The move of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten on Thursday sent shock waves throughout college sports and in particular, college football. The move to raid the Pac 12 for their two marquee programs clearly pointed to the inevitability of there being two superconferences in college football in the Big Ten and the SEC.
And then, according to ESPN’s Paul Finebaum, there is everybody else.
In speaking on Friday during an appearance on ESPN’s First Take, Finebaum reacted to the news about UCLA and USC (but in particular, USC) leaving the Pac 12 for the Big Ten. It is a seismic move according to Finebaum, one that is clearly being driven by television revenue. In answering a question about the move, Finebaum threw a bit of shade at former NFL wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson, an alumnus of USC.
Johnson was on First Take on Friday morning making for an affable launching point for Finebaum’s analysis.
“I’m happy for Keyshawn – he’s an alum, a famous alum I might add, of a football program that’s suddenly relevant again – congratulations ‘Key’ it’s been a long time seeing you on the national stage,” Finebaum said to a laughing Johnson.
“This is such a significant move because the Pac 12, unfortunately, is just simply drifting off toward Hawaii as an eyesore. And with this one move yesterday, Southern Cal is right back in the money. I think they were eventually going to be anyway because of what Lincoln Riley is doing. But they were always going to be held back in an inferior league that has all these attributes that just simply don’t work very well. In the Big Ten, they’re back on Broadway,,,We said a year ago that the Oklahoma-Texas move was maybe one of the most dramatic moves in the history of college football. This may be more important because it locks down one of the most valuable media markets in the country in L.A. with its two prime schools.”
The Big Ten is now set to have at least one program in each of the top four media markets in the…
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