08-05-2023, 06:42 AM
It really doesn't matter.
Stanford men's basketball was destined to take at least 5 years to recover from the Haase era. Given recent attendance trends it is not like the Stanford community really cares about men's hoops. FWIW - The apathy thing applies to Cal too. There are many teams in group of 5 conferences that are better at men's basketball, so any conference will work.
For a number of other sports there are enough non-conference opportunities that one can build a decent pre-NCAA championship tournament/event season without a strong conference.
The Pac-12 schools in most MPSF sports today are very likely to remain in MPSF because most in the BigTen and the Big 12 do not field most of those sports. (Men's volleyball, men's gymnastics, men's and women's water polo)
A number of sports are not really about dual meets or conference games. They have large multi-sport invitationals that more or less define the season. (Fencing, M&W indoor track, M&W outdoor track, M&W cross country, M&W golf, sailing and rowing)
Existing Pac-12 Conference members are not particularly essential for beach volleyball, artistic swimming, field hockey, lacrosse and wrestling.
That leaves only a few sports where a quality conference schedule would be rather helpful. Softball, baseball, M&W basketball and football.
Looking just at the best landing spot for those 5 sports I think the best option would be MWC, especially if the MWC took all four remaining Pac-12.
If you look at Stanford just in terms of incremental TV in football revenue when a 4-8 to 8-4 type program it really is no better than Cal, OSU or WSU. Sure a 10-2 Stanford team might do OK getting ratings, but that's true for most D1 programs. The objective in this incremental TV revenue game is to find a program that will be accretive to a conference even at 6-6 or so. That means a team can still pack at the end of the season when is it 4-5 the house with a passionate and rowdy crowd. Best if a program can even do that if given 11AM or 9PM kick-off times and also get big chunks of a region to watch on TV. In other words NOT OSU, WSU, Stanford or Cal. That's why those four are where they are. It has been a multi-decade trend. Harbaugh's resurgence and Shaw's multiple 8+ win seasons hid the trend's impact for a bit, but ultimately the Pac-12 CG at Stanford Stadium managed to reveal the financial and ratings reality.
The super conferences do not want to add a football program that can't fill its own stadium for a CG game. Even if the kickoff game is on a Tuesday at 10PM on a rainy night, that stadium needs to be at 100% of capacity and also command a massive TV following to be the type of program that would win at this musical chairs game of incremental TV revenue.
FWIW - I suspect Northwestern & Vanderbilt wouldn't really do much better at filling a CG venue but they are already in the future super conferences. We haven't gotten to a place where schools get kicked out of conferences, but perhaps that will be the next step in this never ending drive for incremental revenue.
Stanford men's basketball was destined to take at least 5 years to recover from the Haase era. Given recent attendance trends it is not like the Stanford community really cares about men's hoops. FWIW - The apathy thing applies to Cal too. There are many teams in group of 5 conferences that are better at men's basketball, so any conference will work.
For a number of other sports there are enough non-conference opportunities that one can build a decent pre-NCAA championship tournament/event season without a strong conference.
The Pac-12 schools in most MPSF sports today are very likely to remain in MPSF because most in the BigTen and the Big 12 do not field most of those sports. (Men's volleyball, men's gymnastics, men's and women's water polo)
A number of sports are not really about dual meets or conference games. They have large multi-sport invitationals that more or less define the season. (Fencing, M&W indoor track, M&W outdoor track, M&W cross country, M&W golf, sailing and rowing)
Existing Pac-12 Conference members are not particularly essential for beach volleyball, artistic swimming, field hockey, lacrosse and wrestling.
That leaves only a few sports where a quality conference schedule would be rather helpful. Softball, baseball, M&W basketball and football.
Looking just at the best landing spot for those 5 sports I think the best option would be MWC, especially if the MWC took all four remaining Pac-12.
If you look at Stanford just in terms of incremental TV in football revenue when a 4-8 to 8-4 type program it really is no better than Cal, OSU or WSU. Sure a 10-2 Stanford team might do OK getting ratings, but that's true for most D1 programs. The objective in this incremental TV revenue game is to find a program that will be accretive to a conference even at 6-6 or so. That means a team can still pack at the end of the season when is it 4-5 the house with a passionate and rowdy crowd. Best if a program can even do that if given 11AM or 9PM kick-off times and also get big chunks of a region to watch on TV. In other words NOT OSU, WSU, Stanford or Cal. That's why those four are where they are. It has been a multi-decade trend. Harbaugh's resurgence and Shaw's multiple 8+ win seasons hid the trend's impact for a bit, but ultimately the Pac-12 CG at Stanford Stadium managed to reveal the financial and ratings reality.
The super conferences do not want to add a football program that can't fill its own stadium for a CG game. Even if the kickoff game is on a Tuesday at 10PM on a rainy night, that stadium needs to be at 100% of capacity and also command a massive TV following to be the type of program that would win at this musical chairs game of incremental TV revenue.
FWIW - I suspect Northwestern & Vanderbilt wouldn't really do much better at filling a CG venue but they are already in the future super conferences. We haven't gotten to a place where schools get kicked out of conferences, but perhaps that will be the next step in this never ending drive for incremental revenue.