With USC and UCLA leaving the Pac-12 ahead of the 2024 sports season, the future of the conference of champions is (at best) very shaky and (at worst) doomsday-esque. Can the conference continue to exist once it loses two of its biggest schools and its biggest TV market audience? The outlook is far from optimistic, and new Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff is short on options at this point.
On today's episode of Locked On Pac-12, Spencer McLaughlin is joined by former sports talk radio host and Stanford graduate Dev Bhargava. They discuss at length how the financial breakdown of this move ties into TV ratings, time zones, and geography. Each year, the conference's champion (barring a CFP appearance) goes to the Rose Bowl against the winner of the Big 10--what could the bowl game become if the Rose Bowl Committee decides the Pac-12 is no longer strong enough to be tied to the game?
If the Pac-12 were to cease to exist in a couple years, that conclusion would likely have been preceded by Oregon and Washington leaving for a new home conference. So what would that mean for the teams that remain? For some schools, that catastrophic hypothetical scenario would spell worse outcomes than it would for others amongst the (current) Pac-12 schools.
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