Things Change

Full disclosure: College sports are not of much interest to yours truly except as they affect university budgets. But then came the drama of UCLA pulling out of the Pac-12 (along with USC) and joining the Big Ten. The Regents got involved - not because they have shown much interest in the past in athletics - but because the governor dropped in at a closed-door session and ranted (apparently) about UCLA's pullout and how that move would adversely affect revenues flowing to Berkeley. 

Blog readers will be familiar with all of this drama. We can speculate on how much that gubernatorial  involvement had to do with the governor's not-so-hidden presidential hopes. Unlike Jerry Brown, Gov. Newsom hasn't attended Regents meetings regularly. (If you haven't heard about it, the latest is that non-candidate Newsom will supposedly be debating actual candidate DeSantis on Fox News. But I digress.)

Anyhow, the fallout of Newsom's intervention was a series of Regents meetings at which Chancellor Block was roasted for approving the move, or for approving the move without consulting with someone, even though no one could say that he didn't have full authority under Regents policy to do what he did. (As long as we are speculating, did Block's recent announcement indicating he would retire from the chancellorship at the end of the coming academic year have anything to do with fallout from this affair? One could imagine him deciding after being castigated for doing what he was empowered to do that enough was enough.) Anyway, the eventual outcome was that UCLA would move but would compensate Berkeley for the adverse financial effects.

Things have not stood still, however, since that time. The news is suddenly filled with accounts reporting that the Pac-12 is falling apart:

https://theathletic.com/4748641/2023/08/04/pac-12-oregon-washington-big-ten/

https://247sports.com/article/live-updates-conference-realignment-big-ten-adds-oregon-washington-213668237/

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/08/04/pac-12-survival-whats-next-for-oregon-state-washington-state-stanford-and-cal-after-mass-exodus-to-big-ten-big-12/

https://www.sfgate.com/collegesports/article/oregon-washington-big-ten-pac-12-18279356.php

Could Berkeley end up at the Big Ten as a result? News reports suggest that could happen. From Yahoo Sports:

The Big Ten has begun exploratory discussions about expanding membership to 18 or even 20 teams, industry sources have told Yahoo Sports. The schools being considered are Oregon and Washington if the league adds two schools, and Cal and Stanford if it wants to move to 20. All four institutions are currently members of the Pac-12...

Full story at https://sports.yahoo.com/sources-big-ten-has-begun-preliminary-talks-to-potentially-add-oregon-washington-cal-and-stanford-173934989.html.

Note that if "Cal" ended up moving to the Big Ten, the rationale for a subsidy from UCLA to Berkeley would vanish. But both campuses would have to deal with the more extended travel involved. Presumably, there are other scenarios, too. The Regents may not like being in the sports business. But they are, and businesses change over time, sometimes rapidly.