NCAA FBS Football is Not Just a Business
USC & UCLA leaving the PAC-12 for the BigTen indicates there are some serious power plays in college football involving money. But...it's still college football. University leaders need to wake up.
Venting, I Am
I’m going to give (vent?) my thoughts about college football that have been brewing in my head for a few years now (my poor wife…). My article is going to sound, to some, as if I’m shouting at the wind, longing for the old days when life was just simpler and kids were wholesome and good (LOL).
But I’m not that type of dude in general - I’m also only 44, having graduated from University of Colorado in 2000 - and I’m pretty accepting of change overall.
However, something is just…off…with NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subconference (FBS) football - what most of us think of when we think “college football”. Things have changed - and continue to change - and not in a way that’s positive for any but a small fraction of FBS football programs. The collateral damage to non-football sports across the country, as well as to football programs that aren’t located in large media markets, could be extensive.
USC and UCLA Will Join the Big Ten in 2024
This news was announced back in June, so I’m not breaking anything here but, seriously. Someone needs to tell me why this makes sense:
Even today’s Big Ten is a bit stretched out, having expanded to Maryland and Rutgers a handful of years ago…but those weren’t much of a jump from Penn State, which joined in the ‘90s (before media money was much of a consideration). Nebraska joined in the last ten years…but Lincoln is only a few hundred miles from Iowa City and Minneapolis. It mostly makes sense.
But this invitation to LA makes about as much sense as when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were in the NFC Central with Minnesota, Chicago, Green Bay, and Detroit from 1977-2002.
It just has “show me the money and damn everything else” written all over it.
If You Want Juicy Details, I’m Not Your Guy
Now, if you want to get way into the weeds about USC, UCLA, and their moves to the Big Ten, I highly suggest that you subscribe to John Canzano’s Substack. He’s been a sports writer covering the PAC-10/12 in Oregon for years, most recently for the Oregonian. He knows where all the bodies are buried, and he’ll give you way more detail about the brouhaha than I can. His latest mailbag post went through some of the details, and there’s way, way more there. Subscribe and you won’t be disappointed.
This is a Solution in Search of a Problem
My article questions the entire problem universities think they’re trying to solve, as well as the downsides many - apparently - aren’t considering as much as they should. Personally, I see moves like this one demotivating fans and the money they bring, as well as putting the costs square onto potential (and current) student-athletes and staff, and ultimately ending up as net-negatives for the universities that chase that sweet, sweet cash. They may come out ahead of today’s baseline in the end…but at a rather steep non-monetary cost.
To Start: Of Course Money is Part of College Athletics…
I’m not so naïve to think that college athletics aren’t to some extent about money - I mean, we buy tickets and watch TV with ads and all that, and there are scholarships for the athletes - but it’s never been so explicitly about just the money as in this case. It’s always been a “yeah, big teams sell tickets and get televised, so I know they’re a decent - but limited - source of revenue for the universities and some make out better than others, but this is still, ultimately, collegiate athletics” sort of thing.
…but it’s Never Been All About Money
If you watch college football with any regularity, you’ve also been watching ESPN’s College Gameday:
If you’ve ever been on a college campus that’s preparing to host Gameday, you know it’s a big production that involves all the university facilities staff, the cheerleaders, some coaches, and a spotlight on your school. It’s kinda fun - I was part of it at CU in 1996 and happened to be interviewing for a job at the University of Oregon in 2011 two days prior to them showing up there for, I believe, the UO-USC game. There’s a lot of fanfare, the students all show up - many completely drunk by 10:00A (or earlier if on the West Coast - those shows start in the dark) - and it’s quite the party for the morning. You also happen to know that the show is sponsored by The Home Depot, influential members of the host community often get brought on stage - once at UO, one of the Pape kids (that family owns many Caterpillar dealerships in the area) was like 6 and sang the Oregon Fight Song on the show - and that the commercials are for high-dollar items like cars, airline tickets, fractional aircraft ownership, and the like (and men’s…performance medications). So, yeah, there’s money involved and you’re certain the universities are gettin’ a cut of that cash. But that was a byproduct of a high-profile, rivalrous, fun atmosphere and contest later in the day.
However, this USC-UCLA move is just hitting the wrong notes. All of the talk over the last month has been about USC & UCLA being invited - and accepting the invitation - to the Big Ten because, and only because, they’ll get a bigger paycheck from Fox than they were getting from the PAC-12 Network. Why? Los Angeles is the only huge market west of the Mississippi, the LA schools were tired of sharing their TV revenue with much smaller markets in the conference, and the BigTen wanted LA. That’s it. It’s a pure cash grab. There was no talk about rivalries, tradition, travel times for the athletes and staff, or the fact that the USA’s two coastlines are three time zones apart. Just money.
USC and UCLA Don’t Need Money That Badly
This is the worst part! USC and UCLA are two very well-funded universities. One is part of the public UC system; the other is a prestigious private university. Neither of them is dying for money and neither is in danger of that. According to Canzano:
Former Fox Sports Network president Bob Thompson estimates that the Pac-12 would have commanded a $500 million-a-year television deal in the next round of media rights negotiations [in 2024, when the two schools move to the Big Ten]. That would have given each Pac-12 member an annual distribution of $41.6 million. With the move to the Big Ten, USC and UCLA will receive more than $71 million annually.
So, each will get an additional ~$30 million per year as a result of the change. Not too shabby, right?
Of course, raw numbers giveth and percentages taketh away. Let’s look at their annual budgets to see the percentage this money represents:
UCLA (2021): $9.2 billion (0.32% - about $650 per student)
USC (2020-21 fiscal year): $6.2 billion (0.48% - and about $681 per student)
So, even if it really is all about the money, it’s…not that much money for these schools. It’s damn near a rounding error, in fact. I can’t quite understand it. Regardless, the discourse going around about this move is that it was, shockingly, all about the TV money.
“But for an Angel, She’s a Hot, Hot Mess…”
Los Angeles schools sit in a huge media market, so they’re subsidizing the other 10 non-LA schools by taking equal cuts of the PAC-12 media cash instead of their proportion of the contract. They didn’t like that, so they decided to court other suitors that would give them a bigger paycheck. The Big Ten has much larger media markets - Chicago (Northwestern, Illinois) and NYC (Rutgers) among them - so they command more money from advertisers. Adding LA to this bunch increases said payday for everyone - existing Big Ten teams included.
But it’s still only an extra $30 million and less than 1% of the university budgets…and - I’m calling it now - it’s gonna be short-term gain, long-term pain.
Let’s just assume, for the moment, that it’s not weird that they’re joining a conference with roots in the Rust Belt and Upper Midwest, and that their nearest conference neighbor will be in Lincoln, Nebraska (more on that below). This has “we care way more about our media deal and the marginal money it brings than…just about anything else” plastered all over it.
Sports media appears to be playing along, too, likely because some of them - ESPN and Fox chief among them - are big players at this table. Thus, the discourse in sports media since their decision takes it as a given that the only decisions a university athletic department needs to make revolve around revenue - as if quality of facilities, quality & propriety of coaches and staff, student-athlete wellbeing, tradition, and regional rivalries & synergies, are just collateral issues - and I think that’s really, really shortsighted and weird. Athletic directors are just fundraisers? Obviously universities have to make revenue - and private ones, such as USC, can’t count on the state to kick in a subsidy - but most universities’ budgetary tipping points aren’t hinged upon the sports media contract currently in force.
“I’m the Map, I’m the Map, I’m the MAAAAAAP!”
You know what that extra money can’t buy? A shorter plane ride. It’s just math. Logistics. Matter. Let’s look at the trusty map again:
Let’s set aside the wastefulness of this endeavor for a second and assume that airplanes, trains, ferries, cars and buses are miraculously able to operate on 100% carbon-free energy. What a world, right? Even in that scenario, traveling for away games is gonna suuuuuuuuuuuuck. Take it from a dude that used to live in Florida but visited family in Oregon on the regular, but then add in fatigue from your game.
Again, the closest away game is Lincoln. It’s a matter of opportunity costs for the teams, players, and coaching staff (all for different reasons). Whether they say it out loud or not, this is the message they’re sending to recruits, coaches, staff, and fans:
We think the extra travel hours and the related jet lag for all of our intercollegiate athletes and staff is worth $30 million per year in revenue for our university.
Basically, in order to get X (some more media $), they’re giving up Y (time & wellness).
No matter how much money they make with this move, students and staff can’t get that time back. They’ll pay for this travel in blood, sweat, tears, and fatigue...that will manifest itself in frustration (coaches, athletes), lower grades (athletes), decreased job satisfaction and higher coaching turnover (coaches), as well as less time socializing with anyone other than their teammates. For the team/school, the brands just don’t have the same punch in the new conferences, either. For example, UO made up a lot of its expected revenue shortfalls from 2009-2012 with Californians paying high tuition, and their market research showed that the Oregon brand was a big reason why. Are we sure that USC and/or UCLA will command any kind of brand premium when competing against Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, or Wisconsin? I’m incredibly skeptical, having grown up in MN. It needs to pan out to make up for the lost time and academic achievement.
Even if you ignore the money - bear with me - the logistics of these moves are just awful. For football, they're bad. For non-football sports, they're *terrible* because those sports play a lot more than 12 games per season (hence more travel). Getting from LAX to SFO, SEA, PHX, SLC, or DEN is easy peasy. Getting to Tucson, EUG, and Pullman is a touch harder but still pretty easy. PAC-12 travel was a 4-5 hour affair, tops. But now you get to travel from LAX to the Midwest or East Coast, where your *closest* away game is in Lincoln. Their *best* travel days will be to Minnesota (MSP), Northwestern (ORD), or Wisconsin (MSN), as those are quite close to airports with non-stops to LAX and the flights are only about 3.5 hours. It's a little longer to get to Michigan (DTW) or Ohio State (CMH) - about 4.5 hours - though the latter only has a single airline (Spirit) that goes non-stop to LAX. Detroit has multiple non-stops to LAX.
Beyond these, though, all travel days are a minimum of 5 hours, often requiring 2 flights or, at the very least, a long bus ride and 1 flight; and the travel days are more like 7-8 hours. Getting from LAX to DC and Newark means non-stops that are 5 to 6 hours. State College (Penn State), Bloomington (Indiana), Iowa City (Iowa), Champaign (Illinois), East Lansing (Mich St.), Lincoln (Nebraska), or West Lafayette (Purdue) are much messier.
West Lafayette and Bloomington are both roughly a 1-hr ride to IND, which has a couple of non-stops to LAX (~4 hrs).
You have to travel 30 minutes from Iowa City to CID (Cedar Rapids) to get a 1-stop to LAX (5-7 hrs).
State College is a 1-stop to LAX (~6-8 hrs).
East Lansing is 20 minutes from LAN, which has 1-stops to LAX (6-9 hrs).
Champaign has 1-stops to LAX (6-7 hrs).
Lincoln has 1-stops to LAX (5-8 hrs).
So, bare minimum, you've at least doubled your travel times in either direction, often tripling them. Like it or not, playing in the PAC-12 is convenient. The longest flight is SEA-LAX or maybe SEA-PHX and that's only ~3 hrs non-stop.
If you take this line of thinking through to UO or UW, the logistics are FAR worse. At least LAX is a major destination for just about any decent-sized airport in the USA. SEA is less so, but still decent in terms of accessibility. But EUG? Oh. My. God. I just searched for a 8/26-8/27 roundtrip from EUG to State College, PA. The *best* itinerary I could find leaves EUG at about 0530, connects *twice* (DEN, ORD), and gets there in about 9 hours. The rest are 13-14 hours.
UO should run screaming from any mention of the Big Ten, as should UW.
Don’t get me started on UO joining the ACC or SEC, either. Those would be far worse across the board, logistically. That’s literally all-day travel to *PDX*, let alone EUG. Trust me. Did it ALL. THE. TIME. It sucked. Know what DELTA stands for? Directs Every Leg Through Atlanta. Think Clemson/Auburn/Tallahassee-Atlanta-PDX-EUG. Ugh.
I just hate this money focus and not for “just let them be kids!” reasons. It just doesn’t make sense. Not to mention you completely lose any intangibles like tradition, enjoying contests against old friends and foes from HS at conference rivals, as well as alumni connections among schools.
I literally don’t think it’ll be a huge boon for schools, either. Why?
“But They Could Charter Planes, Jeff”
Sure, you’ll save some time…but Newark is still a 5- to 6-hour flight from LAX, so you’re going to need to charter a really large plane that can make the transcontinental flight. So, you save a few hours by chartering a plane for a non-stop…but you need to charter a really expensive plane. I mean, this site charters private jets that can hold up to 14 people to fly cross-country for about $65K…and that’s one way.
If you need to transport a football team? LOL. This site quotes 737-300 charters at about $18K per hour, and that aircraft can’t make it across the country, so you’d need to stop for fuel. You’d need a 757 to make it all the way - a 757-200 goes for $20K per hour and can fly about 3,900 nautical miles (about 4,400 miles). So, $200K for a roundtrip flight for a football game.
Now, I’m sure these universities can negotiate some bulk deals but aviation companies work on tight profit margins, so they’re going to pass those crew, food, and fuel costs to their customers somehow. They’re not going to get that great of a deal. There’s a reason you don’t tend to get coupons for airline travel. There’s almost no markup on popular routes. These higher travel costs will eat into that extra $30M per year and I’d bet the added expense is much higher than they’d expected.
People that should know better aren’t thinking this out.
USC and UCLA Aren’t Even That Good at Sports
This says nothing of the big-dollar sports that drove them to this decision - football and basketball. USC and UCLA are not power players in either of these sports in the PAC-12 today, and the BigTen generally has better teams in a given year. They’re probably going to hang out in the bottom half of the conference a lot of the time.
If It’s All About the Money in the End…
As I’ve said many times this past month, if I want to watch a bunch of businesses scramble for cash while playing sports, why wouldn’t I just watch the pros? They’re far better at the game than collegiate athletes, the athletes actually get paid, the leagues have much more parity (few dynasties), the marketing is better, most leagues literally share revenue, TV schedules are more predictable, the pre- and post-game shows are often less jingoistic but comparable in quality, and the ticket prices aren’t *that* different. Oh, and it’s much easier to get all NFL and NBA games with a single-season TV pass than NCAA games. NFL RedZone and the NFL Sunday Ticket are great here.
The PAC-12 seems to be taking the right path so far - consider expanding regionally, renegotiate a better media deal, consider some kind of bi-coastal championship (this is kinda innovative - not gonna lie). I hope UO mostly ignores Phil Knight if he’s bellyaching about them joining the Big Ten, too. It’s not his call, as much as he’d like it to be. He gets a seat at the table as a large donor and alumnus, but he doesn’t - and shouldn’t - make the call. This is up to the universities, conference and - in the case of state universities - the state governments. Period.
Oh, and if you’re a Duck fan, take a hard pass on the Big Ten; even harder pass on the ACC or SEC. Not worth it. Sorry.
