(02-19-2019 12:49 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(02-18-2019 11:31 PM)Sactowndog Wrote:  

(02-18-2019 10:57 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(02-18-2019 04:57 PM)Sactowndog Wrote:  Both the Big 12 and the PAC-12 have a fundamental population issue. The power brokers in the PAC-12 are Stanford and USC. They combined with Texas and Oklahoma could easily drive a 16 team powerhouse centered in California and Texas. I would see a merger of equals that would have the following Teams:
Western: USC, Stanford, UCLA, Cal, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Arizona.
Central: Texas, TCU, Tech, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, ...
The last two is interesting... I would pitch Nebraska, Missouri and Texas A&M to return. Assuming they did not you go Baylor or Houston, and Oklahoma State.

No, it is not USC and Stanford. It is the schools in Southern California, UCLA and USC. For example, when the Pac-10 decided to expand to 12 schools, the fight was over who would be in the South Division in football:

http://www.espn.com/college-football/new...id=5711336

USC and UCLA got some protection as both schools would get a $2 million bonus if the conference media revenues fall below $170 million. Colorado has a huge number of alumni in Southern California and wanted in the South, plus the recruiting advantages. The four Northwest schools lost a trip to LA each season, but were at least guaranteed a game against an LA team each season.

In a hypothetical situation, if USC and Stanford both left the Pac-12, the conference would survive and still have a school in LA. If both USC and UCLA left, the Pac-12 would be done. It is no different than if Texas left the Big 12. The size of the media market and the athletic talent makes Southern California extremely important to the Pac-12, which is why UCLA and USC have leverage in the Pac-12.

The Ruins haven’t been relevant in a sport in some time.

First, the leverage or power that UCLA and USC have is the market. There are 23 million people living in Southern California. The only state with more people is Texas. It is the 2nd largest media market in the country. Two power conference schools in the same conference, 14 miles apart in the same city. It is one of the best rivalries in the country.

Secondly, UCLA has 116 NCAA titles, USC has 106 NCAA titles. That is 222 national titles between those two schools. Stanford has 118 NCAA championships. All three schools win championships, but only two are located in LA.

I guess your point is that UCLA has sucked in football lately and that is true. Eleven straight losses to Stanford in football is embarrassing. UCLA still produces a fair amount of football talent. They were tied with Stanford at #11 with 27 players on opening day NFL rosters:

http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/articl...fl-rosters

USC had 32 players on opening day NFL rosters, which was #7.

Just curious. Take out sports like men’s and women’s water polo where the PAC-12 schools cheat by having a roster 2X in size than any other school can afford and how many championships do they have in the last 10-15 years?

(02-19-2019 01:18 PM)JRsec Wrote:  First of all and more to the point for this discussion (revenue) it is the championships in football and basketball that matter to the national audience. Baseball and Soccer lag well behind in interest. Volleyball is regional in interest only like lacrosse and hockey.

Second the last time either USC or UCLA did anything noteworthy in the big 2 was 2004 for the Trojans and that football championship was stripped and tainted and today's freshmen class was about 5 years old when it happened. For UCLA the last championship was in 1995. The average college Senior was not even alive when that happened.

Nobody is questioning the historical sports histories of the two Los Angeles schools. What fans are obviously questioning is just how far have the two programs declined? Why is their attendance so lousy? And when will they see an upward trajectory?

Couple all of that with changing societal interests, professional sports options in the area, and the distribution issues for PAC cable and you have a negative synergy that is hammering the product. Toss in the time zone issues and you have a product that no network wants to own outright because they really only offer 2 time slots to the rest of the country and the second one is lousy for the East Coast.

There is a massive confluence of negative currents creating one helluva an undertow for PAC sports. I don't see a return to prominence in the near future. In fact with E sports holding the interest of the kiddies these days interest in the big 2 may never be recouped. Baseball is the safest but the least likely to hold a viewers attention.

I think the evolution of sports will be participation purposes, and when enough sports are selected by the young for participation then as they age they will tend to watch those sports.

Participation is dropping for football and that with the CTE issues, and the cost of playing, are not in its favor. I think baseball will have a little bit of a renaissance but gloves and bats and helmets aren't exactly inexpensive there either. Soccer is cheap. If the city provides the field all you really need is a good pair of shoes and a ball. So what are the big sports of the future? I don't think anybody really knows right now. Basketball is pretty inexpensive other than usually requiring a building to play in. The problem with basketball is that it really favors the big guys. Soccer and baseball not so much.

But the OP is PAC woes. Well here they are. They are 4th in a 5 way race for revenue and just barely out of last place. They are 4th in attendance and just barely out of last place. Time zone is killing them for ratings. Local fan interest as a % of population stinks. And they reside in one of the highest cost of living areas in the nation and they have easily the greatest travel distances of any of the P5.

Nobody can address all of those issues. But Scott found a way to compound all of it by choices that drove the overhead needlessly higher, over the sky high sitz im leben in which they operate anyway, which makes him an idiot.

My discussion with Sactowndog was about the power base in the Pac-12. It is in Los Angeles with UCLA and USC. Many of the issues you bring up are unrelated but kind of interesting.

Revenue is not an issue, although it always helps to have more. Both schools have $100 million plus athletic budgets. Both schools have plenty of money. For all their money, neither school was as good as Washington State in football. WSU had an athletic budget of $64 million in 2016-2017.

This is LA. Fans are not going to show up in the numbers that some might expect or want if the teams are mediocre. UCLA and USC have to win and/or be interesting to watch. In 2016-2017, the Bruins basketball team averaged 13,439 in attendance for their nine conference home games and 11,182 in all home games. That was the Lonzo Ball team and that team beat three top five schools (Oregon at home, Arizona on the road and #1 Kentucky on the road). There were six players off of this team that ended up getting drafted, four in the first round. The Ball team lost in the sweet sixteen to Kentucky.

UCLA football averaged 76,650 fans in 2014, which was a record. That team was 10-3 and ended up ranked #10 in the country. USC football, which went 82-9 from 2002-2008, averaged at around 90,000 in attendance when they were at their height in that period. They averaged 72,683 in 2017. USC ended up #3 in 2016, after their Rose Bowl win over Penn State.

The time zone issue is an east coast issue. It doesn't seem to hurt Gonzaga. On a weeknight, a home game at Pauley Pavilion in Westwood has to start at 8PM pacific time. A start of 5PM or 6 PM would be right in the middle of gridlock traffic in Westwood. As it is, people will not show up for games against mid-major schools just to avoid the traffic.

I am not as concerned about winning championships as I am about competing for championships. UCLA gets to three straight final fours in basketball from 2006-2008 and comes home with zero championships. Kind of frustrating, but it happens. At least they were competing for a championship.

Both schools have had ups-and-downs in the past and will recover. I like the hiring of Chip Kelly at UCLA, now they just got to get it right on the basketball side. I think USC can do better than Clay Helton but he may prove me wrong.

I don't see participation in football falling that much in California. I attended a couple of high school playoff games this fall and there was plenty of talent on the field. Football here is not like Texas, where I played a couple of years of high school football, but there is plenty of participation and a good following.

The real issue is Larry Scott and the excessive spending. As I have posted before, this is the revenue per conference in 2016-2017:

SEC ($650 million)
Big Ten ($531 million)
Pac-12 ($509 million)
ACC ($418 million)
Big 12 ($371 million)

The Pac-12 had expenses of $138 million. There is almost $6 million in revenue per school if they cut out half of the expense. They need to be on Direct TV. These are simple solutions. My concern is California is beginning to lose top football recruits to other schools in the Midwest and South. They need to fire Scott and find a new commissioner that can run the league much more efficiently.

(02-20-2019 05:40 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  SEC ($650 million)
Big Ten ($531 million)
Pac-12 ($509 million)
ACC ($418 million)
Big 12 ($371 million)

The Pac-12 had expenses of $138 million. There is almost $6 million in revenue per school if they cut out half of the expense. They need to be on Direct TV. These are simple solutions. My concern is California is beginning to lose top football recruits to other schools in the Midwest and South. They need to fire Scott and find a new commissioner that can run the league much more efficiently.

Well said. It would be different if the PAC needed to spend that $138m to generate that revenue, but it obviously doesn't.

Expenses need to be cut, and they easily can be, by just getting the PAC out of the full-fledged TV network business - and canning those responsible for the mistakes.

(02-20-2019 07:04 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-20-2019 05:40 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  SEC ($650 million)
Big Ten ($531 million)
Pac-12 ($509 million)
ACC ($418 million)
Big 12 ($371 million)

The Pac-12 had expenses of $138 million. There is almost $6 million in revenue per school if they cut out half of the expense. They need to be on Direct TV. These are simple solutions. My concern is California is beginning to lose top football recruits to other schools in the Midwest and South. They need to fire Scott and find a new commissioner that can run the league much more efficiently.

Well said. It would be different if the PAC needed to spend that $138m to generate that revenue, but it obviously doesn't.

Expenses need to be cut, and they easily can be, by just getting the PAC out of the full-fledged TV network business - and canning those responsible for the mistakes.

at this point that will be difficult to do

no one needs the studio and talking heads and other overhead that the PAC12n has put in place so any deal to get out of the full network business would come with cutting that to zero

but of course while you probably can walk away from a lot of employment contracts, fire people, or just wait those contracts out you cannot just walk away from studio leases and leases and purchase agreements for other equipment and overhead

not to mention the bigger factor is that the PAC 12 basically sealed their fate by PROVING and allowing the market to PROVE there is simply no demand for their product even at a low price

Direct TV felt zero backlash.....absolutely none from refusing to carry the PAC12n even when the PAC 12 was running commercials calling for people to get in contact with Direct TV and demand the PAC12n and AT&T/Direct was so confident in that decisions that they booted the PAC12n from UVerse later on down the line and again no one even blinked

there is simply no demand for their network and along with that there is almost certainly no one out there willing to take on their overhead to try and force carriage and make a profit (much less distribute the same or more money to the PAC 12) when it is so clear the demand is not there

and there is probably no one out there willing to even take on the content without the overhead at this point because forcing carriage to try and make a profit AND bump distributions to the PAC 12 is just not worth the risk and hassle for something so clearly not in demand

people forget one of the main things with these conference networks

with the SEC SEC SEC and ACC specifically ESPN already owned that content and to a large degree ESPN was obliged to place that content somewhere on their networks

true with the ACC they had sold some off to Raycom and then through Raycom to Fox Regionals, but that contract was expiring and it was a chance for ESPN to have someone else PAY ESPN to prove that the content might be wanted

with ESPN being obligated to carry that content they have two options....either carry that content and the cost associated with that and make what money they can

OR they can go to the conferences and make a "conference network" and place some of that content they are otherwise already OBLIGATED to carry on a conference network and then place the expenses of doing so ON THAT NETWORK and then split any profits AFTER THE COST OF CARRIAGE with the conferences

so in doing so ESPN has now shifted the financial burden and the obligation of carriage onto that network and even if the network simply breaks even on the cost of carriage ESPN is still ahead because they have recovered the cost of carriage for content they were already obligated to show in the past with no cost recovery

any profits is simply gravy on the icing on the cake and cobbler

the fact that ESPN had the leverage to force carriage of course worked in their favor and the PAC 12 does not have that

and some would say well ESPN can take over the content of the PAC12n and do the same....but again the PAC 12 took a risk and that risk proved that there is next to no demand for their content on the PAC12n and the fact that cable MSOs and Sat providers now know this 100% with out a doubt means that ESPN is simply not going to be bothered to try and make that fight for the PAC 12

and yes even if the PAC 12 added dem coogs doh

(02-18-2019 04:57 PM)Sactowndog Wrote:  Both the Big 12 and the PAC-12 have a fundamental population issue. The power brokers in the PAC-12 are Stanford and USC. They combined with Texas and Oklahoma could easily drive a 16 team powerhouse centered in California and Texas. I would see a merger of equals that would have the following Teams:
Western: USC, Stanford, UCLA, Cal, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Arizona.
Central: Texas, TCU, Tech, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, ...
The last two is interesting... I would pitch Nebraska, Missouri and Texas A&M to return. Assuming they did not you go Baylor or Houston, and Oklahoma State.

The PAC and Big 12 leftovers could join with a few others to make a fairly decent second-tier conference...above the MWC and AAC. Something like this:

WEST: Oregon St., Washington St., Arizona St., Boise St., San Diego St., Fresno St.
EAST: Iowa St., Kansas St., Cincinnati, Houston, SMU, Memphis

(02-22-2019 12:44 PM)YNot Wrote:  

(02-18-2019 04:57 PM)Sactowndog Wrote:  Both the Big 12 and the PAC-12 have a fundamental population issue. The power brokers in the PAC-12 are Stanford and USC. They combined with Texas and Oklahoma could easily drive a 16 team powerhouse centered in California and Texas. I would see a merger of equals that would have the following Teams:
Western: USC, Stanford, UCLA, Cal, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Arizona.
Central: Texas, TCU, Tech, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, ...
The last two is interesting... I would pitch Nebraska, Missouri and Texas A&M to return. Assuming they did not you go Baylor or Houston, and Oklahoma State.

The PAC and Big 12 leftovers could join with a few others to make a fairly decent second-tier conference...above the MWC and AAC. Something like this:

WEST: Oregon St., Washington St., Arizona St., Boise St., San Diego St., Fresno St.
EAST: Iowa St., Kansas St., Cincinnati, Houston, SMU, Memphis

I would think BYU wmight be interested in that as well.