Obviously it would be best to get in to the B1G, but if we can't?

What about OSU, WSU, Furd and us being the West Coast Pod of the ACC. Maybe bring SD State along?

That may work for a year or two until some teams from the ACC figure out how to get out of their GOR deal and then FSU, Miami, UNC, and Clemson jump to the SEC or BIg Ten.

It's pretty much Big Ten or bust.

I don't want to discuss options. I want to discuss what is…

DonnieMcCleskey said:

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That may work for a year or two until some teams from the ACC figure out how to get out of their GOR deal and then FSU, Miami, UNC, and Clemson jump to the SEC or BIg Ten.

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It won't work at all because the ACC will have no interest.

But in the fantasy world in which they did have interest, then even if the ACC big boys leave, and apart from geography, if our choices are (a) SJSU/Fresno/SDSU/UNLV/UNR or (b) Syracuse/Pitt/Va Tech/Ga Tech, then the only people choosing (a) are the posters here who are only pretending to be Cal fans.

BearSD said:

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DonnieMcCleskey said:

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That may work for a year or two until some teams from the ACC figure out how to get out of their GOR deal and then FSU, Miami, UNC, and Clemson jump to the SEC or BIg Ten.

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It won't work at all because the ACC will have no interest.

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Well that too

Cal can either: 1. Join the MWC and make $4/5 million a year 2. Go independent and make zero media revenues dollars or 3. Fold competitive football as we know it.

Option1: 4/5 million a year is not worth the hit to the university's prestige and the hordes of donors that would immediately stop showing up and stop writing checks.

Option 3: Folding up football is not possible because we have hundreds of millions in debt on the stadium that needs to be paid back and we have ESP donors that would immediately sue at worst and stop writing checks to the rest of the university at best.

That leads us to option 3 which is making potentially making zero media revenue dollars (or near zero) either in a zombie PAC, as an independent, or subservient to a conference that will let us schedule with them - yes, the B1G would take us for free. At least in this scenario ticket sales continue, the ESP holders aren't frozen out, and some revenue is generated despite a massive financial donut hole.

If the decision comes down to defaulting on the stadium debt and breaking ESP pledges, I'm pretty sure main campus would decide they have to fill the $30 million dollar media dollar gap from somewhere. Losing $30 million a year and hoping we can get into a bigger conference later is still far far far better than defaulting with no football team.

This may become Cal's come to Jesus moment, and honestly, it might be exactly what Cal deserves and needs. That hole is going to have to be covered by either massive donor support or main campus (endowment?).

BearMDJD said:

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Cal can either: 1. Join the MWC and make $4/5 million a year 2. Go independent and make zero media revenues dollars or 3. Fold competitive football as we know it.

Option1: 4/5 million a year is not worth the hit to the university's prestige and the hordes of donors that would immediately stop showing up and stop writing checks.

Option 3: Folding up football is not possible because we have hundreds of millions in debt on the stadium that needs to be paid back and we have ESP donors that would immediately sue at worst and stop writing checks to the rest of the university at best.

That leads us to option 3 which is making potentially making zero media revenue dollars (or near zero) either in a zombie PAC, as an independent, or subservient to a conference that will let us schedule with them - yes, the B1G would take us for free. At least in this scenario ticket sales continue, the ESP holders aren't frozen out, and some revenue is generated despite a massive financial donut hole.

If the decision comes down to defaulting on the stadium debt and breaking ESP pledges, I'm pretty sure main campus would decide they have to fill the $30 million dollar media dollar gap from somewhere. Losing $30 million a year and hoping we can get into a bigger conference later is still far far far better than defaulting with no football team.

This may become Cal's come to Jesus moment, and honestly, it might be exactly what Cal deserves and needs. That hole is going to have to be covered by either massive donor support or main campus (endowment?).

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I think you're overlooking the scenario in which the top MWC schools essentially merge into the PAC and retain the PAC branding for its (now diminished) prestige and any NCAA Tourney tie-ins and what not. It allows a modicum of saving face (even if it's MWC in all but name).

Also the longshot chance that the ACC somehow gets blow apart earlier than expected and ACC with no teams to go decide to go with a new PAC.

Any of the above scenarios could result in a payout of lower than $20M, but probably higher than $5M. Not saying it's likely, just that they're possibilities also..

It amazes me that some are now looking to the B1G and ACC for a lifeline. The same 2 conferences that the P12 was supposed to have an "alliance" with. Why in the world would you trust anything those 2 conferences would tell you.

Is there no chance of the SEC wanting to branch into California?

Why not....Big 12? Cal and Stanford are better brands/markets than most teams in the Big 12, including the 4 corner teams they're bringing in from the Pac.....

StillNoStanfurdium said:

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BearMDJD said:

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Cal can either: 1. Join the MWC and make $4/5 million a year 2. Go independent and make zero media revenues dollars or 3. Fold competitive football as we know it.

Option1: 4/5 million a year is not worth the hit to the university's prestige and the hordes of donors that would immediately stop showing up and stop writing checks.

Option 3: Folding up football is not possible because we have hundreds of millions in debt on the stadium that needs to be paid back and we have ESP donors that would immediately sue at worst and stop writing checks to the rest of the university at best.

That leads us to option 3 which is making potentially making zero media revenue dollars (or near zero) either in a zombie PAC, as an independent, or subservient to a conference that will let us schedule with them - yes, the B1G would take us for free. At least in this scenario ticket sales continue, the ESP holders aren't frozen out, and some revenue is generated despite a massive financial donut hole.

If the decision comes down to defaulting on the stadium debt and breaking ESP pledges, I'm pretty sure main campus would decide they have to fill the $30 million dollar media dollar gap from somewhere. Losing $30 million a year and hoping we can get into a bigger conference later is still far far far better than defaulting with no football team.

This may become Cal's come to Jesus moment, and honestly, it might be exactly what Cal deserves and needs. That hole is going to have to be covered by either massive donor support or main campus (endowment?).

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I think you're overlooking the scenario in which the top MWC schools essentially merge into the PAC and retain the PAC branding for its (now diminished) prestige and any NCAA Tourney tie-ins and what not. It allows a modicum of saving face (even if it's MWC in all but name).

Also the longshot chance that the ACC somehow gets blow apart earlier than expected and ACC with no teams to go decide to go with a new PAC.

Any of the above scenarios could result in a payout of lower than $20M, but probably higher than $5M. Not saying it's likely, just that they're possibilities also..

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For the best of the MWC to join the Pac-4, the Pac would have to take enough MWC teams to dissolve the MWC so there are no exit fees. How many votes would that take? 7? More? And that doesn't even get you SMU or Tulane.

And then the Pac-12 would have to negotiate a new TV deal. Would anyone trust GK to do that with less than a year remaining? LOL.

There is no path to salvaging the Pac-12 at this point.

Best option is to merge with UCLA, adopt their fight song and buy dye that changes the color of your shirts to light blue.

StillNoStanfurdium said:

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I think you're overlooking the scenario in which the top MWC schools essentially merge into the PAC and retain the PAC branding for its (now diminished) prestige and any NCAA Tourney tie-ins and what not. It allows a modicum of saving face (even if it's MWC in all but name).

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There's a clever way of doing this, with the goal of preserving the NCAA automatic bids of both conferences, instead of merging with the result of one of those bids going away.

First, the minimums: Each conference has to have 8 full members to be an FBS football conference, and 7 to keep automatic bids to NCAA tournaments.

That leads to the first issue to be resolved: The Pac will have 4 members remaining. The MWC has 11 full members, plus Hawaii for football only. This is one short of the minimum 16 needed to have 2 full FBS football conferences. The solution is to add one more full member to either conference, and the first choice is to have Hawaii become a full member of either conference. If they decline, a school outside the current 15 would have to join. SMU if they are still interested, perhaps UTEP if both Hawaii and SMU say no. Let's work with the assumption that Hawaii agrees to participate.

Then, the conferences need to negotiate which 4 schools join the Pac-4. As a compromise, say the Pac gets the MWC team they most want, SDSU, and balances that by taking Hawaii, the most expensive school to have as a conference mate. The Pac lets the MWC keep the other two California members (assuming the MWC wants to keep them -- but if the MWC would rather ship them off to the Pac, then adding SJSU and Fresno makes the new Pac pretty compact) and, again as a compromise, takes one with a higher football profile (Boise State) and one with no football profile (New Mexico).

Both conferences execute a binding agreement that (a) bars any team from leaving the MWC for the Pac or vice versa, and (b) provides that if one or more teams leave either conference, the two conferences will then merge into one. The conferences also agree to cooperate in scheduling so that teams in each league, in all sports, can schedule teams from the other league and make filling schedules easier.

Too difficult to get 16 schools to agree to all that? Maybe, if not probably. But it's the only way to preserve the automatic bids of two conferences instead of merging into one and letting the other conference dissolve.

But, yes, for Cal this is a last resort, if the only alternative is joining the MWC.

The MWC will only take one…

Assuming that none of the major conferences want us or Stanford, we could reform the Pac out of the remaining western FBS Tier 1 research universities:

Cal
Colorado St
Hawaii
Oregon St
Nevada
New Mexico
Stanford
UNLV
Washington St

This would have an 8 game conference schedule which would allow us to play 4 OOC games to boost the strength of our schedule

Of course a better football conference could be made with other MWC schools

How do any of these scenarios of getting MWC teams to join the PAC account for the $33 million exit fee?

philly1121 said:

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How do any of these scenarios of getting MWC teams to join the PAC account for the $33 million exit fee?

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The Mountain West would essentially want to shut down entirely, which won't happen because they would be scrambling like the PAC-12.

Strykur said:

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philly1121 said:

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How do any of these scenarios of getting MWC teams to join the PAC account for the $33 million exit fee?

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The Mountain West would essentially want to shut down entirely, which won't happen because they would be scrambling like the PAC-12.

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Yeah. They don't join us. We join them.

philly1121 said:

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How do any of these scenarios of getting MWC teams to join the PAC account for the $33 million exit fee?

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They don't. There's no adding the best MWC teams to the Pac-12 without adding enough MWC teams to dissolve the MWC.

Have to wait to see what happens with the ACC. With B1G at 18 already and SEC at 16, a merger could happen with some very good teams.

philly1121 said:

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Strykur said:

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philly1121 said:

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How do any of these scenarios of getting MWC teams to join the PAC account for the $33 million exit fee?

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The Mountain West would essentially want to shut down entirely, which won't happen because they would be scrambling like the PAC-12.

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Yeah. They don't join us. We join them.

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They'd "join" the PAC for the auto-bid to the CFP

aceman said:

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Why not....Big 12? Cal and Stanford are better brands/markets than most teams in the Big 12, including the 4 corner teams they're bringing in from the Pac.....

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Because the Big XII has no interest in us and only minimal in Stanford (and Stanford has zero interest in them).

Someone asked about ESP and suing. I don't own one (500 miles away in San diego). What does it say? I thought it was a yearly deal.

maxer said:

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philly1121 said:

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Strykur said:

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philly1121 said:

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How do any of these scenarios of getting MWC teams to join the PAC account for the $33 million exit fee?

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The Mountain West would essentially want to shut down entirely, which won't happen because they would be scrambling like the PAC-12.

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Yeah. They don't join us. We join them.

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They'd "join" the PAC for the auto-bid to the CFP

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There is no auto-bid for the PAC. There never was. There was only an autobid for the 6 highest rated conference champs.

Some of us (stupidly) paid up front or on accelerated payment plans.

BearMDJD said:

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Some of us (stupidly) paid up front or on accelerated payment plans.

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Does your ESP contract obligate the University to actually hold events? Or is it written (The Padres was) that "In the case that there is MLB played in "the ballpark" the undersigned will be accorded first right of refusal to purchase tickets" (or something like that). I remember asking my agent and being told...."Yeah, if they move but it will never happen"

Wait - so what happens to seat licenses? Would you get your money back if/when the 0-ac dissolves? Damn - did they even write in an Armageddon scenario?

YuSeeBerkeley said:

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Is there no chance of the SEC wanting to branch into California?

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You know they want us.

philly1121 said:

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Wait - so what happens to seat licenses? Would you get your money back if/when the 0-ac dissolves? Damn - did they even write in an Armageddon scenario?

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They completely had an out if the Padres moved. It was pretty clear about _IF_. That also would get them off the hook in case of a labor dispute.

Just be patient, and buy season tickets.

Patience.

BearHunter said:

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YuSeeBerkeley said:

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Is there no chance of the SEC wanting to branch into California?

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You know they want us.

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This would absolutely be amazing lol - and at full share!

Cal is stuck between a rock and a hard place. We all know this.

The problem is that apparently USC and UCLA were very adamant that no other California or Pac 10 teams were allowed to join when they jumped ship over to the big 10. this was strictly for recruitment reasons to keep the west coast locked to them.

With that being said, I think we need to get on our knees and pre prepared to take it from the big 10 because otherwise we are screwed.

Otherwise we might be either stuck going to the MWC or going Independent which won't fly. Just wish we had some sort of statement from the AD or President. This is embarrassing beyond belief that nothing was said.

I'm so frustrated that I literally created an account, paid just to write this. It's either big 10 or pray that someone takes Oski out back like Ol' Yeller.

My guess is that B1G took Carol and Jim for a ride getting their hopes up and then last minute saying they only want UW and Oregon. Once it's last minute they have no time to mount public protests. They get played and are now figuring out what to do but they have no idea because they never though this was possible.

They have no idea what they are doing - the silence isn't strategic.

We should announce that we are considering all options and that our phones haven't stopped ringing since UW and Oregon bounced. That we are down to the SEC and the NFC West and a decision is forthcoming.