USC’s reasons for leaving the Pac-12 Conference aren’t complicated

So after a century of history and tradition and a lot of domination on the gridiron, why would USC suddenly decide to leave the Pac-12 for the Big 10?

This decision seemingly came out of left field and to make it worse, the Trojans and Bruins pretty much were holding hands and walking into the sunset that was the Pac-12. The two biggest schools took their ball and the biggest market on the West Coast for greener pastures. Now the other schools, like Oregon, are left scrambling.

It’s couldn’t have been just about the money, right? We went to USC insider and friend of the site, editor of TrojansWire.com Matt Zemek, for some answers. According to him, this wasn’t all that complicated.

It’s money.

UCLA in particular was drowning in debt. USC wasn’t in debt, but the Trojans stood to make tens of millions more dollars in the Big Ten. If any school president is offered several tens of millions of dollars each year, is that president going to say no? USC and UCLA are going to get a full share of Big Ten revenue. They stand to make at or above $100 million per year under a TV deal currently estimated to be worth $1.143 billion according to recent reporting from Pac-12 journalists and their sources within the media industry. USC was not going to turn that down.

Zemek also said that our old “friend” and former Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott was so bad at his job at negotiating the conference’s media deal that now that those chickens are coming home to roost in the seeming demise of the Pac-12.

Larry Scott simply devalued the Pac-12 so much that USC didn’t have much of a choice. Scott also failed to tether the Pac-12 to ESPN when he had a chance in 2018. If he had done that, USC and UCLA would still be in the Pac-12.

Bottom line: it came down to the Benjamins and USC and UCLA just hit the lottery with the Big 10. The Los Angeles schools had a choice of walking away from the cash or the conference. They made the smart move and took the money.