The Pac-12 is just a casualty in the game of college athletics realignment that is powered by networks ESPN and Fox and throws tradition out window.
sports.yahoo.com
"If you’re wondering how we got here, with a 108-year old college sports institution on the verge of collapse, think about the world like a television executive.
You run ESPN and Fox. You’ve made huge, multi-year financial commitments to various college sports conference at a time when the cable business is struggling.
After locking up the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12, the Pac-12 was the last one sitting out there waiting for its next deal. Without Southern California and UCLA, though, the Pac-12 was down to just a handful of programs with television cachet.
Oregon is a national brand backed by Nike’s dollars and ambition. Washington is located in a major market and has a good history. Colorado has Deion Sanders. Arizona basketball is an annual national title contender, and Arizona State is a massive entity with 150,000 students under its umbrella.
The rest of them? As a television property, you could it take it or leave it. It was late-night filler, barely distinguishable from what the networks already have with Boise State and others in the Mountain West.
Television runs college sports. That has been true since the 1984 NCAA vs
Oklahoma Board of Regents Supreme Court case where schools won the ability to sell their broadcast rights.
But it has never been more true than now."
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In the simplest terms, it comes down to this: By stripping the Pac-12 down for parts, ESPN and Fox are going to end up getting the teams they wanted, without having to pay the teams they didn’t want.
Sorry, Stanford. Best of luck, Cal. Oregon State and Washington State? I’m sorry, who are you again?
Tradition? Geography? Academic might? Clearly, none of that stuff mattered to the schools or the TV networks pulling the strings."
"And given that there’s no major upside here for the other Big Ten schools to add two more good programs that make competition tougher and travel more difficult, it strains credulity to think they did it without the blessing and perhaps even a nudge from their TV partners.
It is probably going to prove good business for Fox and ESPN to fill their college football programming slots with more of the elite brands while having one less conference to worry about."
