Cal’s new chancellor, Richard Lyons, begins his term July 1. Stanford’s new president, Jonathan Levin, took over a month later.
Lyons and Levin: New leaders for old rivals as unprecedented challenges loom on and off the playing fields.
Football programs have reached a tipping point, pushed to the brink by a seemingly surreal convergence of events:
– Their arrival in the ACC this summer comes amid an internecine legal battle with football’s biggest brands, Clemson and Florida State, attempting to void the schools’ rights contract.
— Increasing financial pressures and heavy reliance on campus grants to balance their budgets.
— The existential legal threats facing the NCAA that have prompted the SEC and Big Ten to fill the leadership void and chart a future for the industry that looks nothing like the past.
As daunting as it is, the logistics of competing in the ACC are amateur hour for the Cardinal and Bears compared to navigating a turbulent landscape.
Are they ready to break away from their long-held view of college athletics and join the heavyweight football schools in a revenue-sharing deal with the players?
Will they make the necessary adjustments to recruitment efforts to thrive in a world of unlimited transfers and uncapped NIL (name, image and likeness) payments?
Will they devote the resources necessary to position their football teams for inclusion in a college football super league that could emerge within the next decade?
No one knows, because Lyons and Levin have failed to take charge of their universities, much less develop a blueprint for athletics.
Football success is not impossible on either campus. In the 2000s, Cal was one of the best teams in the country. In the 2010s, Stanford won the Rose Bowls.
But both programs have gradually lost relevance and relevance in a cutthroat sport, where winning increasingly requires an institutional commitment that conflicts with academic missions and faculty preferences on either side of the Bay.
A few wrong moves over the next 12-18 months could condemn the Bears and Cardinal to a third-class existence as college football enters its next phase.
So allow us to offer you some suggestions. The list below is not long, but it is broad. Each layer has complexities, both on campus and on the ground.
Seize the moment
Entry into the ACC, which becomes official on August 2, represents a new beginning for both football programs – and an opportunity to rebuild their image locally.
Marketing efforts have been sorely lacking for years. Stanford has no presence outside of a plot of land on the peninsula. Cal’s playing experience needs an upgrade.
Athletic departments are on the front lines of improvement, but campus support is essential to any material change. Bold thinking is needed.
Of course, this strategy requires campus leaders to confront their deepest fears: that investing resources in football will transform universities into sports academies; that adopting football would damage their academic reputation, anger their Olympic sports teams, and spark a faculty revolt.
But the current approach, where football is kept at arm’s length and seen as a necessary evil, will ensure continued mediocrity, continued irrelevance and, ultimately, a one-way ticket to the abyss of the competition.
The best way to ensure the success of tennis, swimming, golf and softball in the next era of college sports? Win Saturday.
Win on Saturday and the money flows, not only from ticket sales and concessions, but also from philanthropy and brand expansion.
The most successful alumni events in Stanford history were not held in the engineering building. These were not on-campus meetings. It was tailgate parties at the Rose Bowl.
You know what comes from winning? Admission requests, which then makes it possible to lower the admission rate and increase selectivity.
Stanford saw this firsthand during its presence on the national stage from 2009 to 2012. Campus officials called it the “Andrew Luck effect.”
Lyons and Levin should not apologize for football. They should accept it.
Make tough decisions
The Hotline never shies away from uncomfortable topics, and sports elimination is the most uncomfortable topic in college athletics. But Lyons needs to seriously consider reducing the scope of the Cal department.
Only football and men’s basketball are profitable. In that regard, the Bears are no different than dozens of power conference schools across the country. But Cal sponsors far more sports – 30 – than most of its peers.
Meanwhile, the Bears needed $34 million in university support last year just to run a slight surplus, according to the financial report submitted to the NCAA.
And now comes a next-level challenge: competing in the ACC while receiving less of the conference’s total share of media rights revenue for most of the deal’s 12 years.
Removing the sport would reduce expenses, align the budget and free up cash for football operations.
Stanford also relies on campus support and reported a $21 million operating deficit in fiscal 2023. The school has all the money needed to manage the university’s partial revenue shares. ACC, provided Levin commits to allocating sufficient on-campus dollars for athletics.
Additionally, Lyons and Levin should adopt NIL, the NCAA-sanctioned process by which athletes can receive compensation for their support and promotional work.
But tacit approval is not enough. Campus leaders must make it clear to all constituents and stakeholders – board members and tenured faculty – that NIL opportunities are not only acceptable, but encouraged and beneficial to athletes in all sports.
Start lobbying
We saved the most urgent task for last.
Bay Area schools were taken by surprise when the Pac-12 imploded last summer, according to multiple conference sources. They can’t make the same mistake again.
Lyons and Levin must be aware of the ACC’s potential for implosion. After all, Clemson and Florida State have filed lawsuits seeking to overturn the rights agreement that binds them to the ACC until 2036.
If one school leaves, the other will follow – just like North Carolina, the institution most coveted by the Big Ten and the SEC.
At this point, the conference would become a shell of itself…or break apart completely.
So what about the Bears and the Cardinal?
They would have the option to join Washington State and Oregon State in rebuilding the Pac-12. Or they could attempt to secure Big Ten membership alongside USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, which enter the conference this summer.
A six-school West Wing would operate on multiple levels, reducing travel demands on athletes from West Coast and Midwest schools. But further westward expansion has to make sense for Fox.
Fox controls the Big Ten’s media rights through its majority ownership in the Big Ten Network and is therefore responsible for funding any realignment efforts.
Oregon and Washington were admitted last summer because Fox found the money to compensate the new arrivals without dipping into the pot reserved for the other 16 members.
If Fox believed Cal and Stanford were worth it, they would be headed to the Big Ten, not the ACC.
Would anything change in a post-ACC world? Maybe not. But the Bears and Cardinal cannot handle a second rejection.
Make the case to network executives that Fox and the Big Ten would benefit from having two world-class schools in the Bay Area, with all its high-tech money and thousands of Big Ten alumni.
Make it clear that full revenue sharing is not necessary. Oregon and Washington enter the Big Ten as half-share members. Bay Area schools should be willing to opt in at 25 percent.
The Big Ten presidents are no obstacle. If they had the chance, they would love to align themselves with the Nobel heavyweights.
But they won’t admit Cal and Stanford if that decision results in a reduction in media revenue that goes to each school. Fox is expected to cover expenses, as it did with Oregon and Washington.
This won’t be an easy sale. Lyons and Levin are businessmen. But from this summer, or even today, they must become lobbyists.
They are taking charge of the future of both athletic departments. Whether they like it or not, the path to prosperity is 100 meters long.
*** Send your suggestions, comments and advice (confidentiality guaranteed) to pac12hotline@bayareanewsgroup.com or call 408-920-5716
*** Follow me on Twitter/X: @WilnerHotline
***The Pac-12 Helpline is not endorsed or sponsored by the Pac-12 Conference, and the opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the conference.
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