How many years/times have we been bent over by the Pac? The opposition?

You know what? F*ck the world.

We are WSU. We will always be WSU.

Go Cougs!

P.S. Football team looked fantastic... energetic... ready

I have been expecting this the last 43 years . In 1980 it was ISC wanting OSU and Wsu out of the conference . Jim Walden made it impossible after 1981 as they played the apple cup for the Rose Bowl.

Now it is about money .. which no matter what Dickert or the ghost of leach do it doesn’t fix our problem.

We will see the body bag games, selling home games, players in the portal the day the regular season is over, and we will lose coaches and programs are cut .

I reserved KOA cabins at Boyer last fall, had big plans to make it over with friends but it fell through. I just canceled and those cabins should be available if any of you are interested. If so, enjoy.

F...

Over 50M (15%+ of US Population) people and only 4 P5 CFB teams.

More of a shot rebuilding the pieces with OSU, Cal and Stanford.

I have one between the two of them and see them as also rams the remainder of the time .

If they stayed in the Pac they would have been in the 16 team playoff .

From The Athletic ($). Sums up my feelings better than I could ever express on realignment, NIL, and college athletics. The comments on Stanford and Cal being excluded despite their academic standing resonates as well.

"We hear about the value of other sports, the importance of academics. And yet the Big Ten, as it now gets set to gobble up Oregon and Washington — its third and fourth Pac-12 schools — has not yet invited Stanford, the best in the nation at all sports. Nor is the Big Ten rushing to pick up Cal, an elite academic institution (as is Stanford). Perhaps the Big Ten eventually takes those two schools. But not making them a priority right away, slotting them fifth and sixth on its West Coast wish list, shows what the game is really about."

Change is inevitable, but this new world blows up the old model that built a multi-billion dollar space. Time will tell on this new model.

Went to his concert tonight at the casino in Toppenish (south of Yakivegas). I see he is at the Emerald Quest Casino in Tacoma on Friday, then in Ridgefield (wherever the F that is) I think on Saturday.

Anyway, a great concert. He's still got it. If you are a fan at all, worth the ticket price.

George has been playing it coy for months. We will find out today, why. If the deal on the table is worth less than 25 million and/or mostly streaming without consistent access to the major networks, lets not kid ourselves, everyone will be bolting for the door. Arizona will have wished they would have left sooner, because they will join a group of beggars at the Big-12 door.

On the positive, George hasn't had more bargaining power than he has had the last couple days. The Big-12 money or disbandment card is clearly in play now. Continued low balling will likely result in a nothing to low ball situation.

Frankly, I think you can stick a fork in the Pac-12, and the next conference shake up will be the MWC, with the Pac-12 leftovers combining with the strongest programs of the MWC to form the new Pacific Coast Conference. The question remaining will be does it have the clout to remain in the power five.

Regardless, they can't take 1997 and 2002 away from us.

The highest households for Cable TV and Satellite was 97 million subscribers.

Today, it's down to 50 million subscribers.

Blame Larry Scott.

Blame USC (greed).

But what about blaming all of who cut the cord? What about accepting it's your own doing?

If there were still 97 million households with FOX, ESPN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and all of its sister channels......The PAC 12 WOULD NOT BE IN PERIL.

We stupidly pay Dish Network $191.00 a month, and I don't watch anything on legacy TV, except college football, and maybe 60 minutes. Why? Because I get all sports channels, the DVR and Skip technology, while DISH has the leading technology. $191 A MONTH! Plus we subscribe to all the other steaming channels.

That's $2,300 a year to watch the COUGS on TV. Crazy. So I get it. Bottom line... you did this to yourselves.

And the conference still exists.

They're meeting at 9pm tonight.

See you all there!

With 4-6 heritage schools the 2024 season will be interesting. Any MtnWest schools that are poached would have to wait until 2025 to enter the league without incurring a 17m penalty.

I guess we’d play the Beavers a home and home with a neutral site game at Lumen?

Let's just face it. UW and OU will bail. UA, ASU and Utah will be right behind. Probably Stanford and Cal too. All in the quest for the almighty dollar. Like Stanford, Cal; UW and OU need the money?

WSU and OSU are headed for the MWC.

IMO he deserves to be let go if we end up in non P5. To lack the foresight to see this coming down the barrel, coming from KSU of all places where they nearly lost themselves a few years back, and allow this program to get banished is grounds for firing. No proactive work, just followed the other schools until it became clear we have no lifeline, and the others do. Combine that with declining academic performance of the school… I’d like to see him resign or be fired. I have total faith Elson Floyd would have kept this from taking place and would be out there dealing his ass off to have us in other conferences, even at fractional shares.

And we don’t recognize we’ve been deliberately robbed.

Larry Scott? Sure. George K? OK. You won't hear me coming to their defense. For me though, as I look back on things, I point my finger at the University, our alumni, and our fan base.

The failure to capitalize on the Mike Price breakthrough era is the single greatest factor in our demise. Compare and contrast how Utah handled their rise to glory with ours and you'll better understand what I'm talking about. 24 hours after we defeated UW in 1997, it should have been made loud and clear that WSU was going to heavily invest in Price, our assistant coaches, and the football program as a whole. It didn't happen. Then, in 2001/2002, we had the opportunity to correct the mistake and double down on my first statement. Instead, we crashed and burned. We had the tiger by the tail. The dream scenario. A charismatic head coach who won at a level never seen before, and arguably the best defensive coordinator in the conference. More importantly, it was a head coach/defensive coordinator combo who worked perfectly together without power struggles. Doba would have worked under Price through retirement. Yes, Price was getting tempted to leave, but money would have solved the problem. I've heard him suggest as much directly.

The next arrow in my quiver is pointed at our cheap, double talking alumni. The fans who love to chug beer, scream GO COUGS, wave flags, and profess "once a coug, always a coug." These are the same fans who never donate to the program or attend games. This is an almuni base that has ranked dead last in athletic giving for decades. But they love their license plate frames and giving advice on how the program should be run. We sold 23K tickets for our homecoming game vs. Cal last year. Take away our games vs. Oregon and UW, and we averaged 22K in Martin Stadium last season. In 2019, the season after our wonderful 2018 year, we averaged just over 28K fans for the first two home games of the season. The 5-year average from 2015-2019, the heart of the Mike Leach era, we ranked dead last in attendance. UW & SC averaged over 66K fans. UCLA and Oregon over 55K. ASU, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Cal, and Stanford averaged just under 50K collectively. WSU? Dead last at 30,300. The donor numbers even worse.

I feel bad for our diehard fans and our season ticket holders, but the vast majority of our social media fans, the one's who keep asking how this could happen. They can piss off. Our University, Athletic department, and alumni are all Mountain West. Always have been.

With the recent increase of Cord Cutting and/or skipping Commercials via DVR, I began to question....how much of this is our fault? How do we expect someone like ESPN to give us $31M a year, when fans are streaming a la carte, or skipping commercials?

I am speaking of loss of advertising TV revenue. I know that I'm guilty, because I skip the commercials via DVR. After much reflection, I then asked AI Chat GBT:

Question for AI: With many college football fans cutting the cable, streaming TV a la carte, and/or recording football games with a DVR, then skipping the commercials, how much of a financial impact, regarding loss of revenue, has it had on ESPN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and other College Sports Networks?

Answer from AI: As an AI language model, I don't have access to real-time data, and my knowledge is limited to September 2021. Therefore, I can't provide specific financial impact figures for the period beyond that date. However, I can give you some insights into the trends and challenges that traditional sports broadcasters like ESPN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and other College Sports Networks have faced due to changing viewer habits.

1. Cord-Cutting: The rise of streaming services and a la carte options has led to many viewers cutting the cable cord. This trend has affected traditional cable TV networks' subscriber numbers and advertising revenue.

2. Shift to Streaming: Consumers increasingly prefer to watch content on-demand through streaming platforms, which might not have the same advertising revenue model as traditional TV.

3. DVR and Ad-Skipping: With the availability of digital video recorders (DVRs), viewers can record games and skip through commercials, reducing the effectiveness of traditional TV advertising.

4. Fragmented Audience: As viewers shift to different platforms and services, it becomes harder for traditional networks to maintain their previous levels of audience reach.

5. Sports Rights Costs: Acquiring broadcasting rights for sports events, including college football, can be costly. The revenue challenges mentioned above might affect the networks' ability to invest in these rights.

6. Digital Advertising: While traditional TV advertising faces challenges, digital advertising is on the rise. Networks have been exploring online platforms to generate ad revenue and reach audiences through various devices.

7. Partnerships and Innovations: Networks have been adapting to the changing landscape by forming partnerships, creating their streaming platforms, and experimenting with new content delivery methods.

To get more up-to-date and accurate information about the financial impact of these changes, you would need to refer to recent reports, financial statements, and news articles from reliable sources.

It wasn't necessarily the decision to leave that stunned the Pac-12 -- it was the timing of it. Multiple sources told ESPN that on June 30, the Pac-12's presidents and chancellors voted unanimously -- including Colorado -- to authorize Kliavkoff to set July 31 as the deadline for all of the league's bidders on its new media rights deal. Those on the Zoom moved forward -- and Kliavkoff walked onto the stage in Las Vegas believing the league would stay intact at least until all the bids were in.

"Pissed off is the wrong word," a Pac-12 source with knowledge of the vote said. "[Pac-12 presidents and chancellors] were livid. Can't overstate the betrayal."

...what a sh%t show.

In my opinion he has been a bigger fail than Larry Scott. He came in knowing exactly what needed to be done, expand and get a media deal. How he didn’t expand 6 months ago and get any media deal done is beyond me. His messaging has been absolutely atrocious since he has come on board for someone who supposedly has media background with the MGM. His whole keep everything close to the chest has done so much damage to the PAC-12 brand with whatever was left.

We could have hired the janitor at headquarters and would have been in the same position we are now. He has done absolutely NOTHING and everything he has tried has been an utter fail (BIG Ten and Big 12 alliance).

Just an absolute disgrace he has put the final nail in the coffin for this conference. We can point out he’s run by the school presidents but a leader can get the job done and rally the troops, something he clearly has not done.