From the Pasadena Star-News this question from Jim Alexander: What does this do to the Rose Bowl? Technically, the contract between the Big Ten and Pac-12 (in non-playoff seasons) is unchanged, and now we have the possibility of, say, a USC-Oregon Rose Bowl game. But what if Oregon and Washington, the next most desirable teams in the conference, subsequently defect, too? Maybe the Rose Bowl turns into a best available opponents matchup. Anyway, on a day of seismic proportions in not only the Pac-12 but in all of college sports, our sympathies go out to the current conference commissioner, George Kliavkoff. He’s done quite a bit to clean up his predecessor’s mess, but it’s turned out to be too much to overcome.
And the story in the Star-News: In a historic move that will change the landscape of college sports on the West Coast, USC and UCLA are departing the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024.
The move was announced Thursday afternoon. The departure by the Los Angeles schools will have massive consequences for the Pac-12, stripping it of the campuses in its most important recruiting and media hub and the two storied teams — USC football and UCLA basketball — that serve as the face of the conference in their respective sports.
“Over the past three years, we have worked hard to ground our university decisions in what is best for our students,” USC President Carol L. Folt said in the school’s news release announcing the move. “With the Big Ten, we are joining a storied conference that shares our commitment to academic excellence and athletic competitiveness, and we are positioning USC and our student-athletes for longterm success and stability amidst the rapidly evolving sports media and collegiate athletics landscapes. We are delighted to begin this new chapter in 2024.”
The announcement indicated that the schools are joining the Big Ten in all sports.
“UCLA has deeply valued our membership in the Pac-12 for many years, and we intend to be a member of the conference for the next two years. We have grown close to the other member schools and have tremendous respect for their commitment to the studentathlete experience,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said in its school’s announcement. “The Pac-12 has always shared our values and continues to innovate, working hard on behalf of its student-athletes and many fans. At the same time, each school faces its own unique challenges and circumstances, and we believe this is the best move for UCLA at this time. For us, this move offers greater certainty in rapidly changing times and ensures that we remain a leader in college athletics for generations to come.”
In its own statement, the Pac-12 said it is “extremely surprised and disappointed” in the decision from USC and UCLA.
“The Pac-12 is home to many of the world’s best universities, athletic programs and alumni, representing one of the most dynamic regions in the United States. We’ve long been known as the Conference of Champions, and we’re unwavering in our commitment to extend that title,” the unattributed Pac-12 statement said. “We will continue to develop new and innovative programs that directly benefit our member institutions, and we look forward to partnering with current and potential members to pioneer the future of college athletics together.”
Now, the future of the conference is suddenly in serious doubt — a potential merger with the Big 12 could be on the table, or the remaining schools could go their separate ways. Washington and Oregon, in particular, have valuable football brands.
The move creates significant political questions, especially for UCLA, which is connected to Cal through the UC system — the schools share the same regents.
It also comes 11 months after Texas and Oklahoma decided to leave the Big 12 for the SEC, creating a 16-team powerhouse league supported by a sweeping media rights deal with ESPN.
Grabbing USC and UCLA would provide the Big Ten, and its major network partner, Fox, with a 16-team counterweight. Additionally, a report from the Sports Business Journal said that Apple now wants to reengage with the Big Ten about its second- and third-tier media rights, which are still up for negotiation.
After the Big 12 lost the Longhorns and Sooners, it responded by adding BYU, Central Florida, Houston and Cincinnati. ThePac-12 will assuredly seek additional members if the L.A. schools leave as planned.
The development comes one day before the first anniversary of George Kliavkoff becoming commissioner of the Pac-12 and leaves him with a shredded conference that was planning to begin media rights negotiations later this year.
Those negotiations will take on an entirely different tone without the two universities in the nation’s No. 2 media market.
And from the LA Times: UnPac-ing: UCLA, USC to Big Ten-The L.A. schools will leave the Pac-12 and head to the Midwest, creating a 16-member conference for 2024. THE UCLA AND USC FOOTBALL programs expect to be playing in front of larger home crowds when they join the Big Ten Conference in fall 2024. (Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times) By J. Brady McCollough, Ryan Kartje, Bill Plaschke and Ben Bolch
It may be hard to imagine — USC cardinal and gold and UCLA blue and gold blending into the pageantry that permeates through frosty fall Saturdays in America’s heartland.
It may be hard to imagine — Trojans and Bruins annually competing with Ohio State Buckeyes and Michigan Wolverines instead of Oregon Ducks and Washington Huskies for conference championships and bragging rights.
But Thursday, when USC and UCLA officially announced they were leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten Conference, college sports fans from coast to coast were forced to conjure up a vision that what would have once — in simpler times, perhaps — seemed unthinkable.
The Trojans and Bruins, both of whom have been trying to reclaim past football glory with varying degrees of desperation, came together and completed a shocking move that will forever alter the national college sports landscape.
The Big Ten presidents and chancellors formally accepted their applications for membership Thursday afternoon, but the work that went into getting to the finish line began many months ago as the crosstown rivals assessed their respective futures in an increasingly unstable Pac-12 Conference. For each, the compass continued to point them eastward to plentiful Big Ten paydays.
The schools’ Midwestern migration will begin Aug. 2, 2024, and include all sports except beach volleyball, men’s volleyball and men’s and women’s water polo.
“This is the most volatile and uncertain era in the history of American collegiate athletics,” USC athletic director Mike Bohn said in a statement. “USC must ensure it is best positioned and prepared for whatever happens next, and it is our responsibility to always evaluate potential opportunities and be willing to make changes when needed. Ultimately, the Big Ten is the best home for USC and Trojan athletics as we move into the new world of collegiate sports.”
UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond told The Times, “College athletics is changing, and UCLA has always led in times of change. For the sake of our student-athletes, and for preserving the legacy of Bruin excellence, we cannot afford to stand still.”
This new, changing world Bohn and Jarmond referred to is one in which college athletes for the first time can earn money from the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) — a right the NCAA and its member schools long denied to players in the name of the ideals of amateurism.
With so much unknown about where athlete compensation is headed beyond NIL, USC and UCLA leaders felt they had to address the long-term financial viability of their programs.
“As the oldest NCAA Division I athletic conference in the United States and with a footprint that will now extend from the Pacific to the Atlantic, Big Ten membership offers Bruins exciting new competitive opportunities and a broader national media platform for our student-athletes to compete and showcase their talents,” UCLA chancellor Gene Block and Jarmond said in a joint letter. “Specifically, this move will enhance name, image and likeness opportunities through greater exposure.”
USC and UCLA have been flagship members of the Pac-12, the West Coast’s power conference, for nearly a century. Their departure to the Chicago-based Big Ten signifies a death blow to the notion of the Pac-12 as a competitive, top-level football conference and serves to bolster the Big Ten in its efforts to keep up with the Southeastern Conference, which last summer grew to 16 teams with the addition of Big 12 schools Texas and Oklahoma.
The Trojans and Bruins will boost the Big Ten to 16, too, and there’s a chance the league will continue to add members. Multiple sources told The Times Thursday, however, that no other Pac-12 members are expected to be added to the Big Ten at this time.
The Pac-12 has lagged behind other major conferences for years in media rights revenue, distributing $344 million among its schools in the 2021 fiscal year. In the same year, the Big Ten handed out $680 million.
The Big Ten is negotiating its next media rights deal and is expected to be able to fetch more than $1 billion per year. Adding the Southern California media market to its product will make the league’s offerings more desirable at just the right time.
Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff stressed a commitment to fixing his league’s prolonged football struggles during his first year in the position. Kliavkoff also understood how crucial USC would be in improving that standing. When the new commissioner toured the Pac-12 footprint last summer, he made a point of visiting USC’s campus first.
In conference realignment, the attractiveness of a university’s football brand has always been the driving factor. That certainly gave USC — with its 11 national championships and six Heisman Trophies on display at Heritage Hall — more leverage in charting its course than UCLA, which has of course won 11 national titles in men’s basketball. The Bruins still landed on safe footing, and the crosstown rivalry will live on under a new conference’s banner.
With the Big Ten and SEC lapping the Pac-12 in revenue and football success during the last decade, USC in recent years has been continuously evaluating its options for future conference alignment, even considering joining rival Notre Dame as an independent. Texas’ and Oklahoma’s move from the Big 12 to the SEC in July 2021 made it clear momentous changes were already afoot and accelerated the Trojans’ push to secure themselves a seat at the leadership table for whatever is to come during a tumultuous time in college athletics.
“I don’t believe there’s a college administrator in the country that didn’t recognize that clearly there were two conferences that were separating themselves from everyone else,” Bohn told The Times. “That particular move further emphasized that. But it’s about providing the best stage and opportunity for our athletes. Clearly, that’s the Big Ten opportunity.”
USC joining the Big Ten — coming on the heels of the stunning hiring of head football coach Lincoln Riley in late November — furthers the message that the Trojans are committed to returning to their traditional stature as national title contenders.
That was the promise made by Bohn when he was hired as USC’s athletic director in November 2019. Bohn was well aware at the time of the issues facing the conference, which made several missteps during the course of then-Commissioner Larry Scott’s turbulent 11-year tenure.
USC’s influence in the Pac-12 had also declined over that period, as former athletic director Lynn Swann never took an active role at the conference level. Bohn immediately took the opposite approach upon taking over, showing that USC planned to sit at the head of the conference table.
In orchestrating its exit, USC has instead flipped the table entirely.
The Pac-12’s revenue issues are hard to deny, even with the prospect of an improved media rights package starting in 2024.
ESPN has made a significant investment in the SEC, and Fox is currently helping negotiate licensing deals on behalf of the Big Ten. There is uncertainty about where the Pac-12 may fit into networks’ plans for 2024 and beyond, and the conference losing two of its bellwether programs won’t help in negotiations.
In moving to the Big Ten, USC and UCLA also solve another issue that’s long plagued the Pac-12: Kickoff times. Both schools were often relegated to the late window on Saturday nights, neither often finishing before half the country was asleep.
“For our fans, Big Ten membership equates to better television time slots for our road games, but the same number of home games either at the Rose Bowl, in Pauley Pavilion or other UCLA venues,” Block and Jarmond wrote.
As members of the Big Ten, late kickoffs are almost assuredly a relic of the past. The most glaring problem for the Pac-12, however, has long been what happened after kickoff.
The Pac-12 has not had a team reach the College Football Playoff since Washington in 2016. Only one other team — Oregon in 2014 — has made it.
USC’s failure to find stability in the aftermath of Pete Carroll’s departure and NCAA sanctions 12 years ago have hurt the conference’s competitiveness nationally. But now the Trojans are taking a step out on their own, leaving behind long-held relationships for new blue-blood bedfellows such as Ohio State and Michigan. UCLA’s decision to come along for the ride should help what may be an awkward two-year transition.
Block and Jarmond acknowledged the additional travel burden but added, “The resources offered by Big Ten membership may allow for more efficient transportation options. We would also explore scheduling accommodations with the Big Ten that best support our student-athletes’ academic pursuits.”
“We recognize these are big changes,” Block and Jarmond added. “We value the talent and dedication of our student-athletes as well as the passion of Bruins fans far and wide. The best way to respect that is to protect our program from the great uncertainty it would face if we did not make this transition.”