U.C.L.A. and U.S.C., Welcome to the Big Ten.
I Already Hate You.
My favorite college football team is the Michigan Wolverines, which makes the Big Ten my favorite conference....No, Pennsylvania is not Midwestern, but I suppose if you squinted particularly hard, the 325 miles between State College, Pa., and Columbus, Ohio, wasn’t that egregious a distance. And the customs of the Big Ten Conference — apple pie, winter casseroles, gray November afternoons spent wearing mittens and hand-me-down college sweatshirts while politely sharing ancient loathings — happily remained intact.
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But what about bridging 2,223 miles — the distance between East Lansing, Mich., and Los Angeles? ...
When I saw the news, my first response was mild disbelief. Both U.S.C. and U.C.L.A. have been members of the Pac-12 since its early days, a conference so named for its predecessor, the Pacific Coast Conference — as in, that’s where these schools are. To me, U.C.L.A.’s joining the Big Ten is as if Omaha suddenly decided it wanted to move to Miami Beach. It’s weird.
I get the comparison but you got it is exactly ass-backwards. It's as if Miami Beach suddenly decided it wanted to move to Omaha.
But then I progressed to my typical reaction when it comes to changes in college sports: acquiescence. Sure, it’ll be strange to see U.C.L.A. football playing Northwestern in Evanston, Ill., but then, eventually, it won’t be. It will be … Saturday.
Will late afternoon New Year's Day still be early evening New Year's Day if there isn't a Rose Bowl?
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But other people, including very smart people, are more concerned about U.C.L.A. and U.S.C.’s big move and about the future of college sports’ realignment more generally. Among them is my former colleague at Vox Media, Matt Brown... He told me that while the reasons for U.S.C.’s and U.C.L.A.’s decisions to move to the Big Ten are fairly straightforward (namely, television money through deals with major networks), the...effects...be harmful to the athletes, who will have to balance the travel obligations of a professional athlete with the academic requirements of a college student.
...He added that moving to the Big Ten was “a chance for the Los Angeles schools to earn television money comparable to the biggest programs in the Big Ten and the S.E.C.”
And that matters, because while U.C.L.A.’s head football coach, Chip Kelly, makes about $4.7 million a year, the school’s head coach for women’s rowing makes about $100,000 in a city with some of the highest housing costs in America. ...
But Brown told me that the move, while seemingly sensible, still makes him sad. He mentioned that the travel will be incredibly challenging for athletes. Imagine trying to make it from Ann Arbor to Los Angeles for a midweek track meet and back with finals looming. But more important, he’s worried that conferences that aren’t tethered to a specific region or filled with schools that have historical rivalries with one another will lack the intimacy that makes college sports fun. “I think part of what makes college sports, like, not just football, but college sports, a unique and fun enterprise for consumers and fans is that it very much isn’t the N.F.L. It’s very provincial. I did not go to the Cleveland Cavaliers. I went to Ohio State,” he said.
I get that. Part of why I love college sports is that...if you grew up in the Midwest, you are assured of knowing people who attended virtually every Big Ten university, making it a family affair of sorts. ...But I didn’t grow up with anyone who went to U.C.L.A., and I know only one U.S.C. grad personally.
“When you look at the rivalries and the places where college sports are most unique and energized and exciting, it’s where you have that proximity. It’s the Holy War where every church congregation is full of Utah and B.Y.U. fans. It’s the Egg Bowl,” Brown said...“The game isn’t just about football. It’s about religion and culture and class and Mississippi. And when we break those things down in the name of trying to reach the largest casual audience, I worry that you will undermine the entire value proposition and what makes this interesting. And then eventually it becomes something like baby N.F.L. And then people will realize, ‘If I’m gonna watch the baby N.F.L., I’d rather watch the N.F.L. where all of the players are good.’”
But perhaps we’ll simply create new rivalries and new nostalgia, building the plane of college sports fandom as we fly in it. ...So welcome to the Big Ten, U.C.L.A. and U.S.C. And just so you know: I already hate you.
For me in addition there is also, most importantly, that the willing suspension of disbelief that your alma mater is not behaving as a university but rather as Matt Brown said, a "baby NFL", is just a bridge too far. With USC and UCLA moving to the B1G you would have to be blind and lobotomized to see dear old state U, your state U, as anything other than a whore for television money, and I do not like to have whore and Pitt come up together in the same thought in my mind.
