We are now just months away from a new era in college athletics where the super conferences will be bigger and more powerful than ever before. The Big Ten and SEC will largely rule the world in college football.
But it’s not just teams, rivalries, and revenue that is consolidating. It’s the media outlets who cover them as well. With a new nationwide conference, the Big Ten Network is likewise looking at expansion.
Earlier this summer, BTN President François McGillicuddy confirmed in an interview with longtime west coast sportswriter John Canzano that the network would be adding talent in front of and behind the cameras to help provide coverage for the addition four former Pac-12 schools – USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington. No official announcements have been made regarding new on-air talent, but we already know at least one personality who will be making the move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten.
Pac-12 Network host Ashley Adamson penned a farewell column on JohnCanzano.com that thanked many individuals at the conference and the network by name while also sharing that her next venture will be with the newly expanded Big Ten.
I’m also continuing my broadcasting career. As of July, I’ll be covering college football for the Big Ten Network. I look forward to sharing the stories of four schools I already know and love — Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington — and am thrilled to reconnect with the schools I grew up watching. As a kid, I lived a mile from ‘The Big House’ in Ann Arbor. It will be a serendipitous full-circle moment to cover my first game there as an adult.
If you had told me a few years ago I would be writing my farewell to the Pac-12 on JohnCanzano.com, I would have thought something had gone horribly wrong… and I guess it did. But here I am, so grateful to him for giving me a platform to share these thoughts with you.
Adamson also opened up about the demise of the Pac-12 Network and her perspective on the oft-criticized former commissioner Larry Scott and how the collapse of the conference weighed on everyone involved.
At times, I am asked about Larry Scott, the former Pac-12 commissioner who became the primary scapegoat for the demise of the league. My take is this: I have great appreciation for anyone who tries to do something that has never been done before. Scott’s vision to create the first conference-owned network was revolutionary. For many, many reasons, it never realized its full potential.
I won’t speak for Scott or any of my other colleagues, but I can tell you the weight of a beloved, 108-year-old conference imploding on our watch is something that will be with me forever. I will always be devastated by the unfulfilled potential of the Pac-12 Network. And yet, that doesn’t take away from the immeasurable pride I feel to have been a very small part of it.
With the Big Ten looking at at least one and possibly two new outposts on the west coast given their new member schools, adding someone like Ashley Adamson is a no-brainer for the league network. It was just a few months ago that Adamson signed off the network’s basketball coverage admittedly not knowing what was happening next for her or the many others working at the network.
Thankfully, at least some of them will be able to continue working in the space, albeit for an entirely new conference in a whole new era of college athletics.
