An Even Bigger Big Ten

There was some pretty shocking news yesterday in the world of college sports: USC and UCLA, two of the anchor schools in the PAC-12, will be leaving that conference and joining the Big Ten. The Big Ten conference presidents and chancellors voted unanimously on Thursday to accept the applications of the two California schools, who will begin play in the Big Ten in 2024.

Why did USC and UCLA decide to leave a conference that has been their home for decades? ESPN quotes USC’s athletic director as explaining that USC “will benefit from the stability and strength of the conference; the athletic caliber of Big Ten institutions; the increased visibility, exposure, and resources the conference will bring our student-athletes and programs; and the ability to expand engagement with our passionate alumni nationwide.”

It’s pretty clear that money, branding, media exposure, and recruiting considerations also played a significant role in the decision. The Big Ten is a much stronger, wealthier conference than the PAC-12, with its own very successful TV network. The additional money provided by membership in the Big Ten will help USC and UCLA support all of its men’s and women’s programs–including those that aren’t big revenue programs–and the TV network will help with recruiting athletes in all programs and allowing them to pursue the most lucrative name, image, and likeness deals.

The announcement is jarriing for those of us who are a certain age, because USC and UCLA are the schools that the Big Ten is supposed to play in the Rose Bowl at the end of the year, not conference foes. But college athletics is rapidly changing, and you can’t blame schools like USC and UCLA for wanting to be part of the stronger and more successful team. From the Big Ten perspective, accepting USC and UCLA as members means adding two schools with significant brands, but more importantly it means opening up the California TV market for Big Ten schools and the Big Ten network. The Big Ten has been pretty judicious in its expansion decisions, so I am sure that this move was carefully studied. And I expect that the USC and UCLA people had candid conversations with representatives of Penn State, Nebraska, Maryland, and Rutgers, to see how those schools have reacted to (and profited from) their decision to join the conference.

With the addition of USC and UCLA, the Big Ten will now have 16 teams. The two divisions will need to be reconfigured–let’s hope they don’t resurrect the lame “Legends” and “Leaders” divisional approach, by the way–and we’ll have to get used to hearing the Trojan fight song and seeing those UCLA powder blue uniforms. And Big Ten fans will have to wonder: now that the conference literally spans the country coast to coast, from New Jersey to southern California, who might be the next expansion target? Stanford? Cal? With geographic considerations clearly out the window, it could be any institution, anywhere. That’s the reality of college sports these days.