Assuming the game is not bought out by Cal, it will be on the ACCX network. That is available with sling orange sports extra (I toggle that on for college football come end of August). I am sure it is on other streaming services. It used to be on the PAC-12 network but surprise surprise that does not show up in that package anymore. I think the late August heat of Stawberry Canyon is much preferable to Davis heat. Cal gets to look forward to going to Auburn the first week of September. Welcome to the ACC and attendant humidity.

Cal has the money to buy out games?

well good question. Just looked up an article that says Cal and Stanford will get partial media rights from ACC of about $25M per year until year 7 or so then a full share. Don’t know if anything developed from the potential suit and liability of those jumping the PAC-12 ship. Of course who knows what Cal will be forced to pay former athletes for NIL as recently ruled. It’s a chaotic landscape. But $500,000 or so these days is becoming chump change. As Cal is not likely to set the world on fire and has precedence playing UCD, my guess is that they will honor the game.

there is also the $10M payment from UCLA that the regents decided

Buying out a game after tickets have already been sold seems impractical.

As a fan of both teams, Cal is not buying out this game 2 months in advance at this point, nor would they buy out any future games scheduled if another series is announced. Cal and UC Davis love to play each other for many reasons.

1. FCS games are relatively cheap and they probably can pay Davis less than say a school like South Dakota State (who is both elite = more money and far away = more money to cover costs).

2. Cal and Davis are in the same UC system so the schedulers and administrators are all on a first name basis with each other. It's really like a money transfer within the system. Think of Calimony except that this is a contract. Or if you want, imagine the board of Regents decides to give money to a school for non athletic reasons, they allocate funds and then use logistics to make it work. It's the same thing. Also, it is clear Cal respects Davis in a way they do not for Fresno or Sac State. Turn on the radio when the two teams play and they are always so respectful towards the Ags and mention it is a depth issue (it usually is). Cal always talks about how they enjoy playing the Ags.

3. Cal would be far more likely to cancel their game at Wyoming or when they had one scheduled at SJSU before Covid - As a fan of both teams, those games make/made no sense. Why play at Wyoming which is hard to access and has few recruits? When they were scheduled to play SJSU, it made no sense because they played in the same market at a G5 team.

4. Tickets are already being sold and game times have been announced.

5. The games are mutually beneficial. Cal gets a little attendance boost vs when they play Eastern Washington or Grambling. The games against Davis usually have a higher attendance vs another FCS school. UC Davis does a good job with their ticket allotment for the game. Much like football programs want to play in CA for recruits, schools like Davis are happy to use this game as an opportunity to recruit regular high school students in the Bay area and get alumni to have tailgates. I believe the Cal Aggie Association has used Memorial Glade to host in the past. It's a good way to connect with rich Bay alumni who have money to give to the program or the school in general.

6. I mentioned this before but travel for Davis is nill. You can take a bus to Berkeley on one tank of gas and maybe back depending on the model. Because of this Berkeley can pay less, but Davis can pocket more. They also can sellout their visiting allotment and sell events like a wine and cheese tailgate or a party bus to Berkeley. You don't have to pay up for a fancy hotel or a flight if you don't want to. It's only an hour away. Davis has said in the past, they prefer to play west coast FBS schools where they can network with alumni, have fans attend, and not spend a fortune to travel to. Thats why they are playing UCLA, UW, etc and have played Oregon, Reno, Fresno, SJSU in past years.

If I'm an admin, I'm scheduling this game 2-3x a decade (it would have been more if not for Covid). As a fan of both, I don't like it because I worry about injuries for both teams and I prefer to have two games to follow instead of one.

Good list.

7. Almost a lock win for Cal, and they can give their 2s and 3s PT.

8. The Aggies will also scheme, be competitive for a half, throw the book at them, and make the players and coaches work. We'll expose some weaknesses.

I wonder if this game will be on ESPN+?

highly doubtful. Home team is Cal and is scheduled to be on ACCNX (ACC network“extra”) which is owned by ESPN. ESPN would not broadcast on two of its channels for a game like this. I would assume Big Sky football will again be on ESPN+ this fall, but would include only those big sky conference games or games against other non-FBS schools.

I imagine ACC Network(s) are itching to see the numbers from the new west coast additions. They should be covering everything out of the gate.

This discussion pompted me to look at Cal’s 2022 attendance and they had 34984 in attendance for the 2022 Davis game. For comparison they had 36221 for UCLA, and 34601 for Washington. Point being that there aren’t a lot of games that are going to draw more at Cal. They wouldn’t dump the Davis game to play a run of the mill FBS team.

Another good example was pre-covid when attendence was higher. The game wth Davis(44k) outdrew home games against Oregon State (42k), Wazzu (39k), and North Texas(35k).

Going even further back to 2010, the first time they played since 1939, the attendence for UCD was 58K, which outdrew Colorado which was non conference (55k), ASU (51k), and UW 44k (at Old Memorial stadum which was demolished after the game) and came within 3k of UCLA's 61.6k.

I don't think it's necessarily fair to compare 2022 with 2023 but the 2022 Davis game outdrew two Pac 12 games the next year (although Idaho had 36K but likely a high name recognition).

Cal has a pretty attractive home slate so I don't expect this game to be much higher other than any game omaybe Syracuse or Oregon State (depending on how OSU is).

I think one of the most intriguing things about the Berkeley game is Teddy Buchanan and LL’s interaction. From what I know, which is not that much, is that Teddy was a very beloved teammate by his Aggies who hated to see him go to cal. He and LL were pretty close and so was he and TT who has a black GF who, as well, was a friend of TB. So, how in the new world of college football do we as fans and prior teammates deal with this transfer conundrum? Further more, plough was a popular coach at cal. Cal will be heavily favored in this game. Will cal piled it on as they will be expected to do?

Shelton as first-time college OC gets a baptism. Friends on opposing teams is nothing new. Plough should know the Bears inside out, hopefully we compete for a half, and avoid injuries.

OK movie i get your point. And I agree, but this is former Aggie team captain vrs current Aggie team captain. And very close personal relationships here. Not backyard brother to brother stuff. And I have to question TBs decision to go to Cal in his last year? What does it get him? My real point is how the cal coach deals with this. TB is clearly now the best ILB on the cal team. LL will be his target. Who the hells knows? Not spending a lot of time on it.

Cal always seems to veer between being great, and awful.

Cal seems to be pretty solid this year.

TB a will certainly add to that improvement. Still don’t understand why he made the decision. What the heck do I know.

Just read Cal has 41 players coming in; 24 transfers and 17 high school. Not sure how many transfers they lost. That’s a huge influx.

On an alumni zoom last week, Plough said we gad (if I remember right) 9 grad transfers coming in - new business degree has had a big impact

Pac-12 / FBS competition / highlights.

Not as much of a puzzling situation when one has graduated (I am pretty sure that is Buchanan’s situation). Castles did the same thing last year and likely got more exposure in the SEC with Tennessee and although going undated was picked up by the Eagles. Just for the record, I am not in favor of all the hop-scotching prior to graduating.

Davis’ outbound transfers are an anomaly in that most have graduated. In a couple of years graduate transfers will be rare because players won’t have six or more years of eligibility like the ones in college in 2020. Other schools are losing dozens of players a year.
Incoming transfers have predominately been players seeking playing time, or a better environment. As long as the school and program fosters a good environment Davis should be a net winner,

Ultimately, I think the transfer portal is a good thing. It's showing remarkably good signs in baseball. Guys who have developed in 2, 3 years of playing at say a Tennessee Tech, Chattanooga, UC Riverside a Texas Southern --- and have blossomed to legitimate DI players can transfer in and play at a Florida State, a South Carolina, an Oklahoma State, an Oregon State immediately. Baseball is baseball in most any program, the fundamentals are the same.

In football, you have playbooks, and bonding/playing together counts for more than most sports in my opinion. Coaching staff chemistry, teammate chemistry and rep count - it matters a lot. As this thing progresses, I think the transfer bit will continue for certain players who get beat out at say a QB job for example, will get calls to play somewhere else, and they should take it to play - but I think more and more kids will look to stay in their situations at the schools they chose for a variety of reasons. Having the option to transfer is good though, sometimes mistakes are simply made, bad decisions to go to the first choice out of high school, no cooperation with coaching, teammate differences, cultural differences, whatever - every recruit is sold during the process - if they don't like the situation after a year or two, getting out is good for an individual.

We got two Sophomore starters last year who had simply been in the wrong level of play, a offensive tackle from Nebraska who didn’t get playing time as a walk-on there and a California kid who started for a D3 team in Kansas as a freshman and now he has a scholarship here.

Will most of the grad transfers have just 1 year of eligibility? Have they all been announced, or will we find out when camp opens?

there weren’t any details on those questions. Just a quick mention of the number

What better way to immerse business majors in the free market than to allow them to market their skills in the free market of college athletics

Hearing quotes from Margin Call in my head.

"...and you know damn well we don't sell anything to anybody unless you think they're going to come back for more. That's the lesson we learned."

Student-Athletes have a market, but you have to perform consistently to get buy-off for 4 years!

First play in the game from the Ags under Plough. Will it be something safe like a handoff to LL, or a Shredville sort of play to spread things out? No huddle offense?

Bang bang like at San Jose, quick scores set SJ back 2-3 years.