Thursday’s UCLA and Southern California seemed ready to jump from the Pac-12 conference to the Big Ten in the coming years. This is a move that triggers another earthquake reconstruction of college sports competition and economic landscape.
Maneuvering came as a big ten. Its membership now includes 14 universities, primarily in the Midwestern footprint, running from Nebraska to New Jersey, approaching a new television contract that is expected to be the richest in college sports history. Big Ten expects to receive a formal application from the University of California on Thursday, and the university’s president and prime minister’s vote could soon follow.
The Big Ten Stampede to the Southern California media market is arguably the strongest counterweight to the Southeastern Conference, further concentrating its influence on the industry under political and legal pressure on athletes’ rights. prize. The UCLA and USC outflow has counted schools in its ranks since the 1920s, but in recent years has been struggling to keep pace financially and in the field of Big Ten and SEC at the Pac-12 Conference. I’m in jeopardy.
It wasn’t a year ago that Oklahoma and Texas decided to leave the SEC’s Big 12 Conference. It has recently become the country’s premier college football league. Their move has triggered a round of reorganization across the country.
The membership roles of Big Ten and Pac-12, however, did not change throughout the turmoil. Leagues looking to check for SEC swelling may even join forces with another Power5 league, the Atlantic Coast Conference, on some issues.
Then came the threat of asylum on Thursday, which was discussed in secret for months and first reported by Mercury News.
Those familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private, said UCLA and USC had approached Big Ten about the possibility of joining the league. A series of events can be important for legal reasons, especially in industries that comply with contracts and articles of association, as schools bet millions of dollars a year at Power 5 meetings.
If both Big Ten and the SEC grow as expected, each will have at least 16 colleges within the next few years, including some of the most popular brands in college sports. Big Ten membership already includes Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Penn, and Wisconsin.
The addition of USC and UCLA will certainly add to Big Ten’s status, and perhaps its television rating. The two universities in Los Angeles have been the anchors of the Pac-12 in various ways for decades and have a long history of attracting attention for their excellent athletic performance.
USC has long been a West Coast marquee college football franchise with a long list of national championship teams, Heisman Trophy winners, and distinctive white horses, travelers who carry Trojan horse mascots up and down at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Throughout the city of Westwood, UCLA has shown a similar position in men’s basketball, with Bruins playing under the banner of the 11 National Championships at the Pauly Pavilion and boasting a rich catalog of graduates starring in the NBA. increase.
USC, which plans to debut former Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley, has gained a share of two domestic titles and has won a share of football under coach Pete Carroll in the early 2000s. The power is weakening. UCLA soccer teams have been struggling for local relevance in recent years. However, schools enjoy many benefits for Big Ten, including a solid presence in the United States’ second largest television market and smoother access to one of the most abundant recruitment locations.
Schools like Ohio, Alabama, Georgia and Clemson are elite, as the fate of Pac-12 has declined in football in recent years and the league has been plagued by television contracts that are tens of millions of dollars cheaper than Big Ten’s contracts a year. I’ve been mining Southern California regularly for talent.
Beyond soccer and men’s basketball, UCLA and USC are the power of so-called Olympic sports. For example, USC has won national championships in beach volleyball, women’s outdoor athletics, and men’s tennis in the last decade. As part of that, UCLA has recently won titles in baseball, beach volleyball, women’s gymnastics, women’s soccer, softball and women’s tennis. Both schools have won the water polo title. This is not a Pac-12 sponsored sport for men or women.
The potential economic plunge has overshadowed the increased burden on athletes, including soccer players and distance runners who regularly travel round trips from Los Angeles to the remote campuses of State College, Pennsylvania. .. New Brunswick, NJ; College Park, Maryland.
A deal that seduces USC and UCLA is likely to cast a shadow over big ten commissioner Kevin Warren, who was criticized in 2020 when his league first decided not to play the fall football season due to a pandemic. is. The meeting eventually overturned that decision and staged some of the planned games, but the episode obscured Warren’s tenure. (Pac-12, a subsidiary of Larry Scott, has also canceled and revived the 2020 football season.)
At the same time, the potential departure of USC and UCLA poses a sharp challenge to George Kliavkoff, who became Pac-12 Commissioner a year ago. Last August, following the Oklahoma and Texas decisions, the league said it had no plans to expand “at this time.” This is partly due to the “current competitiveness and cohesion of the 12 universities”.
Kevin Draper Report that contributed.