Big Ten football means something in the national psyche. It’s the Midwest. It’s Frigidaire-snowy Saturdays after a crisp fall. It’s teams defined by tough running games and rounded shoulders. One thing it is not and has never been is a coastal operation of golden beaches and year-round sunshine.
And yet, here is UCLA, planning to abandon the Pac-12 conference and join the Big Ten, following a vote from the University of California Board of Regents next week. Opponents of the move are hoping to block it; they will almost certainly lose.
They will lose because this is not about a sports tradition or weather patterns. This is about big business and treating our college campuses as settings for in-demand entertainment and only incidentally places where students happen to attend classes. This is about cold hard cash.
