Tag: Cal ACC

Not alimony, but Calimony: UCLA’s support payment to Berkeley for ACC move

Cal is forgoing a significant % of ACC media revenue as a condition of joining the conference. UCLA will have to pay Cal for those lost millions.

College sports conference realignment is a very wild ride. It is so wild that it has introduced a new term into the college sports lexicon: Calimony.

This really is a support payment, but it’s not for a person. It’s for a school.

UCLA and California Berkeley are both part of the University of California school system, subjected to the UC Board of Regents. USC and Stanford, as private institutions, are not subject to the board and its goals or needs. UCLA and Cal are.

When UCLA went to the Big Ten and got its hands on a big new batch of television money, it was clear that the Bruins were going to have to pay Cal as a penalty or donation (depending on your point of view) for making that move, which destabilized the Pac-12 and, by extension, Cal.

The Golden Bears, in their move to the ACC, have agreed to a reduced revenue share for the first several years in the conference, freeing up television money for the ACC in its dealings with ESPN-Disney. Precisely because Cal is forgoing a chunk of revenue, it naturally stands to reason that UCLA will be on the hook for more — not less — money in its “Calimony” payment.

Jon Wilner of the Wilner Hotline is reporting on this story. His reportage notes that the Calimony subsidy could range from $2 million to $10 million. In light of Cal taking on the reduced revenue share, you should expect the number to be much closer to $10 million than $2 million at this point.

Let’s gather more reactions to the crazy, upside-down news that Cal will join the ACC, something which is really hard to wrap the mind around:

Cal is in the ACC because of Stanford, much as UCLA is in the Big Ten due to USC

The folks in Berkeley might not like Stanford, but they should be thankful the Cardinal carried them to the ACC. It’s the only reason they found safe harbor.

One of the basic lessons of college sports realignment: It pays to have a travel buddy with a lot of dollars and clout. Just ask UCLA. Go to Berkeley and ask California.

UCLA would not be in the Big Ten if USC didn’t exist and have a world-class football program. UCLA was the tag-along travel partner which got invited onto the Big Ten plane because USC had the box-office appeal Fox Sports wanted. All that extra television money offered by Fox was due to USC’s presence in college football. As good as UCLA basketball is, the Bruins don’t drive the bus. They rode USC’s coattails and got on board the Big Ten charter flight.

It’s very much the same with Cal and Stanford in the ACC. Stanford did the heavy lifting. Stanford has the massive endowment and a financial house which is fundamentally in order, unlike Cal. Stanford lobbied hard for this ACC move. Cal, its leadership and administration in disarray, was quiet and relatively impotent in this larger series of events. Stanford carried Cal to the ACC, and that’s not something anyone would reasonably dispute.

UCLA and Cal can thank USC and Stanford for giving them a new conference home in the wake of the Pac-12 splintering and dying.

Let’s look at more elements and plot points attached to the reality that Cal is going to the ACC:

SMU could join Stanford and Cal in the ACC, which would make the Pac-12 look even worse

#SMU was very interested in the #Pac12, much like San Diego State. Again: Why didn’t the Pac-12 bring these schools in? Crazytown.

The Pac-12 began courting SMU in February. George Kliavkoff went to an SMU basketball game and was seen talking in a suite or luxury box to SMU power brokers.

One of the especially exasperating aspects of the Pac-12’s failure is it played out over a full year, 12 months between USC and UCLA leaving for the Big Ten in the early summer of 2022 and — at the other end — the mass exodus that destroyed the conference in early August 2023.

The Pac-12 had a great deal of time to land the plane, but it couldn’t. One decision at the center of all this was the conference’s refusal to bring new schools in, out of the misguided belief that it had to do the media deal first and then deal with expansion.

The Big 12 didn’t do that. The Big 12 added schools first and then finalized its media deal.

We can see which conference made out better in the long run.

On Tuesday, new reports emerged that the ACC is considering inviting SMU in addition to Stanford and Cal. The ACC might just invite the Bay Area schools, but SMU could also be included.

Seeing SMU become the focus of another Power Five conference only reinforces the magnitude of the Pac-12’s failure to bring in the Mustangs — alongside San Diego State — in late June, when Colorado was still in the conference and the addition of new schools would have boosted a media rights price point.

Here’s reaction on social media to the new reports connecting SMU and the ACC:

Pac-12 could have formed an alliance with the ACC; now ACC might raid Pac-12

If you have followed our realignment coverage, you know we advised the #Pac12 pursue an alliance with the #ACC. Too late, guys!

If you have been following our realignment coverage and analysis here at Trojans Wire, you know we advised the Pac-12 to pursue an alliance with the ACC. You’ll recall the Pac-12 and ACC had an “alliance” with the Big Ten, but never put anything in writing. The Big Ten blew up that alliance and thereby weakened the Pac-12’s position.

Fine. The Big Ten wouldn’t play along. The Pac-12 and ACC could have entered into a joint agreement. The Pac-12 could have stabilized itself and given itself a meaningful degree of leverage in its battle to survive.

If you haven’t been reading our realignment analysis, here’s an article we produced in July … of 2022.

A key excerpt:

“If ESPN can rearrange conferences via reworking the ACC TV deal in a world forever changed by USC’s move to the Big Ten, Vanderbilt might move to the ACC as another academic powerhouse with North Carolina, Duke and Virginia. That kind of membership would mesh well with Stanford and Berkeley (Cal). The cultural and institutional fits of ACC and Pac-12 schools are far better than those between Pac-12 and Big 12 schools.”

The Pac-12 could have met the ACC halfway; now it seems the ACC is at least thinking about the possibility of raiding the Pac-12 (more precisely, the “Pac-4”) for Stanford and Cal.

The Pac-12 continues to get caught flat-footed.

See how people reacted to the reports of the ACC thinking about adding Stanford and Cal: