They'll probable join the MAC and put out a release about "shared educational values blah blah."

(The most logical thing for them to do is join the Mountain West, but logic has no part in what is going on now.)

How does this help the Olympic sports to fly back east for 25% of their games?

(Assuming preseason games will stay west coast focused.)

My old roommate is a Stanford fan and I'm on the Cal side of things. We both follow the Ags too. He's convinced the Ags should try to move up to the MWC (not that they'd be interested if they add WSU/OSU). I told him for the G5 level it's not really worth it. It would be cool seeing them play Fresno or SJSU, but then they'd probably leave Sac and CP while having to increase the budget. I'm just glad they have a football team and the Big West saves a lot of travel costs.

So, Ron Gould out of a job now. Teresa Gould soon to be as well. The sad human side of all of this is often overlooked. I would think Teresa would land on her feet OK, but for Ron it may be much harder. Riches to rags kind of story. I wish them well.

Huh? Coach Gould is coaching RBs with the Rams.

Has no idea

They become fishing buddies.

Money, money, money...

Academics aren't important where many of the power programs are heading:

Had some time tonight so I went to the Bear athletic board. WOW, They are truly hurting, with some crazy thoughts of what they can do. These included cutting football and many other sports.. As an outsider I think the most likely is that they will not cut football but a handful of other sports.

Cal has had serious problems in the athletic department with huge deficits and many under performing sports. Stanford will be able to keep its head above water but the Bears are going to be hurting. I thought for a moment that they would stay on the West Coast and then Stanford and Stanford join the MWC. Going to the ACC really hurt those Cal and Stanford teams that will have home and away commitments.

I am sad that the Pac 12 is gone. As a Northern California my father followed great NCAA QB's. We went to most home Stanford games to watch Jim Plunkett and then letter to Cal to watch Steve Bartkowski. They made huge impressions with me and I loved the games with all the Pac 8 schools.I enjoyed both venues and I had a better time at college games than when we went to see the Raiders or the 49ers. My brothers on the other hand went for the NFL teams and have stayed with the 49ers. My youngest brother loves being part of the "faithful". Hard to be faithful when the college game has changed so much.

Doesn't Cal take a huge reduction below the league's standard $30M payout for 3-4 years?

Yes from what I read it's 8 million dollars not 30 million. The Bears and Cardinals are in a world of hurt.

Every assistant, associate, deputy director and director in athletics should be looking for new work.

Can they find a way out of the FB HC salary?

Then there are the legal costs re swim coach, and stadium debts.

The football stadium is a sunk cost and I do not see how they could get out of that debt.

On the board the salary cost is what they look at as the price of doing business at the FBS level and that falls on the AD shoulders as does the swim coach. The current AD is Jim Knowlton and many on the board direct a lot of anger at him and put the blame on their current problems right on his shoulder.

I have not followed the situation closely so I do not have a strong opinion but will say the personal issues in particular the women's swim coach and the hires fall on his duties..

I think the Beavers and the Cougars should join the Mountain West. The MWC is not a power conference, but it makes sense geographically in an era when geography doesn't make sense. Cal joining the ACC is stupid and seals the deal for me on giving up on Cal sports. After this season, UC Davis will get my undivided attention, which was formerly split between my alma mater and my father's.

What's interesting is that prior to the 2023 season, the Mountain West Conference announced it would eliminate the Divisions and simply let the two teams with the best records play for the championship.

There are currently 12 teams in the MW:
Boise State
Air Force
Fresno State
San Diego State
San Jose State
Wyoming
Colorado State
Utah State
UNLV
Hawai'i
Nevada
New Mexico

could add:

Oregon State
Washington State

This would make it a 14 team conference, which is massive...maybe it would bring divisions back. Could see the following divisions being viable.

The West
Fresno State
Oregon State
San Diego State
San Jose State
UNLV
Hawai'i
Nevada

The East (in the interest of keeping the two new power teams out of the same division)
Boise State
Washington State
Wyoming
Colorado State
New Mexico
Air Force
Utah State

Maybe an at large scheduling is truly what's best for the conference. Article

What's the MWC FB and MBB yearly payout?

LA Times good article about Stanford and Cal

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2023-09-01/stanford-cal-acc-studen-athletes-broken-sports?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=promo_module&utm_campaign=rss_feed

Bottom line decreased income by a lot and increase cost by a lot. Recipe for both the schools having their athletic Department implode.

I predict that it won't be long before there are only two major football conferences, each with 16 teams whose champions meet in a big final bowl game at the end, maybe after some kind of playoff system. I know that sounds like the NFL, but why not? It's practically a pro sport now. If that ever happens, I would like to see the Pac-12 re-form as a non-football conference so the swimmers, baseball players, gymnists, etc. aren't flying across the continent for half their seasons.

The top teams will make a lot of money, but the overall audience for college football will decline. Without conference affiliations, there will be little that broadens the interest in the postseason games beyond fans of the schools involved. This may take a few years, but the narrower appeal will eventually lead to less money for all concerned.

I wonder if the teams left behind (including Stanford and Cal) have grounds for a lawsuit against the super-conferences for poaching so many of their members and reducing the PAC-12 to the point where it couldn't complete a full schedule and it lost tv reveue. I mean, I could see a furure where maybe Cal has to shutter its athletic program completely. There is a pretty clear cause and effect here

AggieFInn2. I think that is a big stretch and would be hard to find a case. NCAA sports are big business and Cal's and Stanford woes are partially to be blamed on themselves. They failed to find a positive future for their departments. What does anyone else think?

Which four teams are left behind after the dissolution of the Pac12? Which four teams had the lowest attendance? There is a correspondence. Attendance probably equates roughly to interest in watching on TV also. The teams without a fan base were left behind.

Seems obvious to me, this is just an erosion of sports culture on the West Coast. Football is still big, but it doesn't run towns in the fall like it does out in the midwest and down south. The biggest tv deals are out there, because more people in those areas watch the local teams and the programs are better funded.

“ Seems obvious to me, this is just an erosion of sports culture on the West Coast. Football is still big, but it doesn't run towns in the fall like it does out in the midwest and down south. The biggest tv deals are out there, because more people in those areas watch the local teams and the programs are better funded.”

Two years ago i was in the middle of “nowhere, TX,” driving to my destination on a Friday night. The highway took me past the HS where they were playing a football game. The number of cars parked all around the HS was unreal. They take their football serious down there.

We're becoming more 'diverse' and Latino every year. Expect soccer to continue to expand, along with social isolation.

soccer expanding? lol

Most Californians are from someplace else, and they have their attachments to their former home. People who move here from Michigan remain Michigan fans, etc. The big football college teams here have a small percentage of the college alumni, due both to number of non football schools and the number of foreign or out of state graduates. Plus we have a lot of people here who don’t relate to football. Berkeley and Stanford aren’t going to draw non college workers like might happen in with fans in some regions, where the team represents the community more. This is partly due to the prevalence of professional sports in California taking over the fans with no attachment to the schools.

Excerpts from The Athletic, "If Deion Sanders Wins, Scorched Earth Will Become Accepted Strategy."

This has been a dizzying and nauseating time in college athletics. School presidents had long ago proven themselves to be far more about revenue streams and media rights deals than academics. But they’ve mutated into some unrecognizable species with conference Armageddon. It’s Monopoly with 6-year-olds. University mission statements, written long ago in far more innocent times, now are less believable than anything crafted by the Grimms.

Some established football coaches, even those who’ve embraced the transfer portal to patch holes and improve their team, may not feel inclined to detonate their rosters to the extent Sanders did (86 new players! 57 transfers!). But some who believe their program is on the edge of spiraling might feel desperate enough to take that extreme leap — and they will be given the blessing to do so by their administration. Younger coaches seeking to climb the ranks quickly will follow Sanders’ blueprint. So will high-profile/celebrity-level former athletes who will convince themselves that they, too, can capitalize on their Q Scores and have success despite little or no coaching experience.

https://theathletic.com/4836250/2023/09/06/deion-sanders-colorado-buffaloes-college-football/

BlueGoldAg, Thanks for sharing.

I follow the thinking that in football emotion has limits and a staff with better plans and coaching will over time beat emotional based teams.

The transfer portal can give but it can take away quickly. Bandwagon teams might fall quickly. The crazy part isI might be all wrong. As a player or a parent I would gravitate toward the more process focused teams and coaches but I do not know.

The loss of regionalism for NCAA football and sports will also play a huge factor in player development. Not sure how teams and players that have crazy travel schedules will improve in season and during their career.

It is truly wild, and new times in the NCAA landscape