philly1121 said:
MrGPAC said:
UCLA absolutely did wrong on multiple fronts here.
1) They mismanaged their athletic budgets to the point that they are heavily indebted and looking to cancel sports. They are lucky they got a golden parachute offer from the B1G or they may be asking the regents for money instead of forgiveness.
2) They agreed to the contract with the B1G and signed it without getting express permission from the Regents first. This puts the regents in a bad position where they cannot cancel the agreement without risking litigation from the B1G. You cannot reward the trope "Its better to ask for forgiveness than permission", or else it will just happen again.
3) They agreed to the contract with no regard for the UC system as a whole to which they are a member. And yes, this primarily means its damages to Cal.
4) They took the agreement without thought of the effects on the student athletes (or at least without enough thought on it, as per the results of the surveys of their student athletes).
There will be some sort of punishment to UCLA on 2 alone. 3 is expressly against the rules as well and they should be punished for that as well.
Whether or not those punishments help Cal in anyway, or in fact hurt Cals ability to move to the B1G at a later date, is to be determined.
The sad thing is I doubt the B1G cares nearly as much about UCLA as the Pac does. The B1G took them to give USC a partner and because USC asked...and I doubt it would have much impact on the B1G media revenues if UCLA were to bail. In fact, it very well could end up with a higher per school payout if UCLA doesn't join.
Short of blocking the move for UCLA outright, kicking the can down the road is a good thing for Cal. The best reason for kicking the can down the road is that the regents need more data. The biggest data point missing is damages UCLA did to Cal, which indicates that thoughts of a payment / penalty being due exist. It also keeps a bit of pressure on the B1G to invite Cal to just make the whole mess go away. To an extent, they are still in limbo on all of this until the Regents make a final ruling on this. The longer the Regents drag out their decision the better for Cal.
Eh, I think your post is a bit contradictory.
1. UCLA's Athletic Dept. is about $102 mil in debt. You can chalk that up to mismanagement or the necessity of providing all these non-revenue sports. We don't have that kind of debt. We have a different kind of debt that has now been spread to the University. Which is worse? Do we blame ourselves for the optimistic expectation of season tickets or seat licenses? I'm not sure what you expect UCLA to do when we are in a different kind of debt. Same type of mismanagement.
2. They didn't need the UC's permission.
3. We'll come back to this point below.
4. It is completely ridiculous to assume that this was done without assessing the effects of increased travel or "away time" on student academics or performance. Regardless, the survey reads that the athletes feel it is important to stay with USC.
As to your other remarks and as to your #3, you can't speak of punishment or damages to Cal without asking what that would look like or even how. If what you're saying is true, and the B1G only cared about USC (bringing UCLA as their dance partner), then it must follow that UCLA didn't really add the value to the Pac12 that you describe. And how could it? I've wrote repeatedly that the only metric is the existing media rights deal in terms of an exit fee. But if the new media rights deal for the P12 were to be used, how would one assess "damages" and how would any lost revenue of the new deal be attributed to UCLA? So, if you're saying that UCLA's exit from the Big10 deal would not have any impact to the B1G deal, then how could it possibly be impactful to UCLA leaving the P12?
USC was the driver in this. They took UCLA as a natural dance partner. B1G is in the driver seat as is ESPN or whatever network wants the P12. B1G has made their move. UCLA has too.
The problem with your #2 is that it flies in the face of how the University operates and the defacto reason for the delegation to the respective Chancellors.
1) The OoP ALWAYS gets involves in figuring out academic decisions that would canabalize other UCs. For example, the creation of a new business school or other professional school is controlled by the OoP and Regents because of concern that if the respective campuses were allowed to make these decisions in a vacuum they would quickly find themselves in competition with each other. I am VERY familiar with a way in which this is worked out through the creation of intercampus research units - having been a fellow of one for graduate school.
2) The delegaion of conference affiliations to the campuses was really about D2 and d3 sports. The OoP rightly believed it wasn't qualified (or interested) in what Santa Cruz or UCSD (in the past) were doing with their conference affiliations. Bluntly the rise of the super conferences likely caught Oakland unaware and unfocused - believe it or not there are many that work in higher education who do not follow (or care) about NCAA athletics :-)
3) Thus see #1. Yes. You are technically correct about the conferences but what trumps that is all the other ways campuses are constrained because of impacts on other units. THat is why UCLA would be denied or forced to pay a "tax" if it is determined that Cal's payout from the Pac10 renewal is materially impacted by UCLAs move.
Now lets be precise. While WE care (not sure why but we do) if the payout is 10 million less for the OoP or Regents I am not sure that rises to the level as requiring action. If it rises to the level of 15 or 20? Sure.
Take care of your Chicken