The Pacific Coast Conference (Pac-12) has been in a continuous state of evolution. Since its founding in 1915, many universities have both joined and left the conference, making the Pac-8, then Pac-10, before finally becoming the Pac-12 because of the 12 teams in the conference. What hasn’t changed during this time is the University of Oregon’s (UO) loyalty towards the conference. The UO, along with Oregon State University (OSU) and the University of Washington (UW), have stayed in the Pac-12 since it first began. However, as money and TV deals are becoming more and more prevalent — like the Universities of Texas and Oklahoma leaving for the Southeastern Conference for more money and a higher level of competition — UO will be leaving the Pac-12 and headed for the Big-10; a conference based in the Midwest and East Coast with prestigious universities that have been around since the 1700’s.
Oregon isn’t the only team leaving the Pac-12. Among the 12 teams, 10 are leaving to go to new conferences, which leaves Washington State University (WSU) and OSU. Radio show host on 1080 “The Fan,” Dusty Harrah, explains how a money distribution change by the Pac-12 from its expansion from 10 to 12 teams in 2011 was the beginning of its own demise: “When the Pac-12 went from a weighted revenue distribution to an equal revenue distribution… It was always about USC [University of Southern California], Washington [UW], and UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles], they would get more money because they were on national TV more.” Harrah would later explain how an equal money distribution would take away money from universities like USC. “(When) the Pac-12 was formed, everybody got the same across the board. So USC is like we want our money back. We lost our big advantage, which is having more money than everybody else.” This eventually led to USC and UCLA leaving the Pac-12 in 2022.
With the USC and UCLA departure, the door was opened for other Pac-12 teams to leave as well, putting pressure on the Pac-12 to revise their strategy in order to keep their teams happy. However, no prominent changes were made, leading to the new must-watch team in college football the University of Colorado (CU)due to the hiring of Coach Prime, a hall of fame cornerback who turned the previous 1-11 CU Buffalos into one of the most watched teams in college football. Without the promised changes from the Pac-12, Colorado left the conference. CU leaving was huge in Oregon’s decision to eventually depart towards the Big-10; as Harrah says, “Colorado leaving was that first real big fracture. Where it’s like, okay, we don’t just have to add two more teams. We could add three more teams if we’re going to stay relevant in this thing.”
At this point OU and their rival WU knew they had more leverage than anyone else in the conference and announced they would join the Big-10; this meant that now four teams had left the Pac-12 and would join the Big-10. CU, OU, and WU all announced they would leave on the same day. As if that wasn’t enough, the Universities of Utah (UU), Arizona (UA), and Arizona State University [ASU] soon followed with their announcements of leaving the conference the same day. Within one day, the Pac-12 was down to only four teams as the Universites of Cal-Berkeley, and Stanford joined the Atlantic Coast Conference (or ACC) shortly after.
With all of these conference realignments taking place next school year, it’s important to know what to expect in a brand-new conference with new teams. The Big-10’s a very old conference full of prestigious programs such as Ohio State University, and the University of Michigan. One thing the Big-10 will be missing is rivalries for the newcomers. The West Coast teams joining will not have the same rivalries as they once did because they will be playing these teams for some of the first times ever. Part of what makes college sports fun are the teams’ hatred for other teams and the rivalries they have with each other. Teams like UO and OSU have been playing against each other since 1894; rivalries like these make it so that regardless of how well a team is doing in a given season, beating their rival can make that season feel like a success. For the first few years, there won’t be much hatred for one another, and it will take time to develop the rivalries that fans enjoy.
The impact will be different from sport to sport, but for football it’s a great change. Harrah helped explain how much money the UO could be bringing in once fully pledged as Big-10 members: “When they’re (the Ducks) full fledged members of the Big-10, it’s gonna lap anything that the Pac-12 as we know it could have offered, you’re talking like the projections are $50 to $100 million per school per year.” This money can be used for things like recruiting now with Name, Image, and Likeness (or NIL) becoming a thing that allows student-athletes to make money while playing in college.
I asked the head football announcer for the UO, Larry Allen, if he thought Oregon had what it takes to compete, and his answer was very promising: “I’ve appreciated and really enjoyed every one of the head coaches I’ve been with, starting with Rich Brooks to Mike Bellotti to Chip Kelly, there’s just none of them that I didn’t enjoy and appreciate and I thought were really good coaches, but Dan Lanning is different.” Allen also went on to say, “ I think Dan Lanning brings a presence and integrity in a believability to the University of Oregon football program that puts them on a level with the Alabama’s, with Georgia’s, and even Ohio State’s.”
For some of the other smaller “Olympic” sports, it will be rough for a while. As these universities don’t bring in as much money from TV viewership, they can’t afford to travel across the country to participate in single matches on a given day. Darby Winter, Franklin senior and big Duck fan, believes having the football team play in a separate conference from other college sports is the best way to resolve this conflict, saying, “I think it’s really bad for every other sport the best way to go forward would to let football be in a separate conference from every other sports that way the football team can play the best teams since they don’t have to travel much, and smaller sports can stay closer to home.”
As for the Pac-12, they are currently down to only two universities, OSU and WSU. Lots of rumors have been circulating around what will happen to them, whether they will stay in hopes that the Pac-12 can recruit more teams to replace the 10 teams they lost, or leave and completely destroy the Pac-12 as we know it.
