It was a channel 8 panel with four panelists. Each one gave their take on expansion. When the discussion leader asked one of the four for his opinion he said something like "I told you before I don't know anything about sports." That was it and then they moved on to someone else.
Whoosh, no kidding.
SDSU gets its student body overwhelmingly from CA and Pac 12 territory, and will continue to. There is a huge, huge benefit in terms of recruiting students by playing in the Pac and not the Big XII regardless of athletic department cash. They would take less money to join the Pac. However, if they think the Pac will be dissolving in a few years anyway, that would change the equation.
That makes sense, but passing up a B12 offer in hopes of a good offer from the PAC down the road seems kind of crazy. I would think the kids being recruited to SDSU would be happy to play in the B12, just like UConn recruits would.
I didn't talk about passing up a bird in the hand for two in the bush. Just that if it has a choice, SDSU would for reasons having nothing to do with athletics far prefer to be in the Pac.
Why does anything else matter for an athletic conference/association? I don't really understand this logic. Fox and ESPN aren't going to pay an athletic conference more money because of how big its members' libraries are or how many PhDs it cranks out.
What do you think is more important to a school, academics or athletics?
The guy on the right is Stewart McKinney, former US rep from CT, and he gets it totally. The woman to his right (viewers' left), is Liz Kantrowiscz and she is not buying it saying that there isn't a big enough base of support for bigtime UConn football. She is putting up all the timeworn arguments for staying in the NBE which to my mind are rebuttable one by one.
Stewart McKinney died of AIDS 40 years ago.
Wow, given that he's been dead for 40 years he had a remarkable grasp of the issues.
Humblest apologies. John McKinney, former CT House Minority leader. I was switching back and forth and got shunted down memory lane.
Because universities have bigger fish to fry than how much money their athletic departments make.
I'm sure they do, but we're talking about conference realignment here not debating the mission of the higher education system in America. IMO money is the only thing that matters. It's what all the infighting in the ACC is about and why the search is on for a way out of the GOR. It's why some Pac12 schools are looking to jump ship, and why everyone is trying to get into the B1G or $EC. It's why even our athletic director tweets about our AD's financial state from time to time.
Universities view athletic departments as a means to an end. Not as the end itself. The goal is for the athletic department to help the university achieve its goals, not just to produce more revenue.
Michigan.
I mean.. absolutely love the sound of that
I think it is irrelevant. I don't think the Big XII has interest in SDSU. They'd join SMU as backfill in the Pac12. If Colorado jumps, the Pac12 will need more backfill. But given the choice, I think SDSU would choose the Pac12 anyway.
I can see how waiting does provide benefits to the Big12:
Simply put, it's all about football.... UConn's is widely looked down upon ... by its own Bball fan base especially. Other programs like Kansas, and even Colorado have had years upon years of horrible football products and empty stadiums with the luxury of P5 money to prop their egos....UConn has had to use alternative revenue sources to keep spending on par with P5 athletic programs ... P5 old money doesn't respect that. What I find most interesting in all this is how much UCF and Cinci thumb their noses at UConn athletics. Perhaps they have earned it but talk about entitled fanbases forgetting where they came from.
