'I'm Done' — Fans Disappointed as Stanford and UC Berkeley Join Atlantic Coast Conference

Bay Area college sports fans and Cal supporters were disappointed by the news that Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley will leave a disintegrating Pac-12 to join the Atlantic Coast Conference for the 2024–25 school year after the ACC voted on Friday to add the two schools, along with Southern Methodist University.

“Our conference really identified with the West Coast. … It’s sad to think that it’s not going to be there anymore, and all the local rivalries,” said Rich Kennedy, who told KQED he’s been a Cal fan all his life. “You can stand up and you can see the Pacific Ocean, and now we’re going to be in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Makes no sense.”

In statements Friday, both Stanford and UC Berkeley welcomed the move, which would bring to nine the number of ACC schools that are members of the Association of American Universities.

“We are very pleased with the outcome, which will support the best interests of our student-athletes and aligns with Berkeley’s values,” said UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol T. Christ, while Jerry Yang, chair of the Stanford University Board of Trustees, said “We appreciate the invitation of the ACC member schools, and we are excited to join them.”

But for diehard Cal fans, the news came as a shock.

“I’m done, I’m done with all that stuff,” said John Reinthaler, a Cal Bears fan since age 6. “Big money has taken over not only the rest of our professional sports, but taken over the NCAA. Everybody chases the money and that’s what it’s all about. Everyone worries about our attendance and stuff at the stadium, which is nice, but it’s all driven by TV.”

“As a student, you want to be able to support your teams, I think that’s a part of the college experience,” said Christian Tate, while watching an NCAA football game between Cal and North Texas. “You have to have a level of disposable income to go and travel to a football game … so I think it makes it hard to root for your team outside of the few home games.”

The move by Stanford and UC Berkeley to the Atlantic Coast Conference was one born out of need, not convenience.

After watching seven fellow Pac-12 schools follow conference flagships Southern California and UCLA to new homes last month, the success-rich programs at Stanford and Cal had no viable options left other than joining a conference based on the other side of the continent.

“Conference affiliations and the broadcast revenue they generate provide key financial support for the wide array of sports that Stanford offers,” said Stanford’s Jaquish & Kenninger Director of Athletics Bernard Muir, in a statement Friday. “Joining the ACC will ensure the Power Conference competitive infrastructure and long-term media revenues that are critical for our student-athletes to compete.”

Lifelong Cal fan Dan Sanford blames the Pac-12 commissioner for the disintegration of the conference.

“The PAC 12 Commissioner didn’t have the foresight to anticipate this, and they kind of took an aggressive line with the television networks, and as a result of that, they got burned,” said Sanford in an interview with KQED. “When USC and UCLA decided to leave the conference, they left the door open for that to happen because of the timing, and they didn’t arrange an alternative to it fast enough. So the whole thing imploded. Very sad circumstances for Cal, Stanford, Washington State and Oregon State, because they were the four left standing at the end of the day.”

The Bay Area schools located just miles from the Pacific Ocean accepted invitations, along with Dallas-based SMU, to the ACC on Friday to be part of a conference with schools almost exclusively in states on the Eastern seaboard.

“We’ve talked a lot to our student-athletes and got feedback that they want to play at the highest level,” Cal athletic director Jim Knowlton said. “They want to still have opportunities to compete for national championships, to produce Olympians and they want to compete against schools like us.”

The seeds for the move were planted when USC and UCLA accepted invitations in June 2022 to join the Big Ten next season. With a diminished Pac-12 unable to get a media rights deal with the revenue and distribution to satisfy many of the remaining schools, the conference started to break up this summer.

Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah left for the Big 12, with Oregon and Washington headed to the Big Ten. That left Stanford, Cal, Oregon State and Washington State as the only Pac-12 schools.

The Bay Area schools had more options because of their location and rich athletic traditions. Both schools felt the move to the ACC was the best financially and to allow the nonrevenue Olympic sports to compete at the top level of college athletics, which would have been difficult in a Pac-12 made up of the remaining four schools and other available additions.

“The athletes care deeply about being able to play at the highest level of competition and to play with like schools,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said. “This move guarantees or achieves those two goals. A reconstituted Pac-12, though there’s a lot of imaginative attractiveness about that, it’s also very uncertain about whether it would achieve those two goals.”

Stanford has won a record 134 NCAA championships — including at least one in 46 straight years — and produced 296 medals at the Summer Olympics. Cal is not far behind with 103 national championships and 223 Olympic medals.

The move doesn’t come without costs with increased travel in many sports and a reduction in revenue.

Cal and Stanford will receive a partial share of ACC Tier 1 media revenue for the next nine years before getting a full payment in the final three years of the conference’s deal with ESPN, according to a person familiar with the terms. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the ACC and the schools have not disclosed the finances.

Cal and Stanford will get a 30% share in the first seven years, followed by 70% and 75% the next years before getting the full amount, the person said. The schools will immediately get full shares of money from the ACC Network, the College Football Playoff, bowl games and NCAA men’s basketball tournament units.

There will be an initial gap of about $15 million a year from what the schools were currently getting from the Pac-12. Cal will make up some of that gap through a “tax” that the UC Regents placed on UCLA for going to the Big Ten, which will be between $2 million and $10 million a year. Christ said the final determination will be made after the regents get the full details of the contracts.

Neither school plans to cut any sports and will seek to close the funding gap through other campus sources.

“Conference affiliations and the broadcast revenue they generate provide key financial support for the wide array of sports that Stanford offers,” athletic director Bernard Muir said. “Joining the ACC will ensure the power conference competitive infrastructure and long-term media revenues that are critical for our student-athletes to compete.”

As for travel, both Cal and Stanford said the majority of their teams will see little or no impact on their schedules. Both school have several teams (six at Cal and 11 at Stanford) that compete in sports not sponsored by the ACC.

For sports like golf, tennis, gymnastics, track and swimming that mostly participate in tournaments and meets, there will be little need to travel East other than for the conference championships with some in-season meets possibly being held in the Dallas area.

For nonrevenue team sports like soccer, baseball, softball and volleyball, teams at Cal and Stanford will likely only need to make two regular season trips to the East Coast. Most of those teams typically make one trip East for nonconference play but will now only do it for ACC games.

The basketball and football teams will likely make three of four trips East each, with some of the basketball trips likely aligned with school breaks.

“I just feel like we’ll just have to switch our traveling and just stay home in November and December and travel in January and February,” Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer said. “Our players want that kind of competition.”

This story includes reporting from Josh Dubow of The Associated Press and KQED’s Dana Cronin.