As a Duck, I’m deeply saddened, and more than a little outraged, by the loss of a 108 year old conference, it’s rich traditions, and regional rivalries. We are all losing more than just the games against rival schools we loved to hate. Our student athletes will be forced to endure ridiculous travel schedules over many time zones - at a time the airline industry is plagued by increasingly common travel disruptions. (When will we hear the hue & cry over the expanded carbon footprint of all this additional & unnecessary travel? Where are the alarmists over burning more jet fuel to fatten the wallets of TV execs? But I digress.) Small town economies in Corvallis & Pullman will be strained, with businesses dependent on the booming flow of visitors for game day likely struggling to survive. Those who work in the ancillary services for major college athletics, and those who staff events, may find themselves no longer a sustainable expense & looking for work. These decisions affect so much more than just student athletes and their fans.
And what of our values and decision making processes? What have our Universities leaders demonstrated as priorities, collectively & individually? When did we cede control of such important parts of our history & communities to media executives in far flung locales for whom our towns, people, traditions, our regional pride, are all reduced to line items on the bottom line projections for some corporate P&L report? When did we decide that their narratives are more important than the banter between people in our own towns & cities, or the stories we tell our children? What are we modeling for the next generations when our institutions of higher learning jump like Pavlov’s test animals to the dog whistle of fatter TV contracts & a brighter spotlight? It all feels like a huge loss to me, a process without a heart, or guiding intelligence. College athletics have become a landscape without good stewards. Cut down the old growth traditions to feed the foreign owned media mills, so we might one day see our team crowned champions in their mythical tournament. In our mythologies of old, when the king became mad with illness, or went missing, the land became blighted & descended into lawlessness. This morning I look across the devastated remains of what was once the Conference of Champions, and I wonder if this grail quest is really worth it. Will this stability that we seek be enduring, or will it be as fleeting as the next media rights deal? Do we believe that the conference leaders in in the Big Ten are wiser, less apt to sacrifice their own for greed & vanity? Do we believe that the television dollars will never dry up, but only deliver more, & more, & MOAR!! What if FOX & ESPN & their ilk can no longer afford to dole out the excesses we now build our foundations upon? What will we fall back on, now that we have sacrificed our past to buy our seat at the table?
There will be a time for excitement in the days to come, but today is not a day I can celebrate. Today I feel our loss, in so many ways. This coming final year of competing in the PAC-12, I hope we will all remember and properly honor what we are leaving behind. There will be no coming back.
And what of our values and decision making processes? What have our Universities leaders demonstrated as priorities, collectively & individually? When did we cede control of such important parts of our history & communities to media executives in far flung locales for whom our towns, people, traditions, our regional pride, are all reduced to line items on the bottom line projections for some corporate P&L report? When did we decide that their narratives are more important than the banter between people in our own towns & cities, or the stories we tell our children? What are we modeling for the next generations when our institutions of higher learning jump like Pavlov’s test animals to the dog whistle of fatter TV contracts & a brighter spotlight? It all feels like a huge loss to me, a process without a heart, or guiding intelligence. College athletics have become a landscape without good stewards. Cut down the old growth traditions to feed the foreign owned media mills, so we might one day see our team crowned champions in their mythical tournament. In our mythologies of old, when the king became mad with illness, or went missing, the land became blighted & descended into lawlessness. This morning I look across the devastated remains of what was once the Conference of Champions, and I wonder if this grail quest is really worth it. Will this stability that we seek be enduring, or will it be as fleeting as the next media rights deal? Do we believe that the conference leaders in in the Big Ten are wiser, less apt to sacrifice their own for greed & vanity? Do we believe that the television dollars will never dry up, but only deliver more, & more, & MOAR!! What if FOX & ESPN & their ilk can no longer afford to dole out the excesses we now build our foundations upon? What will we fall back on, now that we have sacrificed our past to buy our seat at the table?
There will be a time for excitement in the days to come, but today is not a day I can celebrate. Today I feel our loss, in so many ways. This coming final year of competing in the PAC-12, I hope we will all remember and properly honor what we are leaving behind. There will be no coming back.
