How USC and UCLA joining the Big Ten can impact Penn State moving forward

Thursday’s news that UCLA and USC will leave the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten in 2024 will have ripple effects throughout the college football world. Penn State could be one of the more directly impacted schools.

Let’s take a look at three ways the Nittany Lions could be impacted by the conference moves that could shake up the world of college athletics.

Financial impact

This is easily the biggest impact the moves will have — and the likely cause for them. Adding the Los Angeles market will only increase the Big Ten’s value when it comes time to renegotiate its new television rights deal, which is now. Apple has already reportedly rejoined those negotiations now that USC and UCLA are back in the fold.

The financial impact could be enormous for all of Penn State athletics, giving the university the funding to continue maintaining all 31 athletic programs it currently boasts. The impact on the most notable programs — football, both basketball teams and wrestling — could be enormous.

Let’s start at the top with football. Penn State head coach James Franklin told the Centre Daily Times in the spring that his program needed to be able to compete in every aspect of program building with the schools it aspires to challenge on the field. The athletic department having a financial windfall from a new TV deal could open the door for the football program to compete off the field when it comes to staff size, spending on recruiting, facilities and other smaller areas like nutrition and staff salaries.

Meanwhile, the basketball programs could see similar budget increases that allow them to compete off the court and raise the standard on the court at the same time. The impact with wrestling is more simple. The athletic department would be able to give head coach Cael Sanderson, arguably the greatest college coach — in any sport — of all time, whatever he needs to keep steamrolling the competition.

Recruiting footprint

One of the more subtle impacts for Penn State will be the ability to attract recruits from a broader base. Right now, most of Penn State’s programs rarely travel to California to compete. That’s only an issue because it’s one of the most prosperous states in the country when it comes to high school athletics — especially football.

Giving Penn State a larger audience will certainly draw more eyes of young fans to the programs at the school. The Big Ten Network — with whoever holds the rights for the conference — will surely be more readily available and watched more in the Los Angeles market and other areas in California. That alone will draw attention to other Big Ten programs, like Penn State, and make it more of a national brand than it already is.

That should be impactful for every program, not just football. It’s difficult for high school athletes to commit to programs they don’t know much about, and increasing that knowledge base for those players about Penn State will only help the athletic department in the long run.

Not to mention, the conference is now in a tier alone with the SEC atop the college football world. That reputation extending to the West Coast will help the football program reach into the talent-rich left coast.

What comes next?

It doesn’t seem likely this is the last domino to fall in college realignment. This cycle began with Oklahoma and Texas leaving the Big 12 for the SEC and isn’t going to end here. There are now 10 programs in the Pac-12 that have to be considering their future after the two biggest brands in the conference announced their exit plans.

On top of that, the Big 12 is already in a difficult place after losing the aforementioned programs to the SEC. Those two conferences are bound to have their programs mentioned as possible targets for the SEC and Big Ten, or potentially to merge together. Any more movement out of either the Big 12 or Pac-12 could spell doom for them and could lead to what seems inevitable in college football — 20-team super conferences.

There is one other major domino looming in this discussion. Any time realignment is discussed, Notre Dame is mentioned — and for good reason. The Fighting Irish are independent in football despite being in the ACC in other sports. Their independence has been lucrative in the past because of their ability to freely schedule and sign television contracts free of the constraints of a conference.

That may be less appealing as it becomes harder to schedule with prominent programs because of their conference schedules, and soon a TV deal with a conference may be more lucrative than the ones Notre Dame has signed in the past.

Joining any conference would cause more shifts in college football, but the school joining the Big Ten would open the door to regional rivalries with the likes of Penn State and Ohio State.

It’s highly unlikely realignment is over — and any future additions will surely impact the Nittany Lions down the road.