The Rose Bowl game will still go on, but in non-College Football Playoff years it will never be anything close to what it once was now that the Pac-10 (later the Pac-12) is officially dead. The whole concept of a Big Ten champion versus Pac 10 champion was ingrained in the very DNA of the Rose Bowl game. It will still be held, but when it’s not in a CFP format will exist in a state of severely reduced significance.
The perfect analogy is the Rose Bowl Stadium itself. It will still host big games, but it’ll never have a Super Bowl or anything top tier A-list again, due to the existence of Sofi Stadium.
At this rate the 2025 Big Ten basketball Tournament is going to start next week.
โ Travis Miller (@JustTMill) August 4, 2023
It’s just like with the Cotton Bowl game long not being in the Cotton Bowl ever since Jerry’s World DeathStar was built. Or the Orange Bowl game no longer being held in the Orange Bowl (when it still existed) because it got shifted to the Miami Dolphins Stadium that changes its corporate brand name every other season.
This is all extremely sad because I consider the Rose Bowl setting and atmosphere to be the most beautiful place on Earth. I watch the Rose Bowl every year, regardless of who is in it, since I was age 5
Yes, the death of college sports “leagues” and “conferences” is officially here, but honestly, it has been coming for a long time.
Once big time college sports made the transition from compensating the players in other ways and paying them under-the-table, to making sure they could get directly compensated, and it out in the public, it dropped the notion of amateurism forever.
It has always been a capitalistic business built on the backs of athletic mercenaries.
Now with NIL, a deregulated transfer portal and the end of any real notion of a league/conference (replaced by a consortium of collegiate athletic brands partnered together to the same cable television networks) it became a no-holds-barred, cowboy capitalistic enterprise.
This is capitalism without any constraints, and tradition was the first casualty.
And that sucks because, if I may channel Tevye, “tradition! TRADITION! Without tradition, college sports would be shaky, shaky like a fiddler on the roof.”
Just think the Big Ten Conference, that purely Midwestern league, is going to have Maryland versus Washington conference games. The Great Lakes/Midwest conference now features Oregon versus Rutgers. You can be for having the players get paid, and having the players granted more rights, and still at the the same time think that what is happening now sucks!
I mean what are we even doing here?
I said this all last summer when USC and UCLA were added to the Big Ten. Really it started before all that when Maryland and Rutgers were added. At least the Penn State and Nebraska additions kind of made sense, and sort of fit the motif.
What’s happening now is so silly and nonsensical that it it legitimately hilarious to try and read the public statements from university presidents and athletic directors. Watching them use euphemisms and do turd polishing in their quotes that were drafted and edited by PR professionals is unintentional comedy.
“College athletics remains in a period of intense disruption,” reads the statement attributed to Illini A.D. Josh Whitman.
“At a time when the Big Ten’s voice and influence must be at its strongest, maintaining a robust philosophical alignment among the conference’s growing membership has never been more needed.”
Whitman’s first part is at least very honest, but an understatement. More refreshing than most of the other statements out there. His second part, all corporatespeak gobbedly-gook, is basically just saying the Big Ten is really strong right now, and needs to be.
It’s true, the ACC will be the next to fall, and we’ll soon go from a power five to a power three. Don’t be surprised if the Big 12 dies down the line and all we have is two super-conferences. At that point, just burn it all down, and start all over.
Take a look at this A+ Bsing from Michigan A.D. Warde Manuel.
“Over the course of the last year, following the acceptance of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten Conference competition, administrators across our membership have engaged in thoughtful study and dialog on wide-ranging logistical questions and considerations. Those efforts, aimed at ensuring a positive student-athlete experience and fiscal stability, leave us well-prepared to make additions at this time.”
I guess that’s as close as you’re going to get to an admission of what you all already know- that this is all about money. He did use the phrase “fiscal stability” so that kind of tells it like it is.
That’s “the Michigan Difference.”
Moving on…..
โWe have tremendous respect and gratitude for the Pac-12, its treasured history and traditions. At the same time, the college athletics landscape has changed dramatically in recent years,โ said Washington Director of Athletics Jennifer Cohen.
โThe Big Tenโs history of athletic and academic success and long-term stability best positions our teams for future success, and we are energized at the opportunity to compete at the highest level against some of the best programs in the country.โ
That one is pretty funny, because it’s like “yeah, sorry, Cal, Stanford, Oregon St. and Washington St. but we got our lifeline! Too bad for you!”
Honestly, I don’t think Oregon and Washington add all that much, but the ADs and Univ. Presidents out there are all buddies in their elitist clique, so they had to throw them a life preserver and get them on the yacht. Oregon and Washington only survived because they have some CFP/BCS history behind their name.
Nothing else matters.
Only football and TV money.
Even men’s basketball doesn’t count anymore. Yes, even your basketball blue bloods could find themselves out of conference soon because their football isn’t good enough. That’s really sad. The Pac 12 After Dark was always some of the most entertaining football in the entire country.
However, it was staged at a time when half the country was sleeping. And half of the other half was out of the house doing stuff because it’s Saturday night. It’s impossible to get eyeballs enough, given that math, to get a real TV contract.
Bummer. I’ll miss it. Same for the Rose Bowl.
But hey, let’s just try and maintain a a robust philosophical alignment for this rapidly evolving collegiate athletic landscape, and the paradigm shift to a model with more fiscal stability.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager ofย The Sports Bank.ย Heโs also theย author of โTransatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,โ andย โNo, I Canโt Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.โ
Heโs written for numerous publications, including the New York Daily News,ย Sports Illustratedย andย theย Chicago Tribune.ย He regularly appears onย NTD Newsย andย WGN News Now.ย Follow the websiteย onย Twitterย andย Instagram.
