06-30-2022, 02:39 PM
I have always understood the demographics drive the TV revenue. In the Pac-12 only the massive LA media market has demographics broadcasters crave. UCLA & USC are simply more desirable because of their location in an important media market and talent pool.
Most of the other schools in the Pac-12 don't have enough support by TV viewers in their markets, forget the rest of the USA. That's not Larry's fault. Larry bet big on expanding the Pac-10 to sweep in Texas, but it fell apart. He made a lot of mistakes, but look at the Big12. Texas was given so much but in the end they still left for a conference with better TV demographics.
FWIW if/when USC and UCLA move to the BigTen they will almost certainly struggle.
tOSU, Michigan & Wisconsin will be able to tell CA recruits they will get to play in front of their family a few times over 4 years and will be on real national TV every weekend. Worse USC and UCLA players will need to fly 4-5 hours to play early Eastern time zone games 4+ times a season. Even NFL teams from the west often lose those games, I just can't imagine that USC or UCLA will be better off. In the NFL it is OK to go 12-5, so dropping a game or two because of travel logistics is not the end of a season. Losing a few games in a college season is a few too many. I expect the existing BigTen coaches will be more than capable of explaining that SoCal based recruits.
And then there will be those UCLA conference home games with the Midwestern BigTen team packing the house will not help their cause at all. At least they will get $10-20 million more per year in TV revenue and will certainly sell more tickets to their "home" games.
Most of the other schools in the Pac-12 don't have enough support by TV viewers in their markets, forget the rest of the USA. That's not Larry's fault. Larry bet big on expanding the Pac-10 to sweep in Texas, but it fell apart. He made a lot of mistakes, but look at the Big12. Texas was given so much but in the end they still left for a conference with better TV demographics.
FWIW if/when USC and UCLA move to the BigTen they will almost certainly struggle.
tOSU, Michigan & Wisconsin will be able to tell CA recruits they will get to play in front of their family a few times over 4 years and will be on real national TV every weekend. Worse USC and UCLA players will need to fly 4-5 hours to play early Eastern time zone games 4+ times a season. Even NFL teams from the west often lose those games, I just can't imagine that USC or UCLA will be better off. In the NFL it is OK to go 12-5, so dropping a game or two because of travel logistics is not the end of a season. Losing a few games in a college season is a few too many. I expect the existing BigTen coaches will be more than capable of explaining that SoCal based recruits.
And then there will be those UCLA conference home games with the Midwestern BigTen team packing the house will not help their cause at all. At least they will get $10-20 million more per year in TV revenue and will certainly sell more tickets to their "home" games.