Chuck Neinas said on 365 Sports (great site focusing on Big 12) that for expansion, the college must want to move. I know that is obvious. But right now, all the Pac teams would rather be in the Pac. Kliavkoff said he is getting numerous emails/texts forwarded to him. They wouldn't forward on if they were considering moving to the Big 12.
The revenue difference would have to substantial. Even if the Big 12 gets $40 million tv compared to $20 million for the Pac, I don't think they move. You have to consider travel, attendance, donations, etc.
Take Washington. Say their travel is $2 million more per year in the Big 12 for all sports. Say attendance falls 4,000 per football game playing teams with no history. Assume $175 revenue a person per game revenue x 7 games = $4.9 million per year just in football. Washington received $684 million donations in 2019. Assume just a 1% decrease and that is $6.8 million. The 1% decrease is being generous too. Just these 3 areas nets $13.7 million. So the total revenue difference gets a lot closer.
This feels like 2010. Remember when we were rumored to go to the Big East if Texas and others left? I was not excited. Far away, junior league perception, no history, and it would be a forced move. Sounds like the Pac perspective from their forums and team writers.
Only way we get any Pac teams is if the Big 10 raids 2 others.
So I decided to do a little research and put together some info on travel. What I found may surprise you.
If the 4 corners come to the Big 12 their travel does not increase as much as many would think, and in Colorado's case it actually decreases.
In Utah's case they do have a marginal increase in travel distance average.
A few things to consider. When looking at most if not all these schools, no one is jumping on a bus or train to go to a game, almost every game they travel by plane. With the exception of the extreme locals like BYU vs Utah, ASU vs UA, etc. With this in mind I took the longest flight of the current Pac 10 and compared that to what would be their longest flight in the Big 12. And it was usually only about 1.5 hours difference.
And keep in mind this is for the Longest most extreme flights, that will be very rare in a large conference of divisions/pods etc. Most of the travel in a large conference will be in their own area of the conference with shorter even possibly shorter than what they have in the current Pac now.
With this in mind, total average travel was not a huge difference when including the entire Big 12, and if we consider many of these will be paired in regions this could actually mean this travel is reduced and possibly be less than the current Pac 10.
