Oregon and Washington are both entering the Big 10 Conference and the college women’s soccer community is freaking out. Why is it such a bad thing?
In: 25
It essentially ends the PAC-12 as we know it. All of the money just left the conference. The 4 schools left in the conference are going to have to majorly slash budgets. Like the Big Ten teams are going to be making 70 million dollars a year in tv money, the teams going to the Big 12 35 million and the teams left might be looking at something like 5 million (that’s what the MWC makes). The conference (in some form) was also like 100 years old.
With Oregon and Washington leaving, and Colorado, USC and UCLA already gone, the collapse of the conference (one of the oldest and most successful in the country) is imminent at this point.
At the very least, Women’s Soccer just got FAR more expensive to have as a sport. Now, instead of staying mostly on the west coast (WA, OR, CA, AZ, UT, and CO), they’ll have to fly to Ohio, Michigan, New York, etc. for games. In the case of schools like Washington State, Oregon State, California, and Stanford, the hit to their athletic department budget could end up meaning severe cuts and/or elimination of “Olympic sports” like Women’s Soccer.
It’s also just a major step towards the major football programs possibly breaking away from the NCAA all together leaving other sports to fend for themselves (i.e. collapse themselves).
It’s not just UW and Oregon leaving for the BigTen that’s the issue, it’s USC, UCLA also leaving for the Big Ten PLUS Colorado and Arizona leaving for the Big 12 PLUS Arizona State and Utah also likely leaving for the Big 12.
That means the Pac-12, which is one of the oldest college conferences (having been initially founded in 1915) will have four remaining members: Stanford, Cal, Washington State and Oregon State and will likely cease to exist or exist in a much more finished form.
Some of the effects of all this:
– Athletes from the four west coast schools joining the BigTen will have a greatly increased amount of travel time compared to now including having to deal with more time zone changes. The BigTen is predominately a Mid west conference with schools in the Central and Eastern time zones
– The remaining 4 Pac-12 schools will likely end up in a weaker conference, likely merging with the Mountain West. While that might slightly benefit the MW, the media revenue for the new/combined conference will be less, probably much less than they would have gotten had the Pac-12 remained intact
– Annual games played between the departing schools and the remainders, some of them stretching back over 100 years may come to an end. Even if they keep their in state rivalry games as a non-conference matchup they won’t be able to play the other schools on a regular basis.
– Student athletes at the remaining schools will need to strongly reconsider their choices or decide to transfer as the prestige of the programs they thought they had joined/were joining just took a huge hit
– The Rose Bowl will fade even more in importance and tradition as it no longer will be a Pac-12/BigTen matchup
– Game Day experiences will continue to suffer as schools are even more controlled by the media companies that are monopolizing the sport and calling the shots that have driven conference consolidation
– Competition within the BigTen will make it harder for schools to win as many games, especially with the added burden of long travel
Overall revenue for UW/Oregon/USC/UCLA will go up and there will be some great matchups against traditional powerhouse programs, but in every other way the experience will be worse and for the schools not going to the BigTen it’s a step down from where things stood 5-10 years ago.
Did not expect to ever see a conference realignment question on this sub… come join us at r/CFB!
Imagine you’re a student who signed up for classes next to their dorm with renowned professors. Now all of a sudden, you’re part of 1 of 2 groups. Group A: where you get slightly better professors but now a random few of your classes are a 20 minute drive away. Group B: You now have dogs shit professors and all of your friends are in group A
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