Is this the most trash talking Chip has ever seen an AD do?!?!

Chip Patterson joins the Adam Gold show regularly on Wednesdays.

He's kind enough to do that and he's doubly kind to join me now on Fridays because frankly it feels like it's like free agency day or transfer portal day. News is flying around. I literally need you to help us keep track of up to the minute where teams are in the conferences.

And the Cover 3 Podcast. I have to ask you, is that the most A.D. trash talk you've heard? Telling another school to stop barking? You don't get a lot of A.D. trash talk. Listen, I like the position of Bubba Cunningham. I like the position of a lot of the A.C.C. schools who have probably done the same math that I did.

Because look, we can play a fast little game. Many have estimated that if you were to go to court trying to settle a number that would represent the grant of rights between now and 2036 that that number might be about a half a billion dollars, 500 million. And it has been suggested that in the breakup there would be a settlement number. Let's say it's 350 million dollars.

And I'll get to an interesting follow up story. I don't know if you've hit yet about private equity. Let's say that Florida State now has the investment to be able to pay 350 million dollars to be able to break out and seal their new future. Well, for the 13 existing members, that's about 27 million dollars per school. Is Florida State going to solve the A.C.C.

's money problems by breaking out of the A.C.C.? Like that's why if I'm an existing A.C.C. member, it really is like, sure.

OK, like go for it. Because there is a fat check and we just saw it in the Big 12. Right. So Texas and Oklahoma, they announced they were going to leave for the SEC. They had three years left on their grant of rights and they waited out two of them and then they paid out the last little bit. That is a boost for Oklahoma State and Texas Tech and TCU and the rest of the schools. They are going to make more money this year beyond what they would have made thanks to Texas and Oklahoma going on the way out because of there being so many years between now and 2036.

That's why the check that Florida State would have to cut would be massive and a nice little spike for all the A.C.C. members that are still around. All right. Give me up to the minute what we know about these because I promise it to people. What do we know about?

Well, let's start with this, I guess, broadly. Do we know anything about the emergency PAC 12 meeting this morning? Is there any news out of that? Yes. The deal this morning was supposed to be to get everybody together virtually and everyone agrees to sign the grant of rights. They accept the media deal, which is primarily Apple and streaming. They held the meeting at 7 a.m. local 10 a.m. here and they did not get signature. So they pushed it back and now everyone's running back to their respective camps to try and problem solve and figure out what the next step is. All right.

So you can give me and you tell me either mix them and not tell me or delineate when you're talking about which one. But a combo of what you know to be true and what you, Chip Patterson, reporter who hears and knows a lot of things, expects to come true about these certain schools. Arizona.

What do we think or know or expect about Arizona to end up? Twenty four seven sports. Jason Shear has done a tremendous job.

Twenty four seven sports. A CBS Sports partner. It's great to be able to lean on his reporting because he's as plugged in and has been as forthcoming as a lot of people in this whole process. He says that Arizona coaches and by the way, they start fall camp today for football. Arizona coaches are under the impression that Arizona will be in the Big 12 for the twenty twenty four season across all sports. And this is like they are finalizing the deal unless there is something that falls apart late. I mean, this is, you know, big business.

And when people people who like succession and like the deal making side are a lot of the junkies that have been going crazy all morning. And so, you know, unless something falls apart at the last minute, it is understood that Arizona is the most likely move is Arizona to the Big 12. All right. That is the thing that is the closest to the finish line right now. Gotcha.

That's I try to start there. What about Washington and Oregon? You could separate them if you want.

But I keep hearing them in the same group. What's the latest on Washington and Oregon? It was heating up that they were going to the Big Ten last night, but this morning was more cooling.

What do we know now about Washington and Oregon? I'm mad about this one, Hayes. I'm really, really mad because I got got, you know, I was chasing it.

I was like flip flop, flip flop, snip, snip, snip, snip. And then somebody suggested they're like, you realize that this is a negotiation that's playing out in the media, that Oregon and Washington are trying to leak certain nuggets of information. And the Big Ten are trying to leak certain nuggets of information because Oregon and Washington are going to come at a discount. They are negotiating the price of admittance, how many less dollars that they are going to take, because the existing Big Ten presidents have no reason to expand.

It's good. They've got their billion dollar deal. We're just going to add two more votes that we've got to deal with. I got to figure out how to send my volleyball team to Eugene now.

We just figured out the Los Angeles travel. Like there, there are a lot of people in the Big Ten that have no real desire, but they can be sold on the fact that Oregon and Washington are coming at a discount. Oregon and Washington have got some self-respect for themselves. You know, they're not coming out here like, yeah, we're dirt cheap.

Absolutely. So they are currently trying to finalize the price. How many less million dollars per year are we willing to take to come and join the Big Ten? And Oregon and Washington know that they hold the future of the Pac-12 in their hands because if they leave, this whole thing splinters apart. Arizona State, casual sports fan in me says they'll, they'll take whatever deal they can to get in the Big 12 with Arizona going. The university president at Arizona State has been really hard against trying to keep the Pac-12 together. But it seems to be that if Oregon and Washington make the Big Ten move, then Arizona State at least has already got its university partner in Arizona to just jump on board. The Big 12 on its side of things has said Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, when y'all are ready, if y'all are ready, come on down.

We're cool with you. Yeah. And then Utah was my last one, but any idea what they're thinking? How long have they been in the Pac-12? Five, eight years now? Yeah, like, oh, eight, oh, nine, I think is when they made their move. Really? Fifteen years? Yeah.

These years go flying by now, I know. And like Kyle Whittingham's done, you know, been as consistent, it was a rocky start, but then once they found their footing, they've been one of the most consistent programs out there benefiting from USC's downturn, for sure. But I think that this is a position where Utah is less dramatic. It's just the way that I understand it is it'll take more days to get there. Like in terms of the negotiation of all this, they just aren't as far down the line in the process. They haven't had their regents meeting. Arizona and Arizona State have done all of their, you know, checking of boxes in terms of getting university leaders involved. And I have not heard that Utah is there. Though, philosophically, if Arizona and Arizona State are going to the Big 12, and Oregon and Washington are going to the Big 10, and the Big 12 says they've got a spot for you, Utah, which again, it was like just recently made the jump from Group of Five to Power Five. It's like, what?

Yeah, sure, $31.2 million. Let's do it. Alright, I'm not going to try and, this will be my last question for you. I appreciate you taking an extra time with the Adam Goldshire this week.

Chip Patterson, check out all the stuff, the Cover Three podcast. I'm not trying to get philosophical about the ruining of college sports and all that stuff with the moving around, but at some point, this feels like a ridiculous movement between teams that are already in the Power Five. And like, I'm not going to get into the ridiculousness of these volleyball teams, like you sort of mentioned playing each other. I'm just going to focus on, this is about football, right? And football, at most, is what, a 12-game regular season?

I'm sure maybe they... Yeah, you're right. So like, these conferences are going to be so big that they're going to have to get broken down and you're going to end up playing teams that become the conferences that they used to be. Does that make sense? At what point does somebody, does it make more sense to keep them in the conferences they are, pick the number, whatever it's going to be, if you're on the tier that's going to be on the in-crowd, instead of having 25 in the Big Ten and 25 in the SEC, and then divide them back up by region that they kind of were.

Do you see what I'm getting at? I don't know if I have a great question, but like... You're essentially talking about like a Super League, like let's take 48 top teams and split them up into East, West, Northeast... Or I heard somebody else describe it like this, where it's like, the hot, almost in reverse, but the hot move was de-bundling cable, right? Like break it up, like get it into whatever. And now to watch cable, you've basically got to like put together a package that adds back up to like what cable was, you know what I mean?

You're not saving money anymore. So yeah, at what point are you just, some of these teams are going to join the SEC, and even if the SEC breaks up and they all fall into the SEC in the Big Ten, when they go to make their schedules, they're going to have Virginia playing North Carolina, and North Carolina playing North Carolina State, and Duke playing North Carolina. And same on the Pac-12 side, I assume that Washington will play Oregon, and UCLA will play USC, and if they're all in the Big Ten, Oregon's probably going to play UCLA more often than they're going to play Rutgers, and it all just breaks back out again. Like, and I'm not trying to be like the, am I not the only one thinking about this, but like what's the, at what point does it become, we've got a professional college football league, there are whatever number of teams it is, and then we're all going to decide how to divide it up, how it makes the most sense, and it might make the most sense to keep hundred-year-old brands like the Pac-12 and 50 or whatever your brands like the ACC around. That would mean that the SEC and Big Ten would have to give up some power and leverage, and I just don't see that happening. Like, for them to be able to open their arms and saying like, here's what we're doing, we're bringing all these people in, I do not think that the SEC right now is interested in expanding because it believes it doesn't need to. It believes it has the best product, and when you add Texas and Oklahoma to an already strong football system, that what they're going to be able to do in terms of generating revenue and dominating the conversation, they don't need anybody else. The only thing that would drive them to expand is just to play a numbers game to keep up with the Big Ten. And even the Big Ten, I don't see it growing beyond 20, I think they are hesitantly getting to 18 if they decide to take Oregon and Washington. And who knows, they might not end up coming up with a deal. I mean, we could have this day end with the Pac-12 is saved because Oregon and the Big Ten couldn't come up with a discount number and agree on it, and they decide to agree to the Apple deal, Arizona ends up going alone, perhaps. And they bring in San Diego State to replace Arizona. But, you know, this could go the other way, too, where it is consolidation, it is expansion.

I don't, philosophically, the only thing to get philosophical, they cannot be kicking and screaming about tampering in the transfer portal ever again. All y'all been talking. Yeah, they're mad about a wide receivers coach sliding into his players DM and backroom deals are ripping conferences apart. You know, like I just I'm not it's fascinating to have these two stories come one right after the other in terms of college sports and the way that we talk about it. But I don't see what you're talking about, because ultimately the SEC and the Big Ten, if they agreed to some like more professionalized structure, would be giving up power. And currently, the SEC moving forward after this year is 100 percent in bed with ESPN and the Big Ten has no relationship with ESPN. So this is like fundamentally like TV money battle of which college sports and college football in particular just is a pawn on the chessboard. And we'll still see what happens. And we're so excited about this season. And we're still we'll still see what shakes out with, you know, with TV right now.

I mean, there's talks about what ESPN is going to become. It is like I understand why sometimes, you know, we do the cover three podcast. You have a lot of people.

Most of our audience does consume it on their favorite podcast platform or watching it on demand. We do have a pretty big live audience and we get talking about this sometimes. And because there's so much unknown and because it's such a big topic that you're trying to wrap your head around talking about it with your friends like we are right here. The chat all sounds like onto football, onto football. Tired of this. Like, I hear you. I am much more equipped to give you good analysis on Miami's true freshman tackles than I am to be able to break down like big picture media right stuff.

But it's certainly it has consequences and it's a really big story. So, you know, we're trying our best out here. I do.

I do love Paul. Anytime you pull a school, a school that would the fans would say that football is the number one thing at the school, whether it be Ab State, Clemson, ECU, NC State, you know, Texas, whoever. You ask them, like, would you Florida State, would you want your school to leave for the SEC? Oh, yes.

Seventy five percent. Yes. We would want to go to the SEC. I just I love I love every school getting a test that we would want to go to the SEC.

Yes, absolutely. I also love your statement. I can't see the big 10 getting any bigger than 20 schools. That just that made me smile. Where's the big 10-10? I can't see.

We had a 10-10 here out in Apex for years. Come on. Chip Patterson, Cover Three Podcast, CBS Sports. Appreciate the double duty, man. Thank you. Sounds good. You all be well.