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’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.
Latest Answers