Bryan Fischer | College Football Writer, FOX Sports

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You'll be glad you did. We're pleased to welcome Brian Fisher from Salt Lake. Late night, a lot of writing, a lot of reacting as he is a national college football writer for Fox Sports. Well, Brian, what's your reaction to everything we've seen right as we get set to kick off the college football season? Yeah, my, my, my reaction is it's just one of disbelief, you know, and, and I think that's honestly, you know, what a lot of people around college athletics are feeling right now, you know, just, just how did we kind of get to this point? And, you know, there, there are a lot of missteps, you know, along the way and, and a lot of turning points, you know, throughout the history of college athletics and especially so in the last two years. But it's just kind of wild to fathom really these last two weeks, especially last Friday, you know, kind of when everything with the pack, well, certainly went down and for this to happen, you know, right after media days when, when everybody was talking about all the on field events. And maybe we had gotten past kind of focusing on, on a lot of those off the field moves.

Realignment reared its ugly head and, you know, I think that's what everybody's been knee deep in certainly these last couple of days, couple of weeks, couple of hours and hopefully it will subside a little bit. But this is groundbreaking stuff in college athletics and it'll be interesting because I don't think that the waves are done shaking necessarily in the sport. Well, let's talk about the Pac-12 first then because that is one that's been real stunning. Where does this leave the conference overall? You know, in a very precarious situation, you know, I think obviously they only have the four members left moving forward and that is not enough, you know, to technically be a conference and this is not just for, you know, existing in period, you know, it's for next next year, you know, and I think that's the, you know, when you talk with a lot of the administrators that you are involved in things like compliance and, you know, things like fundraising, putting schedules together, like, you know, that sort of stuff is done so far in advance and you got to think about it.

You got to have all these meetings. Well, the Pac-12 is in a precarious situation just to get a schedule out for 2024, much less find the teams that they need to even get and remain a Division 1 conference. And that's not even getting into things like how are they going to get their NCAA tournament unit revenue and disperse that to schools and some of these minor points that, you know, really kind of underscores just how dangerous and on a nice edge the Pac-12 really is.

And they don't have many options. You know, you look at the four remaining schools, they're doing their best to look out for themselves. They're not looking out for the conference as much as they want to preach unity. And really, that's all been what the Pac-12 has done these last couple of weeks.

All four of the remaining schools are still looking out for themselves. So this is a very dangerous situation for George Glavicoff to navigate. You know, there's certainly some possibilities where they can either merge or have those schools join the Mountain West in some sort of kind of West Conference, West Coast type of conference merger. And I think those discussions are probably going to pick up steam after the Mountain West met on Monday night.

But, you know, this is an ever evolving and very fluid situation as we see things can change in a matter of hours. And that's simply where the Pac-12 finds itself right now. Why, Brian, what brought us to this point where one of the Power Five conferences is on the verge of being defunct or at least collapsing in terms of its stature in college sports? Well, I think you've got to look, turn yourself on in terms of the Pac-12 and look at its most recent history. And then really it was just a series of bad mismanagement and bad leadership from the conference office. You know, I think a lot of people are going to point their finger at Larry Scott, and certainly he deserves a fair share of the blame in terms of some of the missteps. You go back a couple of years, ESPN had offered to kind of take over distribution for the Pac-12 network, sign another long term rights agreement that would have kept the league together, would have kept USC and UCLA in the fold. But, you know, the conference office and conference leadership said no.

And I think he kind of traced things from a moment like that. You can even go back to just kind of the whole concept of the Pac-12 network and how vastly they kind of underperformed in terms of the expectations and the amount of money that those networks had driven back towards the schools. And, you know, and honestly, it's just a lot of recent decisions. I mean, you look at just what George Golovkin has done this past year, you know, I mean, he continually thought that the Pac-12 would have a good media deal that never materialized. You look at, you know, things like USC and UCLA leaving, that's on the current commissioner for not keeping those schools happy enough and not keeping those schools in the fold long enough to get a media deal run. And, you know, the last couple of years, you know, when you decide to wait and wait and wait so long, there were market forces, you know, with a lot of these media companies that were bidding on Pac-12 rights, their economics and their outlook changed significantly in the past year. And that's what the Pac-12 got caught up in. And so with no media deal, with a very subpar, I guess, media deal to present from Apple, a lot of these schools said, we're not going to go through what we've been doing.

Let's try to find a better home. And that's what a lot of these schools that are either going to the Big 12 or the Big Ten have finding themselves in. And it's frankly still a little bit hard to believe that this is kind of where we're at right now. Brian Fisher is with us from Fox Sports. And as he points out, this is happening daily and the landscape is changing so quickly, so drastically that it's a lot to keep up with.

So we're pleased to have him with us here after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. It's interesting to me, Brian, that it was the Big 12 that appeared to be in this position not that long ago. And now the Big 12 has been able to gobble up some of these other schools to strengthen its position. So then thinking about where the Big Ten and the Big 12 are now, what's your reaction to what they're doing? Yeah, I mean, you know, you think back to the time, I mean, really the Big 12 is kind of like a cat with nine lives. You know, the way it's just been able to survive and reform itself is kind of wild to think about. You know, this was a league that began, you know, 25 odd years ago and really out of the limits of a dying conference.

And it just, you know, kept on ticking. And, you know, you got to give a lot of credit to Brett Newmark, I think, in terms of his vision for the league since he took over as commissioner. You know, he's he's been aggressive and, you know, that has paid off, you know, and handsomely for the members, not just in terms of surviving as a league, but, you know, really kind of starting to thrive and really starting to play offense.

The sort of playing defense like they have for so many years, teams that have left or been picked off or gone elsewhere. And it really is a testament to really the conference kind of rallying around itself. It's kind of crazy to think, you know, I was talking with the Pac-12 AD just just not too long ago. And, you know, he kind of said, look, we had a chance to to put an end to the Big 12. You know, there were some significant discussions of whether you want to term it a merger or the Pac-12 acquiring a couple of the Big 12 schools that were looking for new homes at the time. You know, the Pac-12 could have could have been in this reverse situation and we could have been talking about the Big 12, kind of going through this as the Pac-12 was going for a couple of years ago and just kind of wild to think how the tables have turned. And certainly the Big 12 has found itself playing that upper hand. Is this now the new model where the power conferences, bloated conferences want to have schools and want to have a fingerprint in every single time zone in the continental U.S.?

Well, I know that's been a big, big emphasis for Brett Yarmark is kind of spanning across four times. And they certainly will for a good portion of the fall with those Arizona schools kind of being in Pacific times on there. I think that's more of an advantage for their network partners, having late windows, having having early windows, being able to really have football from kind of before noon all the way down to late at night.

That's a tremendous inventory for a lot of those television networks and why they're paying handsomely. And it's a strategy that has certainly paid off. If you're looking at the Big 10, you know, they obviously added USC and UCLA to kind of get into additional time zones. You have the same happening with the Big 12.

I think it's going to set up an interesting next couple of years in terms of who is taking advantage of a lot of those time slots, because, you know, I would say that the Big 10 ultimately will still have the upper hand just because they can have more brand name, more key names that can play in a lot of those time slots and they can offer an over broadcast television. But, you know, this is definitely a concerted strategy on behalf of the Big 10 and the Big 12. And certainly it's paid off handsomely in terms of those media rights revenue payouts and the difference of the situation they find themselves in compared to the Pac-12.

Is that really the bottom line, Brian, the actual bottom line? The student athletes, the college's academics, does any of that factor into this? Or is this really just become about as much money as possible for these conferences through the lens of football and basketball? Oh, it is the almighty dollar that is certainly driving a lot of these decisions.

And I always kind of get a chuckle out, you know, when you hear, you know, either ADs or presidents kind of talk about, you know, being like with like minded institutions and finding fits and all that. And, you know, just look at the position that Cal and Stamps would find themselves in right now. You know, if that were really honestly the case, they would be in the Big 10. They would be in some of these other leagues.

They would have media companies jumping over, you know, to pay up and televise Stanford and Cal Games. But that is not the case. It is all about ultimately what can you bring in terms of that dollar figure. It's already a modern business, but it's certainly becoming an even more ruthless business that is, you know, really underpinned by that pursuit of the almighty dollar. And that's really kind of what led to a lot of these decisions that has led us to this moment. I like that word. You're right.

It does seem ruthless. It doesn't really matter who is affected, who is in the way of it. These conferences are just moving forward regardless. Brian Fisher is with us from Fox Sports National College Football Rider. It's After Hours, CBS Sports Radio. Are there any of these conference alignments, realignments that you think make zero sense whatsoever and you kind of wonder how it's going to work out?

I think kind of all of them. When you get away from being a West Coast league, you know, spanning multiple time zones and you're talking about cross-country travel. And look, I travel a lot in both my current job and as well as personally. And, you know, it can add up.

Those miles can add up and I can't even imagine even even being young kids, you know, just having some extra energy that I might have that travel just adds up. And I just it's going to be hard to comprehend when we're talking about, you know, big teams, even before, you know, the Washington and Oregon moves were announced. You talk about the big 10 was thinking, well, you know, we can maybe have a UCLA soccer team charter with, you know, a USC lacrosse team if they need to go play in Illinois. Like the fact that we're talking about that or talking about going to play literally from coast to coast, you know, for a lot of the non-revenue sports in particular, that's that's where I scratch my head. And, you know, it's one thing for it to be in football. But, you know, the fact that we're, you know, the big 10 is going to have, you know, 500 plus teams.

You know, when you're talking about ice hockey and you're talking about lacrosse and you're talking about soccer, not even getting into, you know, the high profile men and women's basketball games. I think it's going to cause a lot of late nights for a lot of administrators out there. I know it's already causing issues with it with the coaches. And I can only imagine where we're going to be in a couple of years when everybody is probably going to pinch themselves and say, why did we do this? I think we're ultimately going to get to that kind of moment because it is crazy when you pull out that map and you look at a school in L.A. going to go to Piscataway to play a conference game.

It's wild to kind of comprehend and probably going to be even wilder when we actually see it in front of our eyes. What, if anything, does the NCAA have to do with this, Brian? Well, nothing.

You know, that is the thing. And, you know, I mean, Mark Emmert, you go back to the former NCAA president. He would not touch this topic with a 10 foot pole, like would not provide any leadership, would not return. You know, he might return some calls, but really just kind of kind of to be a sounding board, not really to provide any leadership. Charlie Baker, you know, he issued a statement to Fox Fort Worth and a few other outlets today. I do get the sense that he's not happy with the current situation. You know, he's somebody that has talked quite a bit about taking over as president about that student athlete experience, making sure that that is kind of the focus.

And these moves really run counter to that. And that said, you know, he's really powerless to kind of do anything about it. You know, he can issue a sternly awarded statement.

He can call up, you know, Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti and, you know, Brett Yarmark and all these others and maybe chew them out on the phone a little bit. But it's not going to change anything because ultimately the NCAA is still a member run organization. They take their cues from the schools themselves and the schools are right now.

They're also saying, you know what, this is what we want, essentially. And so the NCAA kind of finds itself between a rock and a hard place, as they typically do on a whole multitude of issues, but especially on this one. For a second, can you imagine what this means for the college football playoff and it expanding with these conferences that are so huge, they're so bloated. It just seems like an overwhelming task to keep college football on a plane where it's still not completely dominated by two or three conferences. Yeah, I mean, I was talking to somebody, you know, this afternoon just in terms of how this really throws a lot of the stuff that the commissioners have been working with.

They're supposed to be in a couple of weeks in late August to kind of continue to go over some of those issues for 2024 and 2025. And you kind of got to throw a lot of the work that's already been done in terms of expanding that playoff kind of out the window. You know, things like revenue sharing and what those revenue payouts will be, you know, it's going to change vastly depending on whether or not there are 10 SBS conferences or there are nine, whether there's four Power Five conferences or there's five.

And ultimately, what is the kind of the level? Will the commissioners kind of push back? If you're Greg Sankey, I would certainly be pushing back on including a Pac-12 or whatever the newly formed conference could end up being. You know, if it's just the existing four schools and some Mountain West leftovers, is that really a Power Five conference?

You know, if I were Greg Sankey, I'd be saying that same thing, especially when it came to paying out revenues. And especially because a lot of those conferences now, you're talking about more mounts to feed. You know, the Big 12 now has 16 teams like how is that pie getting split a certain number of ways? You look at the automatic qualifiers, especially after their 2026 when there is a new college football playoff contract where they can really kind of start from scratch and do whatever they want. This whole concept of six top six conference champions and six autobids, that's definitely probably on the chopping block with moves like this. So, you know, there's a lot that still needs to happen from from a really dollars and cents standpoint, from a crossing T's and dotting I standpoint when it comes to the expansion just the next two years on playoff.

But really, the larger question that looms across the rest of the industry is what happens after 2026 when there is a fresh new contract? Because there is right now we have no concept and we always think we have a good idea in terms of what will ultimately happen with the sports postseason. The events of the last two weeks could certainly have a huge impact in terms of changing ultimately how we determine a national champion in college football. Between the NIL and the transfer portal, which had already really changed the landscape of big time college sports, especially football and basketball, and now throwing in conference realignment, it feels like a free for all. So then, Brian, what brings it to a stop?

What causes it to slow down or to find some resolution? Well, I think ultimately if we can get to a position where there is some at least long term certaintude in terms of where the college football playoff is going to be, where kind of that postseason structure is, I think that will help. But at the end of the day, you know, this is really a conference realignment wave that I think is going to keep reverberating. And you look at, you know, down the road, this is probably a prelude to the ultimate realignment in terms of consolidation. We're already seeing it in terms of really kind of five power five conferences going to four.

But, you know, what happens when ESPN and Fox and CBS and NBC and all the major coverage players in terms of television coverage or, you know, an Apple or an Amazon kind of say, you know what, we'll give you a lot of money to televise these games. But we don't want an Indiana. We don't want a Northwestern.

We don't want a Washington state included in those major payouts. And that is going to face, you know, really kind of change things even more. And so that's that I think people kind of put that aside and thought it was a concept that, you know what, maybe that's decades down the line. I think this this latest round of realignment has really kind of said, you know what, maybe that's actually sooner happening than we even thought four or five years ago. And, you know, that to me is kind of where we're ultimately heading. And that that I don't think is good for anybody involved in college athletics. Yeah, it's kind of hard to figure out how this is good really for anyone except for the schools in terms of the money.

All right. Brian's got a column up on his Twitter on Fox Sports dot com. The link on Twitter about where college athletics go from here.

You want to find him on Twitter at Brian D. Fisher. B-R-Y-A-N-D-F-I-S-C-H-E-R covers national college football. The scene for Fox Sports. And your head must be spinning. My head's spinning.

Man, what a few days. But Brian, we thank you so much for a couple of minutes. Absolutely great to be on with you. The official Winning Time podcast from HBO is back. I'm Rodney Barnes, executive producer on the show. Magic and the Lakers are back to defend their title. Join me as I break down each new episode with sportswriter Jeff Perelman and the actors, directors and key collaborators who brought the 1980s Showtime Lakers to life. It's not about basketball. It's about winning. Listen to HBO's official Winning Time podcast on Sundays after the show airs on Max.