The reason I submitted this is more to do with business than sports. If you are unfamiliar with college sports there are 5 conferences in division 1 college sports (the highest division that is on TV the most).
For college football, the most watched college sport, there has been a consolidation of sorts going on, with some schools jumping to different conferences. Which is good for some schools, bad for others. This leads to a situation where if you don't jump, maybe others will (game theory-ish).
Generally schools in a conference are relatively close to each other, say 2 with in hour flight. With this move USC and UCLA and the other teams in the conference which are in the midwest and east coast will be having a lot more 5+ hour flights.
The business aspect is correct. The Big Ten shares revenue equally with all schools and is currently estimated at around $44 million per year per school - the most among all conferences. The Pac-12 is half that. Adding UCLA and USC to the Big Ten brings along the LA media market (Big Ten already has NY Chicago and DC) will likely increase the per school share a lot more than the Pac-12 could hope for when it renegotiates its deal in 2024.
UCLA and USC getting an extra $20+ million per year pays for a lot of airline flights.
It doesn't end with that, either. They'll be invited to join the [1] Big Ten Academic Alliance, where all the schools work together to share resources and reduce costs. This is serious money for the schools too.
Absolutely more money. The airlines thing is more the time factor and aggravation factor. Most of UCLA's games were 90 mins to at most 2.5 hours away or so doesn't wear on the athletes. Now 5 or 6 hours each way per trip. More money but more strain on athletes, not just football, but all sports.
We will see how that plays out.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 62.7 ms ] threadFor college football, the most watched college sport, there has been a consolidation of sorts going on, with some schools jumping to different conferences. Which is good for some schools, bad for others. This leads to a situation where if you don't jump, maybe others will (game theory-ish).
Generally schools in a conference are relatively close to each other, say 2 with in hour flight. With this move USC and UCLA and the other teams in the conference which are in the midwest and east coast will be having a lot more 5+ hour flights.
UCLA and USC getting an extra $20+ million per year pays for a lot of airline flights.
It doesn't end with that, either. They'll be invited to join the [1] Big Ten Academic Alliance, where all the schools work together to share resources and reduce costs. This is serious money for the schools too.
[1] https://www.btaa.org