Realigning Expectations

Alex here.

So, the Pac-12 imploded this week.

If you’re not following this story:

Yowch.

12 schools down to 4 in a few weeks’ time is brutal. If you didn’t watch the video, the culprit is - what else? - money.

The reality is that football drives TV deals which drives revenue the schools use to pay for every other program, from field hockey to swimming (I think it depends on the school whether baseball is net neutral or net negative).

Like it or not, that’s the reality of the situation.

Look at this map of the Big-10 conference, effective 2024:

From a logistics standpoint, it’s a nightmare. But this isn’t about logistics. Ferrying players from one end of the country to the other is secondary if you’ve got the money to pay for it. And now, courtesy of this merger, the Big 10 has a presence in the following media markets:

Adding USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon adds four top-25 media markets to their existing map, which means significantly higher exposure for their brand.

So, the obvious take is that this all bad and shame on the greedy conference commissioners and how can they so blatantly disregard the grand traditions, and blah, blah, blah. Cut the b roll of the leatherheads streaming out of locker rooms.

My take is that it might not end up being the worst thing to happen. My reasoning is simple: I believe college sports should be arranged like the Premier League and that the best teams - wherever they are in the country - should play one another, and everyone else should arrange themselves into tiers beneath that top tier.

Now, I’m not holding my breath for the NCAA to come to their senses and rearrange themselves to resemble the Premier League. However, if this weird realignment means that college sports - particularly the semi-profressional sports that feed the pro teams (Football, Baseball, Hockey, and Basketball) - move closer to something resembling that, that is a good thing, in my opinion.

If you squint, you can start to see the outlines of a Premier League-style set-up coming into focus (strictly for football):

Premier League: SEC

Champions League: Big-10

League One: Big-12/ACC

You can start to see the hierarchy forming.

I attended Arizona State. Our men’s and women’s teams have won 24 NCAA championships, including eight women’s golf titles, five baseball titles, three women’s tennis, and two men’s golf. Look at a roster of Olympians and you will find ASU on there. We are an accomplished athletic program.

We should be top tier for baseball, golf, swimming, and wrestling. You know what we shouldn’t be in top tier for? Football. We have not demonstrated that we can keep up. The best prospects in Arizona leave to attend other schools. It’s maddening.

My hope is that by joining the Big-12, we get a richer payday to keep funding all the other sports we’re hyper-competitive in, and in the process, our football program benefits from the exposure and, hopefully, the cachet of playing in the Big-12. If we play better, we move up. If we don’t, we move down. Simple.

The realignment is shocking, for sure (what the heck is Stanford gonna do?). But I would hold our breath for whether it’s a net negative.

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For Your Weekend

Watch

Telemarketers (HBO)

“Regulating telemarketing is like regulating Somali pirates. It just can’t be done.”

The HBO Original docuseries Telemarketers chronicles the 20-year journey of two unlikely employees who stumble upon the murky truth behind a seedy New Jersey call center. With raw eyewitness footage and a comedic cast of characters, this three-part documentary takes you from an anarchic boiler room filled with booze, drugs, and debauchery to the halls of the United States Senate as a billion-dollar telemarketing scam unravels.

Chuckle (bitterly)