UCLA, USC reportedly joining Big Ten

College Basketball
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81

They should grab the Mtn West and the rest of PAC 12 and the MAC and do a full pro/rel.that would be cool. Only thing that could save this idiocy.

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82

Man, with all these rumors about Nd, Oregon, and Washington next in line, what’s going to happen to Cal :(? Berkeley is boned if this conference breaks up.

83

Spoiler: the remaining Pac is already boned.

Cal will join with whoever doesn’t get an invite and team up with the B12 or something like that.

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84

It would be so funny, and really cool tbh, to see Cal in the Big 12. l m a o just thinking about Cal @ TCU. I still think it would be funny and, honestly, the best decision ever, if Berkeley could finagle their way into the SEC. It would solve their money problems and the SEC could bolster their academic reputation. The doors have been blown wide open and I can’t imagine the SEC will be sitting still while the Pac splinters off. Stanford + Cal in the SEC just makes sense, even geographically if we’re even considering that anymore. Oregon and Wash to B1G.

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85

Cal is a negative asset, SEC would never consider them.

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86

Not really. I know Cal AD is bankrupt and the school’s enthusiasm for sports is almost zero, but that doesn’t mean they’re a negative asset. Their viewership numbers might spread thin but the conference would gain a recruiting foothold in the largest state in the country by acquiring its flagship school. I’m not saying it’s likely but it would be a plus to both parties although Cal might have reservations as well. If they could get Cal, they could possibly get Stanford along with them.

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87

Doesn’t getting UCLA and USC get them a California foothold?

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88

I’m talking about the SEC bringing in Cal.

89

The Vandy of the West!

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90

Nah. Cal is a flagship school academically but in sports terms, it’s just another school out there.
USC/UCLA were the big prizes.

91

Yeah but Cal could be valuable for the SEC.

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92

I see no way the SEC goes to California to pick up the leftovers. That’s not what they do and they don’t need to be everywhere. If they are expanding out west, they would rather grab Oregon and Washington over Cal and Stanford. This round of expansion is fueled by having more attractive games for TV. It’s not about geography or recruiting and the SEC isn’t ever going to make a move because of academics.

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93

I don’t see the fit. Cal is very much an academically-oriented school with athletics as a second consideration. What does the SEC gain by taking them over, say, Oregon? Is it just the fact that they are in California? Seems kind of weak, imo.

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Berkeley is arguably the best public institution on the entire planet, they’d get a foothold in California, Cal gets money, and the SEC gets some much needed improvement to their academic reputation. Plus, Cal is good at nonrevenue sports if I’m not mistaken.

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95

I think Cal would make sense if you were a prospective sports team owner and the SEC or B1G operated on the idea that everybody should be approximately on the same competitive footing and you make $$ by making fans in every market in the US and beyond? But I don’t get the sense that CFB conferences are willing to commit to that kind of long term outlook. Average $$ per team can go down a smidge for the sake of X or Y but Cal would presumably be a big hit?

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96

But the teams currently in the SEC would make less money. You need to bring in teams that are going to increase the number of viewers of your games. Cal-Berkely does not do that

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97

Seems like but how do you explain Rutgers then?

98

Cal doesn’t make sense for the SEC unless they are a throw in. Their sports suck, they care about academics in a way that is misaligned to everyone but Vandy (who I think the SEC would dump if they could) and they don’t bring you the west coast TV market.

I think the SEC wants the full south so they will raid the ACC.

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99

Incredibly short-sighted thinking from Jim Delaney when cable was at its peak. You could scrape $1 a month off of every grandma in NYC by ensuring the B10 network was on a low-level cable package.

But then a lot of people decided they no longer needed cable at all. And now we’re stuck with Rutgers providing zero value.

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100

They wanted to get the big ten network on basic cable packages in NYC