under the table for decades before NIL. SMU got caught because they weren't a traditional power, but don't kid yourself and act like they were the only ones. Players getting money isn't anything new. The "student-athlete" was a fabrication by the NCAA to avoid rightful compensation of the players while they exploited them for millions of dollars. It hasn't existed for a very long time.
Realignment sucks in many respects, but it has been happening for *decades* - it is just being accelerated more recently.
That said, I am pleased that Big Ten has been *proactive* of late rather than *responding* to SEC moves.
Agree. I don't believe that the alternative to this is USC and UCLA in a healthy Pac 12 (or 10 or whatever) conference. I think the alternative to this is USC and UCLA in the SEC.
I want Oregon at Michigan in November at night immediately
FSU please
I want to see USC at home, in November, and at night, so Harbaugh can run the same play at them 25 straight times like he did when at Stanford but this time in 20 degree weather.
Warde is gonna get the last laugh and avoid that OOC road game @ Washington after all.
I feel for Wazzu and Oregon State (Jay Harbaugh's alma mater). Maybe they can get a Big 12 invite, but I suspect they're probably headed for the Mountain West.
But we realistically couldn't just stop at 16 teams once two of them were 2,000+ miles and 2-3 time zones away from everyone else.
The SEC is not going to sit around. They can't stand not being the main story in college football.
Good point, so how much of the ACC will the SEC ingest? What lies ahead for Clemson, SC, FSU and other blue chip football programs? Even more stuff to talk about.
73 - that Grant of Rights is going to be tested very soon. It seems like a mutiny isn’t too far from happening in the ACC. The only question is.. which teams are going to challenge it? FSU, Clemson, Miami… and who else?
Sankey’s probably been thinking about this for a while. Who does the SEC want.. and which ACC teams want the SEC?
The ACC is one of the tightest conferences in the country. I know at the margins they have had people come and go (SoCar I think was ACC and of course Maryland which was a complete shock to the ACC schools at the time IIRC since they were a founding member; FSU joined recently). But the core schools: UNC, Duke, NCSt, GT, Wake, UVa are very tightly aligned to their tabacco road culture (like the SEC to their classic southern culture). Delaney approached UNC and they turned the B10 down (Delaney is an alum!) and that's when the B10 turned to Maryland/Rutgers.
It'll be FSU and Clemson bolting (the 'new money' of the ACC). I don't think they care if it's the B10 or the SEC.
Anyone remember that gentleman agreement between the big and pac? Granted, seems as if the pac was dragging their feet with regards to this.
Song of the day is REM's It's the end of the world as we know it.
So are all the bowl games going to die too?
Nah they make money for the TeeVee and that's all that matters.
Seeing the 13th best Big 10 team vs the 11th best Big 12 is gonna be a riot matchup!
I hadn't realized, or forgot, that a decade ago, a deal was in place for a Big 10-Pac12 partnership but the Pac 12 pulled out at the last minute.
After that, the Big 10 added Rutgers and Maryland. So it's the Pac 12's fault we're stuck with Rutger?
Yeah its funny the athletic is making that case: if the Pac 12 agreed to a Pac12 - Big Ten challenge in football, the way the ACC - Big Ten Challenge works in basketball, they would have saved themselves. Who knows, but I would have been for it. I'm still for the Big Ten mandating everyone play one MAC team a year to 1. keep the MAC alive and inject it with cash and 2. pad win totals for the Big Ten teams.
That seems like a reach. One marquee non-conference matchup per school was all the Pac-12 needed to stay viable?
Simplifying it, but yeah you can read the article. Not saying it's completely correct. But if you are already getting yearly matchups with USC, UCLA, Michigan, and OSU, then the Big Ten poaching those 2 schools becomes less likely. Also the Pac 12 probably gets better negogiating leverage with a TV partner since I imagine that Oregon St - Purdue would get better ratings than Oregon St - Cal, and whether true or not they would say "see Oregon St is capable of getting decent ratings"
It would still only be one week out of 12, and only half of those games (presumably) would be broadcast by the Pac-12's TV partners, the rest being covered by the Big Ten's. So, 1/24 of the Pac-12's football season would be covered by this arrangement. That wouldn't be enough to really juice up their TV deal.
The wheels of progress are turning fast. Bye, bye Pac 12 for one. With CO and soon to be AZ and ASU to the Big 12, that conference looks viable once again. As for the 2024 & 2025 B1G football schedule, back to the drawing board. We'll have a lot to talk about that in the coming weeks and months.
Are there any laws that say WSU and Oregon State have to be in the same conference as Washington and Oregon?
Virginia and VaTech had to join the ACC simultaneously because of state law.
I don't believe so, but that doesn't mean the state legislatures can't change that in the next 2-6 months.
Logistically, can they really be ready to join and start competing 55 weeks from now?
Virginia was in the ACC long before VaTech.
Virginia and VaTech had to join the ACC simultaneously because of state law.
What? UVa has been in the ACC since the 1950s.
The BIGger the better?
We now control three corners of the map...
More than anything I'm just upset the confe
Aaaannnddd...?
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$8 for Mgoblog blue. Seth would so get my money if he did that. (No blue check mark, though-you get a miniature maize block M. And if you pay an extra $2 you get to change the color of maize to whatever shade you think it should *really* be).
I absolutely would pay for us to have a more functional message board, and not this 2008 relic.
Apparently, USC wants to block Stanford and Cal so that they can control the California recruiting footprint