For all of the attention devoted in this space to the abandonment of California by businesses and individuals, we never though the idea of a “Calexit” would include two of the Golden State’s more glamorous institutions of higher learning—the University of Southern California and the University of California–Los Angeles.
Actually, that’s a little misleading. Neither USC nor UCLA is dismantling brick and mortar and leaving California’s Southland. Rather, what’s at issue is the two schools’ athletic programs departing the West Coast–centric Pac-12 Conference, in 2024, in favor of the more Midwestern Big Ten Conference, which may want to consider a name change, as the addition of the two California schools will swell its ranks to 16 members.
What have we learned from yet another seismic disturbance in college sports (the two Los Angeles schools’ shifting alliance coming on the heels of the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas jumping from the Big 12 Conference to the football powerhouse SEC)?
First, USC and UCLA loyalists will need to rethink their game-day attire, as they’ll one day discover that a November game in frigid Michigan or Iowa isn’t the same as a gee-should-I-pack-my-fleece road trip to more clement Berkeley or Palo Alto, or a don’t-forget-the-sunscreen dash over to Arizona.
Second, and this goes without saying: the rich get richer.
According to various media reports, the two Los Angeles schools each could reap an extra nine figures a year by joining a bicoastal Big 10. That’s because the conference reportedly is looking at media deals worth a billion dollars that could pay upwards of $100 million annually per school—what comes from having member schools in the Los Angeles, Chicago (Northwestern University), New York City (Rutgers University), and Washington, DC (University of Maryland) media markets.
And what happens to the storied Pac-12, which likes to characterize itself as the “conference of champions”?
Forget about a reconfigured Pac-10. With schools in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado likely to bolt for greener pastures, the future would seem a smaller “Pacific Coast Conference” of two schools apiece in California, Oregon and Washington—ironically, the present-day Pac-12 starting out at as similar configuration of five schools from those three coastal states nearly 110 years ago.
But as no college sports conference can operate with that few members, the Pac-12—or whatever name it assumes come 2024—appears to be terminally ill unless a well-pocketed suitor comes along (one interesting hypothetical: the combined resources of Apple TV and Phil Knight, Nike’s CEO and an Oregon native with deep ties to both the University of Oregon and Stanford University, saving the conference). There’s also the question of what happens to the storied Rose Bowl game, usually featuring a team from the Pac-12 (that New Year’s Day afternoon game providing a nice boost to Pasadena’s economy).
It’s at this point that I’d like to play the part of skunk at the Big 10’s party. That’s because I’m especially fond of how college athletics are practiced by the West Coast’s premier schools (that includes Stanford)—a celebration of depth in both men’s and women’s sports, as opposed to a more limited pursuit of higher-profile football and men’s basketball.
Yes, the Pac-12 fails in comparison to other conferences as a “glamour” champ (no conference member has won a football title since 2004 [USC], or a men’s basketball title since 1995 [UCLA]). On the other hand, Stanford and UCLA consistently finish first or second in the annual NACDA Director’s Cup, awarded to the school with the most overall success in college athletics (as UCLA’s website brags: “119 NCAA championships and more Olympic medals than most nations”).
So in deciding to suit up against a conference that’s more of a powerhouse in football and basketball, are the two California schools saying that they no longer care as much about more “California” sports that characterize the West Coast (such as the women’s beach volleyball championship, captured in 2022 by US)?
And: are the schools, in a sense, thumbing their noses at the West Coast’s more progressive politics?
I have no polling data on the voting habits of UCLA and USC’s respective fan bases. But the two schools are located in a county in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 3-1 ratio. The two Los Angeles–based schools also participate in a sports conference spanning five states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington), only one of which voted for Donald Trump in 2020 (Utah). The Big 10 isn’t as decidedly progressive ‘blue,” with four of its eleven states (Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Ohio) siding with Trump in 2020 and Joe Biden carrying the other seven (Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin).
Maybe it’s for this reason—well, that and the unpleasant notion of having to take a drubbing from football kingpins Alabama and Georgia—that the two LA schools didn’t look in the direction of the SEC and its 11 Trump-voting states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas).
Why introduce red-and-blue-state politics into a conversation about college sports?
Because:
1) California’s state government has imposed travel bans preventing state employees from journeying to nearly two dozen states that don’t share the Golden State’s progressive sensibilities;
2) three of those Big 10 states—Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio—made the list (in Ohio’s case, for passing a state budget last summer that included a provision allowing medical providers to legally deny care to LGBTQ patients based on moral, ethical, or religious beliefs); and
3) UCLA athletic coaches, working as they do for a public university, technically are state employees. Would the same travel ban apply to UCLA’s football’s coaching and support staff should the team venture to the likes of “the” Ohio State University?
Finally, it’s back up on the soapbox for one last rant—this one, about colleges and their priorities.
A quick look at the details of his contract shows Chip Kelly, head of UCLA’s football program, on track to make $4.6 million in 2022 and $4.8 million in the following three years. That’s less than what his crosstown rival earns—Lincoln Riley, formerly the head coach at Oklahoma, lured to USC for reportedly $10 million a year (USC also chipping in a $6 million home in Los Angeles and personal use of a private jet).
But a deeper dive into Kelly’s contract shows that he’s in store for a $200,000 bonus should he win a national championship (UCLA last collected a share of the title back in 1954, when polls decided the champion), $150,000 for making the College Football Playoff, $100,000 for making a “New Year’s Six” Bowl, and $100,000 for winning national coach of the year (which Kelly did in 2010 as head coach at the University of Oregon).
And the reward for the pursuit of academic excellence?
The same contract that would gift Kelly $450,000 if he runs the table, so the speak—making the four-team playoffs, winning a national title as well of coach of the year—would award him only one-tenth of that sum, or $45,000, if UCLA’s football team has a graduate success rate of 70% of higher. But that’s setting the bar low: in 2021, UCLA reported an 81% Graduation Success Rate, two points less than the previous year and five points less than in 2019.
Perhaps UCLA should challenge its coaches to deliver a higher return on investment in the classroom?
Sure, while college football takes a time-out to consider what greed has done to Saturday traditions across California and America.
