Not sure where your information comes from. Slight revision: Behind the scenes, Newsom worked very hard to leverage Cal and Stanford into the Big 10. That was his initial goal. Also, nobody from Cal enlisted Newsom to come out criticizing the way UCLA abandoned the conference in the dead of night. He did that 100 percent on his own. Newsom encountered two roadblocks. 1. The Cal folks (Christ and Knowlton) wanted to stay in the PAC 12. And 2. Fox told the state they didn't want us. You're right that Calimoney was Plan B. But that came from Newsom and some regents. The Cal admin didn't even come up with that.
Money Ball 2: Cal-Stanford and Realignment - The True Story
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PaulCali makes an important point: history often gets written to fit what's convenient and current. When people make bad decisions, the truth gets covered up, and you don't get a second chance. It just becomes the new reality.
Watching everything unfold, it was obvious to me that Christ was completely out of her depth----not intentionally causing harm, just totally unaware of the real stakes or what was actually going on. Knowlton was always just her puppet. Others argued she was doing her best, but it was clear she wasn't aware of what was happening, wasn't ready to handle things, or equipped with the skills to handle the situation. She was also gullible and operating with sharks, but thought she was at a pony farm.
Unfortunately, her legacy probably won't reflect the reality that she unknowingly set Cal athletics back dramatically, requiring extraordinary efforts to fix it that are only just now beginning.
Watching everything unfold, it was obvious to me that Christ was completely out of her depth----not intentionally causing harm, just totally unaware of the real stakes or what was actually going on. Knowlton was always just her puppet. Others argued she was doing her best, but it was clear she wasn't aware of what was happening, wasn't ready to handle things, or equipped with the skills to handle the situation. She was also gullible and operating with sharks, but thought she was at a pony farm.
Unfortunately, her legacy probably won't reflect the reality that she unknowingly set Cal athletics back dramatically, requiring extraordinary efforts to fix it that are only just now beginning.
There you have it. Agree 100%calumnus said:mbBear said:Again, if it helps you to rationalize and scapegoat that the Big 10 was there for our taking, then by all means, carry on.trueblue22 said:
Hundreds of millions in lost revenue. Probably over a billion when you consider what competition in the Big 10 would have meant for our brand, alumni awareness, fundraising. Bad leadership is so unbelievably costly.
What was happening within the conference and long before JK is much more relevant in my book. Texas? Oklahoma? A conference merger in the top Pac-12 days? Have you heard of Larry Scott? LOL
I agree Larry Scott is most responsible for the break up of the PAC-12. If we had better conference leadership the PAC-12 probably survives longer with media rights at least as good as the ACC and Big-12. Maybe it is enough that USC, UCLA, UW and Oregon don't jump to the B1G. Then we could survive a worthless, clueless AD like Knowlton making $1.3 million a year extending coaches that lose twice as many conference games as they win, playing in front of ever shrinking crowds at CMS, hiring and extending the coach that would post the worst basketball record in the country and worst in our history, because, with equal split of the media revenues, we could continue to leech off the revenues the LA schools and schools with good leadership and coaching produce while finishing near the bottom of the conference most years for awhile longer, maybe even keep leeching until 2029, the end of his contract.
However, given that most saw conference realignment coming when Knowlton was hired in 2018, he was almost the worst possible AD we could have hired given his lack of experience in major college revenue or professional sports, lack of fundraising experience, lack of business and negotiating experience, lack of marketing experience and poor cultural fit for Berkeley.
When the PAC-12 did break up, 8 schools made more money than they had been making in the PAC-12. Two schools, WSU and OSU, are in very small towns and do not have the academics to get into the B1G or ACC and are too distant from the Big-12.
Two of the schools left behind were in the PAC-12's second largest media market, one of the largest in the country and had far and away the best academic profiles. However, one of them is a small, elite private school with a very small undergraduate population and small alumni base. Moreover, the most popular pro team in the region recently moved just down the road. The other, is a large public school with a huge alumni base, playing in one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, recently renovated for half a $billion. A school with a good past history of exciting offenses and getting elite players to the NFL. Moreover, the local pro team recently relocated to Las Vegas. This school, with so much potential, made the least amount of money of the 12 in 2024. That is mostly on Knowlton and the chancellor that hired him and gave him a ridiculous, unconscionable lengthy extension before she retired. Our leadership going into realignment was about as bad as possible.
To the extent that "most saw realignment coming," I think it would have to have been some pretty deep Orwellian thinking skills that would predict the California schools would not be joined at the hip in whatever changes did take place. "$C and FUCLA" notations are always fun on the bootleg t-shirts-what we didn't know was disdain for them on the playing field was the least of the problems. They weren't lobbying for anyone else to join them, the Big schools didn't want to share the pie into more pieces (fine, if it's the Fox conspiracy component, not willing to increase the "pie" further, sure) and then it was off to the races; yeah, our Jockey sucked...calumnus said:mbBear said:Again, if it helps you to rationalize and scapegoat that the Big 10 was there for our taking, then by all means, carry on.trueblue22 said:
Hundreds of millions in lost revenue. Probably over a billion when you consider what competition in the Big 10 would have meant for our brand, alumni awareness, fundraising. Bad leadership is so unbelievably costly.
What was happening within the conference and long before JK is much more relevant in my book. Texas? Oklahoma? A conference merger in the top Pac-12 days? Have you heard of Larry Scott? LOL
I agree Larry Scott is most responsible for the break up of the PAC-12. If we had better conference leadership the PAC-12 probably survives longer with media rights at least as good as the ACC and Big-12. Maybe it is enough that USC, UCLA, UW and Oregon don't jump to the B1G. Then we could survive a worthless, clueless AD like Knowlton making $1.3 million a year extending coaches that lose twice as many conference games as they win, playing in front of ever shrinking crowds at CMS, hiring and extending the coach that would post the worst basketball record in the country and worst in our history, because, with equal split of the media revenues, we could continue to leech off the revenues the LA schools and schools with good leadership and coaching produce while finishing near the bottom of the conference most years for awhile longer, maybe even keep leeching until 2029, the end of his contract.
However, given that most saw conference realignment coming when Knowlton was hired in 2018, he was almost the worst possible AD we could have hired given his lack of experience in major college revenue or professional sports, lack of fundraising experience, lack of business and negotiating experience, lack of marketing experience and poor cultural fit for Berkeley.
When the PAC-12 did break up, 8 schools made more money than they had been making in the PAC-12. Two schools, WSU and OSU, are in very small towns and do not have the academics to get into the B1G or ACC and are too distant from the Big-12.
Two of the schools left behind were in the PAC-12's second largest media market, one of the largest in the country and had far and away the best academic profiles. However, one of them is a small, elite private school with a very small undergraduate population and small alumni base. Moreover, the most popular pro team in the region recently moved just down the road. The other, is a large public school with a huge alumni base, playing in one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, recently renovated for half a $billion. A school with a good past history of exciting offenses and getting elite players to the NFL. Moreover, the local pro team recently relocated to Las Vegas. This school, with so much potential, made the least amount of money of the 12 in 2024. That is mostly on Knowlton and the chancellor that hired him and gave him a ridiculous, unconscionable lengthy extension before she retired. Our leadership going into realignment was about as bad as possible.
Not sure why I felt the need to post in this thread....I mean, rehashing the Pac-8 to Pac-10 to Pac-12 expansion would have been as interesting. In the most tangible turn away from Knowlton, Lyons has given a mandate to reduce the number of sports, let alone his own involvement with what football can and should be...and that leads to Rivera. The "give Ron the keys movement" shows that the Knowlton disdain is more than just how many can post about it on message boards.
Realistically, have we ever had a Chancellor/AD pair that would've been up to this challenge?
They relied too much on Kliavkoff, who wasn't up to it either. On that same token, neither would his two predecessors have been.
Realistically what people don't get is that at Cal sports is about #50 on the chancellor's to do list.
"Realistically what people don't get is that at Cal sports is about #50 on the chancellor's to do list."
I think that many on this board do get it, but they just disagree. They believe that for a large state university that has a rich tradition of intercollegiate athletics that goes back well over 100 years, IA should be a relatively high priority, perhaps among the chancellor's top 5 or 10.
I think that many on this board do get it, but they just disagree. They believe that for a large state university that has a rich tradition of intercollegiate athletics that goes back well over 100 years, IA should be a relatively high priority, perhaps among the chancellor's top 5 or 10.
The reality is none of these realignments make a lot of sense, except for ESPN and FOX. As more sports move to streaming and these networks lose some power, I think more regionalized alignments will evolve in a couple of years. And hopefully the portal and NIL will have adequate structure in place to reduce the bleeding of talent to the richest teams.
You can check out but you can never leave.golden sloth said:
I'm going to funnel my inner old curmudgeon for a second.
Conference realignment and the completely stupid conferences and conference scheduling (when you dont have a division but also dont play half the other teams) is just another reason why college football sucks now.
The other reasons are:
1. The transfer portal and NIL combined to make the players mercenaries, not students. I liked when the players were apart of the school and represented the student body (albeit with certain benefits and drawbacks). I'm okay with them getting paid, and transferring but there needs to be some regulation.
2. The college football playoffs (I really hate them and MUCH prefer the old bowl system), a BCS plus 1 system would have been perfect.
3. The fall of the NCAA as a regulatory body. The fact I would lament this greatly surprised myself, but somebody needs to regulate the conferences and enforce the rules. Right now it's just the most powerful conferences taking whatever they want, and everyone else is damned.
I mentioned this before, but I think I'm done with college football. That said, I'm still here, so I dont know.
Grrrrah76 said:
The reality is none of these realignments make a lot of sense, except for ESPN and FOX. As more sports move to streaming and these networks lose some power, I think more regionalized alignments will evolve in a couple of years. And hopefully the portal and NIL will have adequate structure in place to reduce the bleeding of talent to the richest teams.
TV networks are not going to lose power over college sports unless TV stops paying good money for broadcasting rights. If anything, those rights become more valuable as streaming becomes more important because streaming services that emphasize live sports need live sports content to get fans to subscribe, the more live sports the better, and if you can get the most popular leagues and teams, even better. For that matter, Amazon Prime Video is not even sports-centric and they are paying billions for NFL and NBA rights.
After seeing other postings that turned our to be someone's opinion or just made up rather than facts, I tend to discount a lot of what I read here. I am curious about whether OR and WA will get full shares this year. Doing a quick search, I did not find anything that backed this up. Where did you see this?calumnus said:TedfordTheGreat said:the reason is because when UCLA/USC announced the move we were in a peak covid bounce. One year later the whole stock market crashed so money is tighter. Media evals went down the hill and they had to layoff staff. Oregon and UW absolutely deserve just as much as UCLA and USC but they joined at a different time so their value was lowered. Strike while the iron is hot is always the saying.sycasey said:Seems like it's not so much that the B1G schools didn't want Cal and Stanford, it's that Fox didn't want to pay. Oregon/Washington only got in at a reduced share, so it seems like Fox was being tight-fisted about money, for whatever reason.juarezbear said:I'm certain that Christ and JK fumbled the ball - pun intended - but given that Stanford was also jilted, I think the B1G didn't want Cal or Stanford, so I'm not sure that if Christ hadn't fought UCLA leaving really made a difference. Additionally, I don't believe that the Fox Sports ******bag could really take a personal gripe and make such a momentous decision. If Cal and Furd added a ton of value, he would've added them as he did UO and UW.SBGold said:
I don't know that this is totally accurate about how we handled. Publically, yes I think the admin and Stanford and the rest of the Pac left was against the move. I do recall there was plenty of discussion of Cal and Stanford trying to posture to be included in the Big 10. I think that could have been happening in discussions not in public. I also do recall that the Big 10 was a bit hesitant to add more. And if I recall correctly, UW and Oregon went but didn't get the same deal SC an UCLA did.
A lot went wrong, but I don't know if these rumors (unsubstantiated at best) are nearly being accurate.
Go Bears Forever
The ACC was able to add us because their ESPN contract had a requirement for ESPN to pay a full share for any school the conference voted to add. So that only involved convincing enough ACC presidents to approve it.
I saw recently that Oregon and UW are getting a full $62 million share this year. They had one year of "reduced" ($30 million? Plus a share of Ohio State's NC?) revenue.
Negotiating a behind the scenes deal with the Big-10 and Fox (that everyone paying attention knew about) while seeing what Kliavkoff could offer if the Pac-10 stayed together was the smart strategy.
Our best play was something similar, but working to have ourselves tied to UCLA and USC, with them lobbying for us. We played it about as poorly as we possibly could.
BearlyCareAnymore said:
Realistically what people don't get is that at Cal sports is about #50 on the chancellor's to do list.
No doubt. Which is why people saying Christ (with Knowlton) was secretly "doing more to get us into the Big-10 than any other PAC-12 CEO" were just going with the big lie, maybe just wishing it were true.
The problem is that at most schools the chancellor cares enough and knows enough about the revenue sports to at least hire a competent AD that they can delegate too. Christ was so lacking in knowledge of big time college football that she hired Knowlton whose expertise and passion is ice hockey and had been AD at G5 Air Force for only three years.
The chancellor SHOULD be focused on academics. That is why the AD hire is so important. However, the process that produces Cal chancellors usually ends up with chancellors that don't even care or know enough about big time college sports to get that right. I was hoping Lyons would be different and recognize that we don't have time to waste.
The fact chancellors should be focused on 49 other things is why I have advocated that management of the revenue sports be outsourced to the alumni that care so much about them.
SonomanA1 said:After seeing other postings that turned our to be someone's opinion or just made up rather than facts, I tend to discount a lot of what I read here. I am curious about whether OR and WA will get full shares this year. Doing a quick search, I did not find anything that backed this up. Where did you see this?calumnus said:TedfordTheGreat said:the reason is because when UCLA/USC announced the move we were in a peak covid bounce. One year later the whole stock market crashed so money is tighter. Media evals went down the hill and they had to layoff staff. Oregon and UW absolutely deserve just as much as UCLA and USC but they joined at a different time so their value was lowered. Strike while the iron is hot is always the saying.sycasey said:Seems like it's not so much that the B1G schools didn't want Cal and Stanford, it's that Fox didn't want to pay. Oregon/Washington only got in at a reduced share, so it seems like Fox was being tight-fisted about money, for whatever reason.juarezbear said:I'm certain that Christ and JK fumbled the ball - pun intended - but given that Stanford was also jilted, I think the B1G didn't want Cal or Stanford, so I'm not sure that if Christ hadn't fought UCLA leaving really made a difference. Additionally, I don't believe that the Fox Sports ******bag could really take a personal gripe and make such a momentous decision. If Cal and Furd added a ton of value, he would've added them as he did UO and UW.SBGold said:
I don't know that this is totally accurate about how we handled. Publically, yes I think the admin and Stanford and the rest of the Pac left was against the move. I do recall there was plenty of discussion of Cal and Stanford trying to posture to be included in the Big 10. I think that could have been happening in discussions not in public. I also do recall that the Big 10 was a bit hesitant to add more. And if I recall correctly, UW and Oregon went but didn't get the same deal SC an UCLA did.
A lot went wrong, but I don't know if these rumors (unsubstantiated at best) are nearly being accurate.
Go Bears Forever
The ACC was able to add us because their ESPN contract had a requirement for ESPN to pay a full share for any school the conference voted to add. So that only involved convincing enough ACC presidents to approve it.
I saw recently that Oregon and UW are getting a full $62 million share this year. They had one year of "reduced" ($30 million? Plus a share of Ohio State's NC?) revenue.
Negotiating a behind the scenes deal with the Big-10 and Fox (that everyone paying attention knew about) while seeing what Kliavkoff could offer if the Pac-10 stayed together was the smart strategy.
Our best play was something similar, but working to have ourselves tied to UCLA and USC, with them lobbying for us. We played it about as poorly as we possibly could.
I wish I saved it, because I cannot confirm it now either. The specific number I saw was $62 million for 2025. However, it appears the legacy B1G programs are looking at $75 million for 2025, so that would not be "full share." I stand corrected. It would be equivalent to what the others made last year. I don't know how much Oregon got for the CFP payout.
I also see that OSU and WSU are still getting big payouts ($50 million each?) from the Rose Bowl. However, as we increase our retention of our ACC payout and the PAC-12 contracts expire, we will eventually surpass them in post-PAC-12 cumulative earnings.
While I agree with everything you said I would add a few caveats surrounding Silver Man and who this dude is that I think many don't know…
As part of the prior B10 contract he was allowed to be in the room as CBS, NBC, Turner, Disney and… drumroll PLEASE! Apple, Amazon and other streaming providers made there pitch to the Big10 in 2022. Now riddle me this? How was an executive (cough actually 2 if you count his admin Jones) for one of the bidders allowed to sit in on competing proposals during a bid review process and even reportedly act as a consultant to Warren during such? Because apparently he was acting as the president of the "Big Ten Networks" which I guess if taken at face value is legally sustainable if by sustainable you mean standing on an already water logged two by four 2000 miles out to sea in the South Pacific…
That said I think people miss the clues as to why Silver Man was actually their…
He has repeatedly stated publicly that "OTT is the future but just isn't quite their yet"… uh hum. It is there yet on Apple. And it has been there yet on Apple since at least 2019. It's cheaper. It's faster. It's got less adds. It's there. It's just not their yet on Faux Sports which is why soon to be codefendant #47 in the faux sports skip bayless hairstylist sex harassment etc lawsuit claims was actually in the bid reviews. At face value his nefarious intention is surmised by most to be to syphon OTT tech secrets from the bids of competitors.
Reality check. You're being way too generous. That wasn't it. Faux already knows how to steal **** and when in history has anyone ever stolen tech secrets from an RFP or a quotation.
The reason he was there were simply the bid amounts themselves which fits the mo of faux who has all the money it wants to outbid people and take a massive loss just to satisfy an ego or check a box on a strategic roadmap which it has done time and time again. In this case it was to ensure Apple and Amazon lost (as evidenced by the ludicrously overpriced and unsustainable GOR) and to open a backdoor with Disney which I'll get to later. My guess is that Faux was prepared to pay whatever not because they wanted the Midwest media market which tbh is not all that sexy if you're trying to make actual money. It was to sideline Apple and court Disney. Simple as that. And the goal of winning that bid was not to create a super conference (that was just collateral damage) but to make sure Apple TV didn't win the bid. That's it.
Long story short I personally believe that Silver Man (and his buddy Jones who was also in the room) learned, after being allowed to (unethically in literally every sense of the word) listen in on the proposals from competitors like Apple, and Amazon was that Faux was and is in far worse shape from a futures perspective (specifically OTT and the ability to compete in that space then he ever could have imagined)… and during the proposals he probably also learned that Apple had plans for the Pac12 and Big12 as it related to OTT.
Why do I say this? Because Silverman heard those proposals in April of 2022, then the rumored decision from $uc happened in May coupled with the absolute stonewalling of Kliavkoff by Folt…then the execution of the big ten deal with faux; and then almost immediately the attempts at syphoning / cherry picking more members away with the ultimate goal being to eliminate Apple TV as competition by securing any and all GORs whatever the cost. But why only us? Why not the big 12 too? Disney has OTT
That's the mystery…the simple explanation is because he recognized that Disney is an established player and the crme de la creme in the sports space and not worth ****ing with…
But I prefer the more complex explanation that goes further down the rabbit hole. And given the fact Yormark parrots literally everything the Faux *****s do it makes the most sense. And that is because the powers at be at Disney and Faux struck a deal to crush Apple TV's OTT ambitions.
Are any of my theories confirmed? Of course naw….OH WAIT?
To very little coverage and fan fare in 2024 when Fubo filed an antitrust suit against none other than Fox Sports, Disney and Warner Bros for a joint venture they planned to launch called Venu…
Venu "(The joint venture)is aimed at creating a new service, combining the media companies' broad portfolio of professional and collegiate sports"
When was VENU conceived?
You guessed it around the beginning of 2023…
And who conceived it?
Faux
And who staffed this new "independent" entity?
A bunch of Faux Sports staffers but obviously not the tech dudes. Clearly Faux sucked / still sucks the balls in that space.
So to recap the timeline…
April 2022 Silver Man and his bro sit in on big ten network GOR bid proposals by Apple, Amazon and other OTT providers and in the process violate literally every ethics rule known to man.
May 2022 fUCLA and SUC decide to leave
Julyish 2022 faux wins b10 deal
Augustish 2023 Apple TV proposal beats disney for P12 and appears a good deal with more total value and then Oregon and Udubb bail. And sometime in the month or two thereafter Faux, Disney, and Warner bros enter a joint "independent"streaming venture called Venu for the ACC, SEC, Big 10, etc networks.
March 2024 Fubu wins its anti Trust lawsuit against Venu.
February 2025 After the Orange cheetoh being in office for literally 10 days Disney buys Fubu raising further anti trust concerns.
You literally can't make this **** up!
As for Christ and Knowlton. F them both. I would love to think they had enough balls to rattle Silver Man's cage but in reality I think they were just stumbling around drunk in a room full of future anti trust litigation.
End rant.
F Christ Double F Knowlton and Triple F Yormark.
And as for Silver Man?
If we ever get back to normalcy in this country I have a strong hunch him and many of his co defendants are going to be playing a lot of tennis in an all male facility.
This **** wreaks to high heaven no matter where you're sitting.
As part of the prior B10 contract he was allowed to be in the room as CBS, NBC, Turner, Disney and… drumroll PLEASE! Apple, Amazon and other streaming providers made there pitch to the Big10 in 2022. Now riddle me this? How was an executive (cough actually 2 if you count his admin Jones) for one of the bidders allowed to sit in on competing proposals during a bid review process and even reportedly act as a consultant to Warren during such? Because apparently he was acting as the president of the "Big Ten Networks" which I guess if taken at face value is legally sustainable if by sustainable you mean standing on an already water logged two by four 2000 miles out to sea in the South Pacific…
That said I think people miss the clues as to why Silver Man was actually their…
He has repeatedly stated publicly that "OTT is the future but just isn't quite their yet"… uh hum. It is there yet on Apple. And it has been there yet on Apple since at least 2019. It's cheaper. It's faster. It's got less adds. It's there. It's just not their yet on Faux Sports which is why soon to be codefendant #47 in the faux sports skip bayless hairstylist sex harassment etc lawsuit claims was actually in the bid reviews. At face value his nefarious intention is surmised by most to be to syphon OTT tech secrets from the bids of competitors.
Reality check. You're being way too generous. That wasn't it. Faux already knows how to steal **** and when in history has anyone ever stolen tech secrets from an RFP or a quotation.
The reason he was there were simply the bid amounts themselves which fits the mo of faux who has all the money it wants to outbid people and take a massive loss just to satisfy an ego or check a box on a strategic roadmap which it has done time and time again. In this case it was to ensure Apple and Amazon lost (as evidenced by the ludicrously overpriced and unsustainable GOR) and to open a backdoor with Disney which I'll get to later. My guess is that Faux was prepared to pay whatever not because they wanted the Midwest media market which tbh is not all that sexy if you're trying to make actual money. It was to sideline Apple and court Disney. Simple as that. And the goal of winning that bid was not to create a super conference (that was just collateral damage) but to make sure Apple TV didn't win the bid. That's it.
Long story short I personally believe that Silver Man (and his buddy Jones who was also in the room) learned, after being allowed to (unethically in literally every sense of the word) listen in on the proposals from competitors like Apple, and Amazon was that Faux was and is in far worse shape from a futures perspective (specifically OTT and the ability to compete in that space then he ever could have imagined)… and during the proposals he probably also learned that Apple had plans for the Pac12 and Big12 as it related to OTT.
Why do I say this? Because Silverman heard those proposals in April of 2022, then the rumored decision from $uc happened in May coupled with the absolute stonewalling of Kliavkoff by Folt…then the execution of the big ten deal with faux; and then almost immediately the attempts at syphoning / cherry picking more members away with the ultimate goal being to eliminate Apple TV as competition by securing any and all GORs whatever the cost. But why only us? Why not the big 12 too? Disney has OTT
That's the mystery…the simple explanation is because he recognized that Disney is an established player and the crme de la creme in the sports space and not worth ****ing with…
But I prefer the more complex explanation that goes further down the rabbit hole. And given the fact Yormark parrots literally everything the Faux *****s do it makes the most sense. And that is because the powers at be at Disney and Faux struck a deal to crush Apple TV's OTT ambitions.
Are any of my theories confirmed? Of course naw….OH WAIT?
To very little coverage and fan fare in 2024 when Fubo filed an antitrust suit against none other than Fox Sports, Disney and Warner Bros for a joint venture they planned to launch called Venu…
Venu "(The joint venture)is aimed at creating a new service, combining the media companies' broad portfolio of professional and collegiate sports"
When was VENU conceived?
You guessed it around the beginning of 2023…
And who conceived it?
Faux
And who staffed this new "independent" entity?
A bunch of Faux Sports staffers but obviously not the tech dudes. Clearly Faux sucked / still sucks the balls in that space.
So to recap the timeline…
April 2022 Silver Man and his bro sit in on big ten network GOR bid proposals by Apple, Amazon and other OTT providers and in the process violate literally every ethics rule known to man.
May 2022 fUCLA and SUC decide to leave
Julyish 2022 faux wins b10 deal
Augustish 2023 Apple TV proposal beats disney for P12 and appears a good deal with more total value and then Oregon and Udubb bail. And sometime in the month or two thereafter Faux, Disney, and Warner bros enter a joint "independent"streaming venture called Venu for the ACC, SEC, Big 10, etc networks.
March 2024 Fubu wins its anti Trust lawsuit against Venu.
February 2025 After the Orange cheetoh being in office for literally 10 days Disney buys Fubu raising further anti trust concerns.
You literally can't make this **** up!
As for Christ and Knowlton. F them both. I would love to think they had enough balls to rattle Silver Man's cage but in reality I think they were just stumbling around drunk in a room full of future anti trust litigation.
End rant.
F Christ Double F Knowlton and Triple F Yormark.
And as for Silver Man?
If we ever get back to normalcy in this country I have a strong hunch him and many of his co defendants are going to be playing a lot of tennis in an all male facility.
This **** wreaks to high heaven no matter where you're sitting.
The other reality people here don't seem to understand is nobody really cares about Cal except the few that post here. Attendance and TV viewership have been bad and trending down. The administration has been horribly run for decades and with realignment, NIL and the transfer portal, anyone paying attention knows that it won't get any better. There's a reason we have a terrible media deal with the ACC and had to scramble to even find a home. Posters will come up with conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory about what executive or network was out to get Cal when the reality is no one really cares. Cal's an afterthought.BearlyCareAnymore said:
Realistically what people don't get is that at Cal sports is about #50 on the chancellor's to do list.
I'm a people and I get both of those things, sort of.
Big C said:
I'm a people and I get both of those things, sort of.
I do think there is some truth to the idea they allude to.
Cal and Cal fans cant complain about network conspiracies against Cal, when Cal cant even command the local east bay market.
Yes, its poor leadership. When I went to the Oakland Roots home opener a month or so ago and they had 25k plus show up. The Oakland Roots are a USL soccer team which is like the minor leagues of MLS and the average home attendance across the leagues is less than 5k.
Cal should be able to drum up a crowd of 50k pretty if the marketing department just did their damn jobs, and tickets were priced to reflect a struggling 'supposedly amateur team' instead of claiming a Cal football game is on par with the Warriors or 49ers.
That was a one-off game, a home opener at the Coliseum, and if it was anything like most American pro soccer games, there were lots of very low price tickets made available through youth soccer teams.golden sloth said:
When I went to the Oakland Roots home opener a month or so ago and they had 25k plus show up.
BearSD said:That was a one-off game, a home opener at the Coliseum, and if it was anything like most American pro soccer games, there were lots of very low price tickets made available through youth soccer teams.golden sloth said:
When I went to the Oakland Roots home opener a month or so ago and they had 25k plus show up.
You just touched on the point: Do something to fill the stands.
Full disclosure, I was at that game because my daughter plays youth soccer. Personally, I don't care for soccer all that much.
Scheduling teams like Texas Southern and Wagner is not helping when we could fill some seats by scheduling local FCS programs instead (or even local FBS programs like Nevada and San Jose State).Big C said:You just touched on the point: Do something to fill the stands.BearSD said:That was a one-off game, a home opener at the Coliseum, and if it was anything like most American pro soccer games, there were lots of very low price tickets made available through youth soccer teams.golden sloth said:
When I went to the Oakland Roots home opener a month or so ago and they had 25k plus show up.
Big C said:BearSD said:That was a one-off game, a home opener at the Coliseum, and if it was anything like most American pro soccer games, there were lots of very low price tickets made available through youth soccer teams.golden sloth said:
When I went to the Oakland Roots home opener a month or so ago and they had 25k plus show up.
You just touched on the point: Do something to fill the stands.
Full disclosure, I was at that game because my daughter plays youth soccer. Personally, I don't care for soccer all that much.
My buddy bought the ticket for me. He brought his family, plus me and his son's friend to the game. He was meeting up with an old coworker of his that brought 10 thirty somethings. It was $45 for the ticket, parking was $40, the Coliseum is still a dump, they had Too short play at half time, a solid fireworks show after, and there were food trucks and concessions.
Also, I had a separate coworker go to the game and a teammate on my adult league soccer team was going with her boyfriend. So, that is a wide cross-section of people that were attending.
All in all, the organization had an idea, marketed the idea, got interest, and successfully delivered the event.
Would you all go again if not for the hoopla and extras they did? I live in the area, but don't know that I would go to more than 1 Roots game a year. I've not been to one ever
Go Bears Forever
Go Bears Forever
Oh don't say some of that outloud. There were people calling for me to be banned by saying it too often.HKBear97! said:The other reality people here don't seem to understand is nobody really cares about Cal except the few that post here. Attendance and TV viewership have been bad and trending down. The administration has been horribly run for decades and with realignment, NIL and the transfer portal, anyone paying attention knows that it won't get any better. There's a reason we have a terrible media deal with the ACC and had to scramble to even find a home. Posters will come up with conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory about what executive or network was out to get Cal when the reality is no one really cares. Cal's an afterthought.BearlyCareAnymore said:
Realistically what people don't get is that at Cal sports is about #50 on the chancellor's to do list.
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