Poaching USC and UCLA, and gut-punching Pac-12

Last summer, the Universities of Oklahoma and Texas abruptly announced they were bailing on their longtime home in the Big 12 Conference to join the far wealthier and far more competitive SEC.

It should have been a warning flare for every conference to make sure their flagship athletic programs were happy and committed to staying. You know, like USC and UCLA, big brands in a big market, yet part of a conference trying to find competitive footing — in football and finances at least.

If the Pac-12 tried, well, it didn’t try hard enough.

Or maybe nothing would have mattered, what with the Big Ten on the verge of negotiating a new media rights deal that should pay over $1 billion per year. The Pac-12’s simultaneous negotiations were nowhere near as robust. Even conservative predictions had Big Ten schools making $40 million more per year on media. It could easily be more.

So now Jon Wilner, the veteran Pac-12 reporter, broke the news Thursday that USC and UCLA were negotiating to leave for the Big Ten in 2024. The schools later made it official in an announcement.

The move is stunning, yet somehow, not surprising at all. It is tectonic in nature for college sports overall and cataclysmic for many portions of it, namely the Pac-12 schools left behind. It would be a huge victory for the Big Ten, as long as you discount “tradition,” which the league did years ago, or cries of “hypocrisy.”

It is the next step in the evolution to a smaller, rich superconference setup at the top. The Big Ten and the SEC have television deals that dwarf the competition. The Big 12 and Pac-12 are now gutted.

The ACC is being held together by its comparatively low-paying, but lengthy media contract that runs through 2036. The deal grants each school’s media rights to the conference, which makes valuable programs such as Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina, Miami and others untouchable.

For now.

At least we think.

The Big Ten wanted to add USC and UCLA, and USC and UCLA wanted to be added. One source said the entire thing came together in the past couple of weeks.

Story continues

Diabolical move from Big Ten in shanking Pac-12 and Alliance

Let’s start with the Big Ten. The deal is awkward at first, but a no-brainer for the league. First off, as the Texas-Oklahoma-SEC marriage showed, if big, powerful schools want to move, they are going…