Expansion Thread 2023

[Illuminerdski]

If SDSU does not return to the MW. I wonder if they take BYUs spot in the WCC or land in a similar conference and go the football independent route.

[bearcatbret]

There is a whole lot of free comedy in all of this. It is interesting that reports state that the PAC will announce their media rights deal on the opening day of their football media days. The reasoning for this is supposedly to cancel the questions throughout the media days so that it will focus on players, teams, and football. If that were really the case, one would think that the deal would be announced prior to their football media days. There are also crickets surrounding Colorado and Arizona. There are also reports that the PAC may be looking at Fresno State and UNLV. As Paul Finebaum stated, the PAC is shopping at the Dollar General.

[Lobot]

SDSU is officially in no man’s land and the Big 12 is not interested according to this article

https://www.cbssports.com/college-fo...n-west-pac-12/

[bearcatbret]

Finebaum continued, "If you're a member of the PAC 12, I mean, you're literally going to the dollar store looking for other schools...But why would you want to be in that league if you could get out?"
Paul Finebaum Ranks the Big 12 Ahead of the ACC and Pac-12 (msn.com)

[Lobot]

You should expect ESPN to be unbundled from Hulu/DIsney+ and sold directly to consumers sometime soon.. There's also rumors in the Mouse House that they may sell it off entirely. It's a money loser until they can fixing the streaming revenue and advertising part of it. They don't get massive carriage fees with streaming like they used to when cable TV was dominate.

[bearcatbret]

Only one power 5 conference team (from PAC) is rated as the underdog in every game this year. Sadly, UC is not far behind. One Power 5 Football Team Is Projected To Be An Underdog In All Of Their Games Next Season (msn.com)

[bearcatbret]

Stephen A Smith is claiming he will be one of them. I thought he was nothing but a screaming instigator so good riddance if it turns out to be true.

I do not care much for Stephen A Smith on ESPN but the guy can remember every stat about every player from every era. I have heard interviews from him and he does not sound like anything from ESPN. If in fact, that he is one of the layoffs, I hope that he finds a spot that he can actually be himself.

[Bearcats1232002]

This may not bode well for the PAC. I saw this in an article. "This past weekend, ESPN became the Worldwide Leader in Employee Layoffs.

Due to budgeting concerns, the sports media company had to cut over 100 employees, including 20 popular on-air commentators. It seems that the company’s love affair with being a megaphone for progressive causes has started to impact its bottom line, and its employees are paying the price.

The list of personalities that were cut mostly included NFL and NBA-related anchors and reporters. The casualties include:".........

Stephen A Smith is claiming he will be one of them. I thought he was nothing but a screaming instigator so good riddance if it turns out to be true.

[longtimefan]

Seems streaming platforms badly underperformed vs expectations. Not a surprise, the quality of ESPN+ is generally very poor.

[bearcatbret]

Also, Paul Finebaum doubles down on the death of the PAC. Starts around the 18:20 mark. The Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast - Episode 94: Guest host Paul Finebaum on ESPN and college sports media (google.com)

[bearcatbret]

This may not bode well for the PAC. I saw this in an article. "This past weekend, ESPN became the Worldwide Leader in Employee Layoffs.

Due to budgeting concerns, the sports media company had to cut over 100 employees, including 20 popular on-air commentators. It seems that the company’s love affair with being a megaphone for progressive causes has started to impact its bottom line, and its employees are paying the price.

The list of personalities that were cut mostly included NFL and NBA-related anchors and reporters. The casualties include:".........

[bearcatbret]

Several articles out today stating that the Mountain West is not letting SDSU back in. The conference (minus SDSU) will be meeting later this month to study/vote. Mountain West claims San Diego State has left conference, owes exit fee as sides remain at odds, per report - CBSSports.com

[Lobot]

SDSU is over a barrel. Apparently the story is now that they sent in a letter to the MWC on June 30 saying they weren't leaving. Problem is the MWC says they already left as of July 1 2024 due to the previous letters sent. The conference is trying to get the 17M exit fee from SDSU and is witholding 6.6M in conference distributions as a down payment on that.

I'm not sure who at SDSU is responsible for this but they should probably be fired. The SDSU president looks really incompetent here as a result if it wasn't directly her fault.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...n-distribution

[bearcatbret]

The theory now for why the PAC did not invite SDSU and SMU to join the conference for the 2024 football season is that they do not want to share the revenue from the 2024 college football playoffs. They need to pay off their comcast fiasco, so they want to use the 2024 revenue to pay off part of that $50M. I am not sure that the PAC is that smart (maybe that greedy). Finally, a logical answer to why the Pac-12 didn’t finalize a media deal by June 30 (yahoo.com)
Off topic but do you think that the PAC will get two teams in the 2024 CFP?

[Geaux Juan]

Thamel reporting that SDSU is remaining in the MWC and has withdrawn its resignation (can they do that?)

SDSU - "Nevermind!"