If you follow college football, there’s been a huge shift in conference membership. All but two schools (OSU, WSU) in the current PAC-12 conference have jumped to other conferences. Stanford and CAL Berkeley have joined the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference). UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington have joined the BIG10. Colorado, Utah, Arizona and ASU have joined BIG12.

My take?
I think the schools that leave will become bottom feeders for their respective conferences. It can’t be good for a west coast team that has to travel to the east coast to play games. The west coast team will not only need to fight travel fatigue but also any timezone jetlag. But in reality the schools don’t care as long as they get money. All these schools are leaving in order to chase the lucrative TV money in these markets.

Here are some articles that talk about how BIG MONEY has taken over college football. To say that money hasn’t taken over football would be a gross understatement.

It’s disappointing to read about the failed PAC12 x ESPN deal (~$30M per school). The PAC12 schools clearly didn’t realize how much they were actually worth when compared to the other conferences. In my opinion, the PAC12 teams are too equal in terms of football parity where any school can upset other schools on any given Saturday. Because of the overall parity in the conference, I view all the PAC12 schools to be a half or full step behind the other powerhouse elite schools like Alabama, LSU, and Ohio State. If the PAC12 teams were to have consistently reach and win the Football National Championship then perhaps there would be a case for $50M instead of $30M. Winners get to make all the money. And clearly ESPN didn’t think they were winners worth $50M.

Egads…