Advocatus Diabolis: with fat wallets, all Pac teams will be powerhouses....

[Mick Ronson]

this is the implicit assumption working on the board.....there's a Keynesian supply-side automatic logic that with the $$$, build up facilities, donors show up and the recruiting and winning will follow. automatic cause-effect. every team and most specifically CU are a breath or two away from domination. being "big boys" in the new Virgin Airlines first class cabin of NCAA sport.

will no conference teams lose conference games? will Larry Scott figure out how to make both teams in a Pac game winners when the field clock says 0:00.

there will still be bottom feeders in the major conferences. and it's Jon Embree's job to make sure we aren't one of them. it's unclear right now what structural obstacles we face in the Pac will be. in the BIg XII, our distant location and Denver as a pro sports town made CU an "outlier" from the core geographical teams (even when the head office was still in KC)...and thereby unable to have much efficacy re: our interests.

while i agree the trends that will dominate football are 1. population density/media audiences=TV revenue and 2. the arms race will produce stronger "class" divisions, comrades. haves and have nots. outside CU's fortuitous placement in the Pac, i think this trending will eventually make me like college sports less. objectively. seems like most of the "games" will be decided off the field by a political economy of media and supply-side infrastructure and not between the whistles. that's kinda what we are arguing here, explicitly or not. no?

I don't think it's a qualitative change, but one that is quantitative. more of the same....but at some point the acceleration of the money money money logic does produce Dewayne Wade and LeBron on the same team. Steinbrenner Yankee type results.

being high on the money is one thing, but are there not at all disturbing tendencies to you as well? i'm not positing some "good old days" where NCAA football was pure and innocent...and now we've fallen. just a little trepidatious about some of this.

if it's all about money, who cares about "competition"? in many ways as i say, the actual competition takes place off the field in the new model. sounds to me like we've become a bit like mini-Texas fans. internalized horn logic in our attempt to escape it...???

 

[Liver]

party pooper.

:lol:

 

[Deleted member 807]

I understand the "arms race" argument. When the NFL put individual season ticket holders behind the networks and corporate suite holders, it took the charm out of the pro game. Compare the South Endzone and the rocky mountain thunder when blue collar fans stomped on the steel flooring of the old Mile High versus the wine and cheese sensibilities of Invesco as an example to chart that transformation in the pros.

Paying $200 for tix to a UT game in DRM with 105,000 orange clad fans with the godzillatron blazing in the south end zone seemed pretty far from the era of Bear Bryant or the quaint and intimate feel of Folsom today.

But to play devil's advocate, this P12 deal creates an unparalleled stage upon student athletes can shine. The football players are the tip of the iceberg. This deal is about broadcasting more sports that don't otherwise see the light of HDTV. I'm relishing the possibility of becoming a more informed and more passionate fan of Track, Cross Country and Skiing. I savor the thought of getting to know a baseball roster and setting the TiVo to watch more than football. I savor watching CU's athletes become Olympic athletes from the comfort of my living room. It would have been great to follow Emma Coburn run the steeplechase in Palo Alto and watch Jenny Barringer win almost every time she tied up her track shoes.

I'm all for the vision of Larry Scott to guard the academic integrity of the P12 while bringing the conference of champions to my TV, PC and smart phone.

The as EDSBS said, Larry Scott is balls deep in the future. His vision is a future I like, even without the absurdly rich TV deal. I am confident I'm going to savor Larry Scott's impact on CU athletics.

The Big 8 and Big 12 were okay, but the future has so much more to offer. And Larry Scott is leading the way.

 

[NashBuff]

Plus will the Pac-12 schools be also more focused on the Olympic sports as well? What I'm thinking is that the Pac-12 schools would be more likely to focus less on football & basketball and more on the Olympic sports compared to the Big 12.

We will figure out the Pac-12 eventually.

 

[BuffNut99]

I think we have the program framework and leadership in place to maximize the boon we're about to receive. CU unfortunately had some unique circumstances negatively affect the program in the last decade and the margin for error was so small (and some mistakes were big) such that CU still has not fully recovered, in large part due to lack of resources (exhibit A: couldn't fire an incompetant coach over $2M). CU needs $$$ and wins to recover. Over time, I have no doubt that we will separate from the bottom-feeders and even the mid-tablers, and will consistently be in the top third of the conference, winning the South 3-4 times a decade and winning the conference once or twice a decade.

 

[GoBruinz]

Plus will the Pac-12 schools be also more focused on the Olympic sports as well? What I'm thinking is that the Pac-12 schools would be more likely to focus less on football & basketball and more on the Olympic sports compared to the Big 12.

We will figure out the Pac-12 eventually.

No. Olympic sports are a focus in addition to football and basketball. That's the difference between the Pac and Big XII (although Texas also has somewhat of a focus on the Olympic sports).

 

[Mick Ronson]

I understand the "arms race" argument. When the NFL put individual season ticket holders behind the networks and corporate suite holders, it took the charm out of the pro game. Compare the South Endzone and the rocky mountain thunder when blue collar fans stomped on the steel flooring of the old Mile High versus the wine and cheese sensibilities of Invesco as an example to chart that transformation in the pros.

this is a good example. i mean, imagine being able to get blackened salmon and white wine at Mile High? so antithetical to the earnest, blue-collar feel of most of the stadium and bronco fandom. pricing out a whole segment of the fan base was a shoddy move ....so Skipper and Lila can drive down from Evergreen in their Mercedes SUV and knock down some pinot grigio and ahi tuna with mango-lime chutney at the game. far cry from Broncos-Raiders circa 1987.

i think the Big XII secondary sport focus is on what they call "spring sports" in Texas and Oklahoma (in my dust bowl experience)...which was golf and baseball. track to a lesser degree. this is why i think OK State will be attractive enough to the SEC down the road in a move to add OU and ATM. SEC is also big on baseball and golf. OSU is historically excellent in both. so while they are #2 in OK, they have a complete program. premised on the idea that OU and OSU are an inseparable pair....and T. Boones cheese keeps Gundy around 8-10 wins a year and the hoops team remains NCAA caliber more often than not. i like Ford OK, but i'm not 100% sure he's the guy.

 

[TimmyDUBs]

This deal isn't going to bring quite the changes that some people may think. The direct effects will be: Less criticism of the athletics department (I'd expect the non-sports people to kind of quiet down now,) bring us new sports and more exposure of existing sports, give us the ability to upgrade all of the facilities another notch.

I think the exposure will draw more talented kids from the midwest/east coast/south that have progressive vision and want to have the exposure in football, basketball, and especially the olympic sports. The conference overall will get a little better. Each team will be a little better, but maybe they'll beat the out of conference kids and win some more bowl games than in the past!

The PAC-12 is simultaneously banding itself as the conference of the future and the one that is setting the media bar for everyone else. Not the Big Ten, SEC, and Texas conference are all going to have to simulate Larry Scott's model in order to keep up. it is nice having a commisioner that has a brain, and is actually passionate about what he's doing and how he can help his conference move forward.

 

[Deleted member 807]

No. Olympic sports are a focus in addition to football and basketball. That's the difference between the Pac and Big XII (although Texas also has somewhat of a focus on the Olympic sports).

Lots to learn.

2008 Beijing Olympics
Cal. 102 athletes
Stanford. 47
CU. 7

(UT had 22)

 

[GoBruinz]

Lots to learn.

2008 Beijing Olympics
Cal. 102 athletes
Stanford. 47
CU. 7

(UT had 22)

That's interesting info, where did you get it? I think UCLA had a sizeable number as well.

 

[TimmyDUBs]

Lots to learn.

2008 Beijing Olympics
Cal. 102 athletes
Stanford. 47
CU. 7

(UT had 22)

Hmm, so Cal's recruiting pitch is, "come to Cal, hang out with future olympians."

 

[Deleted member 807]

That's interesting info, where did you get it? I think UCLA had a sizeable number as well.

UCLA sent 32 athletes to Beijing.

I got the info from the respective schools' AD web sites.

 

[MtnBuff]

Does money change things, of course. College football is a business and the bigger the money the bigger the business.

On the other hand the schools in the PAC are a lot less likely to get into a state of mutually assured destruction in spending on football.

To start with this isn't the SEC or Texas, the college presidents still have a grip on their programs and are worried about their schools academic standing and image along with athletic performance. This doesn't mean that they won't "help" athletics if they can but athletics won't be driving the bus like it does in some parts of the country. At it's worst USC never got close to what SMU did or Alabama or some others.

Another factor is that many of the PAC schools are feeling the crunch of budget issues in their states and have to balance football expenditures with political realities of the state governments who have authority over them. I don't know how Washington and Oregon are doing budgetwise as states but I know that California (Cal, UCLA) Arizona (ASU,UA) Colorado (CU) are all in major budget cutting mode and Utah isn't bursting with funds.

Phil Knight has dumped huge amounts into Oregon and USC has some money backers but overall I don't see the football can do no wrong attitude you see in places like Nebraska, Oklahoma, Florida. The PAC schools have to maintain the appearance of being accountable to their academic mission ahead of athletics.