Picking up the pieces is not going to be easy.
The Fourth of July holiday weekend is done and college sports Pac-12 Conference is facing a future of putting Humpty Dumpty back together with two Los Angeles-market marquee sports schools, The University of Southern California and UCLA, leaving It is going to be extremely difficult for what is a struggling college circuit, the PAC 12, to be taken seriously without the Los Angeles schools which are bolting to the Big Ten. The Big Ten now resembles the NBA, MLB, the NHL, the NFL and Major League Soccer as it has a coast-to-coast look The Big Ten looks good on the TV side with a portion of the nation’s biggest market, New York, with the New Jersey state school, Rutgers, and the two schools in Los Angeles and Chicago. It remains hard to believe that the PAC 12 had TV problems with markets that include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix along with Portland and Salt Lake City, all major league markets. But the college conference was struggling before the people running UCLA and USC decided that the grass is greener somewhere else even if it means coast-to-coast trips for its athletes.
College sports is all about money. Money for the programs. Money for the conferences. Get better TV markets get a better TV deal. The schools are still not sharing the cash with the stars of the show, although some players can go out and sell their faces and make some money in the process. College sports is changing in pursuit of money. Texas and Oklahoma are leaving the Big 12 to join the SEC. The Big Ten is trying to strengthen itself getting the two LA teams. There are other leagues out there such as the Atlantic Coast Conference that might have to get bigger as money is on the line.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
