As I tried to get you Trojans to understand all along this past year, everything was puppet-stringed by the networks. EVERYTHING. FOX couldn't care less about Oregon's academic standing. And what the B1G presidents wanted didn't matter at all in that regard.
But it WAS comical to see so many of you trying to make that angle stick....lol...."poor Oregon and it's sucky adademics....the B1G doesn't want them....they'll take Washington and Stanford waaaay before Oregon....a much better match for them". It's a crystal football, not a noble peace prize, schools are trying to win here. And the pursuit of nobel peace prizes don't generally earn the big ratings in FOX's target demographic. 🤣
Initially the LA market was key here. I had to laugh when it came out that the B1G conference actually wanted to extend an invitation to Oregon and USC, not UCLA. It was the network that convinced them they had to offer UCLA instead so as to corner the whole LA ADI. Once that was secured, the next objective of FOX's was to get Oregon onboard, and at a deep discount if possible. Again, who manipuates the strings here? The suits with the money, not the profs in the academic regalia.
Nothing wags the dog like $$$.
Read on....
I agree. It had little to do with academia. The B1G got Oregon and Washington for less than a half share. Not a bad deal for two over-achieving teams. About the same as Rutgers, Maryland, Northwestern, Ucla, Indiana and Illinois. Who knows how much money resides in a half share vs full share. I do believe the B1G needs to revalue the payouts for some of these long-standing under-performing teams, but at least they're trying to use a capitalistic, fair-market value methodology (on the surface anyway).
It's an Athletic conference. Despite being in the pac for 100 years did UO catch up to Furd or Cal? Nope. Meaningless
How did Nebraska do in Big ten. Are they now Michigan? Did they gain ground? Nope.