[Mick]

Mick, I don't think your stance is unreasonable. From a football-only perspective, I understand the argument that we are set up to fail and are better off being a big (?) fish in a small pond.

I do believe staying in the Pac-12 would have meant national irrelevance for virtually all sports. I don't see us having a strong men's soccer team when only three of the full Pac-12 members have a team. And I'm not quite ready to give up on Stanford being an all-around athletic powerhouse just yet.

Same

I'm also not sure that we'd have any bigger crowds at football games if we joined the Pac-12 as the new Pac-12 has some of the same issues drawing crowds that we have with the ACC, most Stanford fans won't really care about any of the conference members (either in the ACC or the Pac-12) other than Cal (assuming Cal came along), look no further than past attendance for WSU and OSU games when we were all in the Pac-12, maybe there are more visiting fans who show up from either Fresno State or San Diego State when we would play them, but the others are not likely to have either large numbers of alumni in the Bay Area or travel well for games here.

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I think it is time to separate football conferences from conferences for other sports.

BC

Not happening in the SEC or the Big10. Too much brand equity, even for the non football sports.

agreed, there is less geographic benefit to them of any split, the SEC is not all that big of a geo area, and the Big 10 isn't if you care less about the four west coast schools (and I guess also Nebraska) which the Big 10 appears to do to some extent already

Maybe. Last year's San Jose State game (26,357) drew about the same as Florida State (26,470) and Notre Dame (27.456), theoretically a much more attractive draw. And it wasn't a league game. A home game against Pitt last year drew only 16,540. And home games against Hawaii drew 23,222 and Georgia Tech drew 23,455 essentially the same. And again....they weren't even league games.

maybe, those are tickets sold not people in the stands, which lately have been a lot less than tickets sold, when your home slate is some combo of OSU, WSU, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State, Boise State, and Utah State I would expect sold tickets (especially season tickets) to drop.  I've had regular season tickets since 1982 and right now I mostly go to the games for the social aspects around our tailgater, and that group is right now at about the minimum to have a functioning tailgater.  I can see me dropping my tickets in the next 1-5 years, I'll keep them next year since it's my 45th reunion, we'll see what happens after that.  And I agree with what others have posted about the other sports, I don't think they survive as we know then today if they move to the Pac-12, and that would be sad.

Do you think more people show up if we go 9-3 and to a decent bowl game?

[Mick]

Mick, I don't think your stance is unreasonable. From a football-only perspective, I understand the argument that we are set up to fail and are better off being a big (?) fish in a small pond.

I do believe staying in the Pac-12 would have meant national irrelevance for virtually all sports. I don't see us having a strong men's soccer team when only three of the full Pac-12 members have a team. And I'm not quite ready to give up on Stanford being an all-around athletic powerhouse just yet.

Same

I'm also not sure that we'd have any bigger crowds at football games if we joined the Pac-12 as the new Pac-12 has some of the same issues drawing crowds that we have with the ACC, most Stanford fans won't really care about any of the conference members (either in the ACC or the Pac-12) other than Cal (assuming Cal came along), look no further than past attendance for WSU and OSU games when we were all in the Pac-12, maybe there are more visiting fans who show up from either Fresno State or San Diego State when we would play them, but the others are not likely to have either large numbers of alumni in the Bay Area or travel well for games here.

---

I think it is time to separate football conferences from conferences for other sports.

BC

Not happening in the SEC or the Big10. Too much brand equity, even for the non football sports.

agreed, there is less geographic benefit to them of any split, the SEC is not all that big of a geo area, and the Big 10 isn't if you care less about the four west coast schools (and I guess also Nebraska) which the Big 10 appears to do to some extent already

Maybe. Last year's San Jose State game (26,357) drew about the same as Florida State (26,470) and Notre Dame (27.456), theoretically a much more attractive draw. And it wasn't a league game. A home game against Pitt last year drew only 16,540. And home games against Hawaii drew 23,222 and Georgia Tech drew 23,455 essentially the same. And again....they weren't even league games.

maybe, those are tickets sold not people in the stands, which lately have been a lot less than tickets sold, when your home slate is some combo of OSU, WSU, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State, Boise State, and Utah State I would expect sold tickets (especially season tickets) to drop.  I've had regular season tickets since 1982 and right now I mostly go to the games for the social aspects around our tailgater, and that group is right now at about the minimum to have a functioning tailgater.  I can see me dropping my tickets in the next 1-5 years, I'll keep them next year since it's my 45th reunion, we'll see what happens after that.  And I agree with what others have posted about the other sports, I don't think they survive as we know then today if they move to the Pac-12, and that would be sad.

Do you think more people show up if we go 9-3 and to a decent bowl game?