UC Regents Push Decision Date For UCLA's Big Ten Move to December
The status of the Bruins’ move to the Big Ten remains up in the air.
Thursday morning’s much-anticipated University of California Board of Regents meeting was rumored to mark the end of the board's involvement in UCLA's change of conference affiliation. Instead, the meeting featured an announcement that the regents would reconvene for a special meeting on Dec. 14 to make the final call on the Bruins’ impending move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten.
As scheduled, UCLA chancellor Gene Block and UC Berkeley chancellor Carol Christ still spoke at Thursday’s meeting. The former attempted to reason with the regents in defense of his and athletic director Martin Jarmond’s choice to flip conferences back in June.
"This is not simple,” Block said. “It's painful, but my feeling was that it was in the best interest of our student-athletes and in the best interest of our institution.”
Christ focused her talking points around criticizing the pay-for-play nature of name, image and likeness deals, rather than how UCLA's move will impact the finances of her institution. The sixth-year chancellor also said she believed that the Bruins’ move would be costly for many student-athletes on campus.
"The consolidation of conferences… is not to the benefit of student-athletes,” Christ said. “In particular women's and Olympic sports."
As has been brought up by Block and Jarmond on several occasions over the past few months, however, UCLA may need to cut women's and Olympic sports teams entirely if they are not allowed to join the Big Ten and take advantage of its billion dollar media deal.
Regent John Perez, who has been among the most outspoken in claiming the board has every right to block UCLA's move, told reporters that he is focused on the student-athletes, right after oddly comparing the Bruins' decision to a call on the field that has to go to a booth review in order to be upheld.
"Regardless of whether they (UCLA) stay or go, regardless of whether Cal was impacted by the decision or not, what are our expectations for improvement of student-athlete experience everywhere?" Perez said. "Those are the questions that are still actively there."
According to the New York Times' Billy Witz, the Bruins could possibly face a legal challenge from Sacramento, with state senator Nancy Skinner at the forefront of the action.
Skinner is planning to draft a bill that would take aim at the NCAA's 20-hour rule, which caps the amount of time a student-athlete can focus on a sport per week. The rule does not currently include travel as a part of the 20 hours, which could soon become related to UCLA’s future expeditions to the East Coast as a part of the Big Ten.
UCLA could also face legal action from the Big Ten if it was forced to return to the Pac-12, considering the Bruins signed on as part of the conference's record-breaking media deal over the summer.
The saga will continue for another month, at least, though, and the questions will still linger until the regents finally put them to bed in the near future.
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