Dan Dickau takes a deep dive on conference realignment news and where the Gonzaga men's basketball program fits
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00:00 Hey, everybody. It's Christian Pedersen joined by Dan Dick out back for another episode of
00:06 the Gonzaga Nation podcast. Thank you very much for tuning in to what I think we can
00:10 dub has been the most successful offseason recently at keeping everybody's collective
00:16 national attention, at least somewhat on college basketball. A ton more. Literally, Dan, I
00:23 think we started last episode by putting to bed conference realignment talks and say,
00:28 yeah, we're going to get around to that next time we hear something. And then they're like,
00:31 oh, cool. OK, we'll do that next week. Then Thursday into Friday, into the weekend, there
00:37 was a couple of cascading announcements coming out of basically the disillusion and dissolvement
00:42 of the Pac-12 and or maybe now the Pac-12 is going to do its own merger thing with the
00:48 Mountain West or like there's going to become a West Supercon. It seems like this whole
00:54 thing we were waiting for one domino to fall and then the past four or five days have meant
01:00 absolute chaos and insanity. So. Where do you want to start? I mean, that's the question
01:07 is where do you want to start? There's lots of different angles. There's lots of different
01:10 places that you can start. There's lots of schools that you could start with. There's
01:14 lots of commentary in regards to what the big ten, the big twelve and now the American
01:19 are trying to do that are going to impact the Pac-12 that are going to impact the Mountain
01:23 West. That's going to impact the WCC and obviously Gonzaga. You know, Gonzaga has been sitting
01:28 on the sidelines doing all of their due diligence. And that's kind of one of the things that
01:32 we alluded to in the last couple of podcasts that have been kind of dedicated to this.
01:37 And we thought it was done right. We thought we were kind of moving on to the phase of
01:42 prepping for the season and keep an eye on college football and that clock winding down
01:47 to practice time. And I go on vacation with my family and then we're out doing some some
01:51 outdoor stuff. And then all of a sudden I look down at my phone or I get back into the
01:55 car and I look at my phone and U-Dub and Oregon, they go to the big ten. It's like, what? What
02:02 the heck? And then an hour or two later, you pull up another story. Arizona, Arizona State,
02:08 Utah, looks like they're heading to the big twelve. So that Pac-12, which will be this
02:12 year, goes to essentially a Pac-4 next year. So Stanford, Cal, Oregon State, Washington
02:19 State are seemingly the outliers in that league. You look at Cal and Stanford, they're obviously
02:25 the most academic of those four schools, Oregon State and WSU being the kind of agriculture
02:31 schools throughout all of the Pac-12. Oregon State, I believe, was the first member. They
02:38 were a charter member of the Pac eight years ago. So, you know, I think some for some traditionalists,
02:44 it's hard to swallow. You know, Oregon State football has been really on the rise as of
02:50 late under Jonathan Smith. But it's it's money that's driving this thing. We've said it before.
02:55 It's continuing to drive this thing. U-Dub and Oregon are premier names, Seattle being
03:00 a premier city in the country. They're driving it. Oregon, with the Nike money of Phil Knight,
03:05 driving their ability to kind of pick and choose. You know, there's lots of different
03:10 things you can kind of focus in on and chat upon with all this conference realignment.
03:14 But the bottom line, it comes down to money and it comes down to football and the money
03:18 that football generates and drives is changing the landscape. Right in front of our eyes,
03:24 things that, you know, even three, four years ago when, you know, the SEC was expanding,
03:30 the Big Ten was expanding, we never thought it was going to get to this. And now it is.
03:34 And unfortunately, the previous commissioner of the Pac-12 put that league in such a bad
03:40 spot that its schools, quite frankly, had no other choice but to do what they've done.
03:46 The new commissioner has come in. He's tried to salvage relationships. He's tried to, you
03:50 know, salvage TV media rights opportunities. And it just they were so far behind because
03:56 of the previous commissioner. They just couldn't get anything done. And then you get USC, UCLA
04:02 being poached to the Big Ten last year, kind of what seemed like a midnight deal when there
04:07 was that Pac-10 or excuse me, Pac-12 Big Ten alliance that was proposed alongside, I believe
04:13 it was the ACC, where it looked like all these conferences were going to kind of be hand
04:17 in hand, kind of keeping things status quo. Well, that wasn't the case at all. You kind
04:23 of might now look in hindsight and think that, you know, maybe that alliance was a chance
04:28 for the commissioners to get to know some of these ADs a little bit more and have their
04:33 phone numbers on speed dial. So, you know, they could jump at the right opportunity.
04:37 There's just lots of movement. It's hard to keep track of everything. You know, you mentioned
04:43 the super conference on the West Coast, you know, with the Pac-4 that we're talking about.
04:49 That's the end of one in terms of--
04:50 Yeah, I mean, you're exactly right.
04:53 Then subparagraph two is, well, this isn't going to be the end of it. So what happens
04:57 now? Yes, go ahead.
04:59 So I think what you look at now, you know, and we'll get to the piece of where Gonzaga
05:03 fits because, you know, unfortunately, because Gonzaga doesn't have a football school, they
05:08 are a complete outlier, you know, and most of the WCC schools are going to be playing
05:14 reactionary to everything that will happen after Gonzaga possibly makes a decision and
05:20 a move. But first, you talk about a big kind of West Coast conference or a Western side
05:25 of the United States conference. Does the Pac-4, Sanford, Cal, Oregon State, WSU, are
05:31 they able to salvage something and mold the Mountain West together with the Pac-12? And
05:37 Gloria Navarrez, the commissioner of the Pac-12, was formerly the commissioner of the WCC.
05:42 She's tremendous. She's always forward thinking. She kind of held San Diego State's feet to
05:47 the fire a month or so ago when San Diego State wanted to get into the Pac-12, but she
05:52 was going to force them to pay an enormous exit fee. And then San Diego State pulled
05:57 back from that. When we look back now, maybe even months from now, that might be the final
06:03 straw that kind of crushed the Pac-12. We don't know because maybe that would have been
06:07 one more team to solidify things, make everybody feel it was in the right path. But anyways,
06:11 if we're talking about a Western United States super conference, I could see the Pac-4 molding
06:17 with the Mountain West. But do they want all the teams in the Mountain West? That's a question
06:22 to consider. Does a San Jose State, who traditionally hasn't been very good at many sports, fit
06:29 with that brand of what might happen? I don't know. It's going to be interesting to see.
06:37 And then you look at that and say, well, hold on a second. There were rumblings just today
06:43 within the last couple hours talking about the American Athletic Conference going after
06:49 Oregon State and Washington State. Well, what I read was they don't want Stanford and Cal,
06:55 they just want Oregon State and Washington State to fit into that league. So unbelievable
07:03 last 96 hours or so in college athletics. And that's kind of a couple thoughts that
07:08 I've read that are out there on your Western United States super conference. Because right
07:13 now, I don't even know if you technically you will call it the Pac-12 this year. But
07:19 I think pretty soon there's going to be a name that is thrown out there in regards to
07:25 what the final four teams are. Because I honestly don't see the name Pac-12 or Pac-anything
07:33 being salvageable, because it doesn't make sense with no UCLA, no Arizona, UW, etc.
07:38 To me, it becomes maybe like the Pac-West conference.
07:41 Yeah, very much so. It could become something like the Pac-West. It's hard to say, but there's
07:48 so many.
07:49 If you take the four and you add in the totality of what is available to be added from the
07:54 WCC and the Mountain West, you get up to about 20-ish, 22, 24 teams, depending on if assuming
08:02 something major like all three of those conferences move together, that somebody will like, yeah,
08:07 Oregon State maybe dips out to the American or something like that. So give or take 20-ish
08:11 teams. I just I don't think the math is that far off, actually, from just kind of taking
08:18 everything on the West Coast and bushing it into something that, yeah, is maybe buoyed
08:27 at the top of different sports by different schools.
08:30 But you know, that's funny. You say 20 schools-ish, but then what about like the top schools in
08:36 the big sky, you know, a Montana State, a Montana, that drive a lot of interest and
08:42 have booster money behind them, more so, say, than some other, you know, hard to fund athletic
08:50 departments in those leagues? What about Grand Canyon and the WAC, Seattle U and the WAC?
08:55 I mean, those are schools that any conference that now all of a sudden is created or expands
09:00 wants those media markets.
09:02 Maybe for that, I would say zoom out just a little bit further and assume that something
09:06 like the American conference making its play, like if the West did that, the more that we're
09:10 probably looking at, like only going to have five conferences in the nation anyway.
09:16 So I'd assume that there would still be some movers and shakers. So, yeah, maybe maybe
09:20 like a USF and Pacific and Pepperdine get zapped up by somebody that's playing like
09:27 way smaller school. I don't know. I just throwing it out there. But yeah, I think that you're
09:31 absolutely right that you could maybe toss in some of those other West Coast conferences
09:38 by geography and figure it out. But yeah, I think I think maybe we're just not that
09:43 far off from.
09:44 No, I agree. I don't.
09:45 With a pride on some of these and be like, look, we're going to focus on. Really maximizing
09:51 the dollar around these instead.
09:53 Yeah, I don't think we're that far off from from. Learning where Gonzaga truly is in this
09:59 in this landscape of figuring things out. You know, they're at a disadvantage because
10:03 they don't have football, but they're also an advantage because they can they can kind
10:10 of beat to their own drum because they're such a national presence and a national name.
10:14 And ESPN wants them on their air. Fox would want them on their CBS Sports National as
10:20 well as CBS Sports Network. Their sister network is going to want them on the air. There's
10:26 all these new streaming platforms, which is one of the reasons the Pac-12 kind of held
10:30 off, I think, making some of the schools made it held off making a decision as long as they
10:36 did, because I think they were looking at streaming deals and opportunities with Apple
10:40 TV, which MLS soccer has done, as opposed to going the traditional broadcast TV rights.
10:47 So lots of different things that were being looked at there. But, you know, when you look
10:52 at Gonzaga, I said they're in a disadvantage with no football, but they're at an advantage
10:56 because they've got, you know, the national name recognition and the presence. When you
11:01 talk about the WCC and Gonzaga, you mentioned a super conference. Well. Now, the schools
11:08 that we mentioned. In the WAC, Seattle, you and Grand Canyon, I don't think they have
11:14 football. I know Seattle, you doesn't. I'm not sure about Grand Canyon. So do you take
11:19 two more teams in that league and grow? Then do you go get maybe a Denver University, which
11:25 is in another big media market? Maybe do you try to get aggressive and try to take a San
11:30 Diego State? Maybe you even go and slide, take a state school like an Oregon State WSU
11:36 just for, you know, name recognition and put it in the WCC. And now does the WCC go from
11:42 nine teams to maybe a 13 team conference? So many things are out there. You know, there's
11:48 lots of great articles that are being written out. Some have some outlandish ideas. I'm
11:55 sure you listen to this might be thinking I have an outlandish idea about the WCC expanding
12:00 that big. It's hard to say. But I think one thing is right now is you got to be ready
12:05 to make a decision on a moment's notice. Now, I think a year or two ago, you didn't have
12:10 to be in as big a rush. But now you got to be ready to make a decision.
12:14 We will be here to cover that decision should anything come down. Is that everything kind
12:19 of from the recesses of your brain on this topic? Or is there anything else we got to
12:23 let the people know? Yeah, I mean, it really is at this current moment in time. I still
12:28 think, you know, I disappointed and frustrated with college athletics, but I get it because
12:34 money drives all of this. And football drives the money being brought into college athletics.
12:41 So football is going to be the dictator of why these realignments are occurring. I wish
12:47 there was a way that maybe the heavyweights in football could do their own thing in a
12:52 line where it didn't impact these other sports quite so much, you know, because really at
12:57 the bottom, at the end of the day, football makes a boatload of money. Basketball at most
13:04 schools make a lot of money if you're making it to the NCAA tournament on regularly. If
13:10 you're not, you're probably not making a lot of money. Women's basketball, some of the
13:15 programs make money. And then after that, if you've got a baseball program that's making
13:20 money, you're an outlier. If you've got a soccer or a tennis program or one of these
13:26 other, you know, Olympic sports like swimming, diving, like Stanford, you know, they keep
13:31 winning this Director's Cup of the most national championships across the country. Yeah, that's
13:36 great and all, but those are all Olympic sports and there's nothing against Olympic sports,
13:40 but they don't make any money. They don't generate any money. Football is the one that's
13:45 supporting those sports and being able to travel all across the country. Now you're
13:50 telling me, you know, you got maybe 18 to 20 sports that have to travel twice as much
13:57 as they did before. It is going to attack some of these athletic departments and figuring
14:05 out how to get all this done. So, you know, end of the day, I don't think we're going
14:13 to be fully done with realignment. I think in a few years we're going to see another
14:16 switch and other change. I would personally love to see a Big East conference where it's
14:21 basketball centric with a Eastern, a Central and a Western division. I've said it for a
14:27 year or two now. I think that would be phenomenal for the game of basketball. You could get
14:31 a lot of like-minded schools, Gonzaga being one of them. Most of those schools in the
14:36 Big East or the original Big East, you know, were Catholic institutions that love the game
14:43 of basketball. And so I would love to see something like that come to fruition. I know
14:49 there's been some talk of it in different shapes and forms. It doesn't make sense for
14:53 Gonzaga with the current setup because of the amount of travel, but if they added a
14:57 Western division, which would be made up of similar WCC type schools and some others,
15:03 I think it would make a lot of sense.
15:05 Requiem for the Big East is one of my all-time favorite sports documentaries. And if that
15:10 super version of the Big East does happen, please, we will allow, in your hypothetical,
15:15 being the commissioner of the Syracuse to join back in. My personal fandom could use
15:20 it. Dan, thank you so much. Like we've said, we've got you covered for all things conference
15:25 realignment and any more updates coming. Just make sure you subscribe to Gonzaga Nation
15:29 wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social. Talk to you guys soon.