Washington Husky Alumni here...with strong family connections to UCLA...longtime Pac 8/10/12 football fan. I'm sad but not surprised. CFB was ruined long ago and this is the final step. All the regional rivalries will go away and the schools like Washington State, Oregon State and others will lose a lot as this plays out. The money is the only driving factor now and schools are now making decisions solely based on their tv contract payout (supposedly non-profit educational institutions) regardless off what it does to their school and how it impacts it in other ways. Washington and Oregon have presented themself to the Big Lebowski (not sure what to call the Big Ten anymore) and there was mutual interest, BUT they want to see what Notre Dame does first. No surprise that ND controls a lot of how this plays out. My guess is that the Big XXXX takes ND (if they want to go) Wash, OR and Stanford who is a traditional rival of ND...however Stanford isn't all that committed to football despite their success under Harbaugh and Shaw. That would give the Big XXXX the Seattle market, the Nike national brand (OR) and the Bay Area.
When the dust settles there will be about 40 programs competing in these 2 mega, mini-NFL conferences and, of that group, only 5 to 10 will have a real chance of winning it each year. I've been to 3 Rose Bowls and they were some of the most fun sporting events I've ever been to because they were special and rare. The tv networks have won and CFB is now corporate seeking the maximize dollars and collecting the best "properties" which is what they now call universities. The traditions simply won't carry over anymore..not to mention how much the games now cost Attending a playoff game a few years ago cost me over $200 for pretty bad seats...that's going to keep going up. Last but not least, imagine the UCLA softball team or the USC soccer team playing a midweek game at Rutgers....this does not help the olympic sports and the other non-revenue producing sports like cross country, tennis, water polo, swimming track etc etc. Back in the day the first mission of a school was to provide a great education..somewhere that has gotten lost.