Little late to get caught up on this thread but I’m glad to see a few of the knee jerk reactions were pretty negative:
big no thanks to both…Washington and Oregon can get fkd though as far as I'm concerned. Neither bring anything to the table at all. And quite frankly I'd be more than happy if Oregon started to die off and was never heard from again and go back to the basement where they belong.
Yeah not only does Oregon not bring anything to the table, they actually take away quite a bit. They're dangerous and competitive both on the field and in recruiting and they are light years ahead of most programs in weaponizing NIL. And yet they don't bring net new viewers to the B1G, not in the way USC does.
Along with what
@Mdot21 and
@utee94 are already saying, I’ll offer a few more reasons:
1. Should the B1G add two more schools from the Pacific Time Zone, that makes
four with long, inconvenient travels over the Rockies. Keep in mind UCLA and USC are
already fussing about the longer distance travel. Four of them will team up to magnify their grievances about a lot more than just travel – reffing, title IX, student sections, political hot topics, which leads me to my next point…
2. Think about what you know of California, Oregon, and Washington as states. Think about why so many people are leaving the Pacific Coast’s larger cities and think about the headlines you see warning of what’s going on in the large Pacific Coast cities. Now think about whether those mindsets that have influenced San Francisco, LA, Portland, and Seattle into what they now are won’t (in a general sense) come to be voiced through all four of those schools. Adding the flashy LA schools(?), fine; but the B1G should know better than to invite their pastier NW cousins who liken themselves as “outdoorsy” but can’t fish or hunt deer.
3. The Oregon Ducks and especially Washington Huskies have the whiniest, crybaby-est fan bases I’ve ever encountered.
4. Why do academics so persistently come up as a talking point when it comes to conference realignment (except for unsurprisingly the SEC)? (See thread pages 2 & 3.) From the standpoint of college sports (which is what leads us to this forum to begin with) there a more important angles: geography, potential for rivalries, and increased TV money. When the subject of academics comes up it’s always as two different types of excuses for not winning. For example 1) should Vanderbilt blame their academic requirements preventing them from recruiting a roster full of JaMarcus Russells and Marcus Vicks and 2) when Delany’s response to the Florida Gators crushing Ohio State in the 2006 Nat’l Championship was to issue a statement about the B1G’s academics.