I think the next thing that has to happen is that the ADs and Chancellors/Presidents of Cal, Stanford, Washington State, and Oregon State should sit down in private and discuss their thoughts on a future course of action. To use a popular cliche - the four schools are not in the same boat, but we are in the same storm. They may have different ideas at this point that don't involve Cal and Stanford. It would be helpful to know that. Stanford may have no interest in playing in certain conferences - it would be helpful to know that.
From a financial standpoint, we made a huge mistake on
CMS. We can't undo that. What we can do is start figuring out what we can do with it when we are not playing football there. Music festivals, evangelists, Barrett-Jackson auto auctions - I do not know and do not care. Generate whatever money can be generated. The naming rights are basically worthless, but if we can sell them again, please let's sell to an established company with roots in the Bay Area and not a startup. A bank. A car dealership. A shipping company. Somebody who will be around. We are a debtor who has experienced an unanticipated disaster, and we need to show our creditors we are serious about trying to make our payments. It may help in discussions about short-term debt relief.
We should at least float the notion of UCLA alimony to the regents (and I'd suggest the same concept to Washington State and Oregon State). I think there is a case to be made that their actions harmed Cal and that Cal made certain decisions based on the reasonable expectation that we'd continue to be in a conference with them. The worst the regents can say is "no."
Pick a deadline to stop relying on the kindness of strangers: We want to keep hoping in desperation for a bid from the B1G or the Big 12. Fine. We can do that until August 14th. If by some miracle we get a bid - great! Otherwise, after that, we move on to our new reality. Our reality is that we weren't asked to join these conferences because they don't believe we bring sufficient value to them.
We all agree this situation stinks/sucks/blows - whatever term your generation uses. Would I prefer a bid to the B1G or Big 12 or an ACC deal? Yes. The reality is we've got to make the best of what we've got. If there is a path to making more money as an independent, I'm willing to have that discussion - but I'm not seeing how we get to $400K - $500K per game in media income doing that -- even if we get deals to be slaughtered by Alabama and Ohio State in prime time.
Keeping the PAC name has an appeal, and I don't hate the scenarios involving SMU, SDSU, UNLV, Hawaii, etc in a reimagined PAC - but what I don't see anyone getting around are the exit fees involved in making such a deal. Some posters here are turning their noses up at $5M per year that joining the MW would bring. It's a big pay cut, to be sure - but it beats no media income at all. So I would not rule out the MW options that have been discussed. If all four PAC teams join, it becomes a
16-team mega-conference - strange, but true. Unlike the B1G and the Big - 12, this is a conference to which we would bring value. They renegotiate their media deal in 2026. It'd be two years in the wilderness for us, but at that point, my guess would be that the four PAC teams have made it more valuable. Maybe we can sweeten it in the interim with a streaming deal that doesn't bring in the $20M base for a PAC deal but ensures that all of the PAC legacy members have their games streamed when they aren't on linear TV. In 2026, we reassess. We look at how the landscape has continued to change, what new opportunities have emerged, and the offers, if any, that are out there. If we play our cards right, maybe we have two successful football seasons in this conference.
It's a new era. Joe Starkey has left the booth, Joe Kapp has passed, and the Pacific Athletic Conference is terminally ill. Justin Allegri will broadcast the last Pac-12 season and presumably be our broadcaster in whatever comes next. The 2024 season is going to look very different than the past 100 years no matter what we do.
