Perhaps they can rename themselves the “Sea to Shining Sea Conference.”
SSSC might have a ring to it!
I said before that I thought it made more sense for Stanford and Cal to go to the Big Ten than the ACC. Since they were willing to accept a lower pay-out to join the ACC, I wonder if they made the same proposition to the Big Ten. From the Big Ten’s perspective, that would have given them the Bay Area market and thus the entire Pacific Coast, for all practical purposes.
Maybe those schools identify as being bear the Atlantic.
Now, Washington State and Oregon State are screwed. Unless the Big 12 has a change of heart and takes them in, which I have read is not likely at all, they are going to be downgrading confefences and getting less money than their athletic budgets are set to handle.
Mountain West
Whose payouts to its members will be a lot lower than what they got in the Pac-12.
Edit: In all of the conference realignment, I think these this is the first time in a while that schools will be essentially downgraded. The only other time I can remember that is similar was when the Southwest Conference disbanded and the four schools that did not go to the Big Twelve were essentially downgraded from a “major conference.”
I thought of that before I read it.
UNM is in the MW. They are a pretty sorry excuse for a BCS football team. They average 14-15K in attendance. NM State just went into Conference USA. They are comparable to UNM, maybe a very margin better. They also average 14-15K.
The MW is what I would call a pretty low tier conference.
Once the Big10 got USC and UCLA they had the California market. No reason to add Stanford and California.
USC and UCLA give the Big Ten the Southen California market. The Bay Area is totally different and another major market. The Big Ten could have commanded more television renenue with the Bay Area schools. Like I said, if the schools were willing to come in on the cheap, I think it would have been worth looking at.
Plus, having those schools would make for a nice western division of the Big Ten. Less travel costs, and traditional rivalires preserved.
Thinking about this further, I think the Big Ten would have been smart to have considered adding Stanford but not Cal. Stanford’s football team has not done much lately, but it has had its periods of excellence. And, Stanford’s other athletic teams do pretty well. Plus, Stanford would bring the academic cache that the Big Ten professes to value.
From what I understand, Cal is closer to Oregon State and Washington State in in terms of its athletic department, and I also heard they have a lot of debt. They don’t bring all that much to the table. Since the Big Ten could have gotten the Bay Area market with only Stanford, that would have made sense, especially if Stanford was wiling to join on the cheap.
Now, as to whether Stanford would have screwed Cal over like that, who knows? It is all moot, as they will both be in the ACC now.