Arizona State University is exploring new territory with their conference move to the Big 12. Instead of their usual hour and a half flight to LA to play against USC and UCLA, they’re flying almost four hours to schools like Cincinnati. What impact does that have on the teams and student athletes?
Pac-12 has a long history here in our state, both ASU and University of Arizona were in the conference for more than 45 years. Now both are in the Big 12 and face new opponents, challenges and travel costs.
Senior Associate Athletic Director Marcus Williams oversees 16 out of 24 sports, and focuses on student facing formats such as sports performance. He talked about ASU’s challenges.
“You know you’re used to what you’re used to right,” Williams said. “So the Pac-12 we had a long historical connection and understanding of what places we’re going to, individuals that you are working with.”
Arizona universities weren’t alone in their transition, most teams moved to new conferences. This includes schools such as USC and University of California, Berkeley.
USC was one of the first schools to leave the Pac-12, moving to the Big Ten. Since their 2022 announcement, they’ve been planning for additional travel costs. Cody Worsham is USC’s athletic department’s spokesperson.
“It’s a good balance of new ideas and experience here at USC,” Worsham said. “I think the planning began again as soon as USC committed to moving conferences.”
Worsham said the team is not traveling more, but traveling farther. Instead of flying to cities like Phoenix, Boulder, Eugene. They’re now flying out to Ann Arbor, Minneapolis, and even Washington, D.C.
Despite USC’s longer trips, they’re still playing former Pac-12 schools like UCLA, Oregon and Washington.
However, Cal is now in the ACC with a variety of new opponents. Their closest team is their long time rival, Stanford. Both schools now face teams on the Atlantic Coast, distant from their Pacific Coast homes.
Cal Senior Associate Athletic Director Jay Larson says the school has developed a plan to prepare for time zone transitions for their student athletes.
“An alum who’s a sleep expert who consults for NASA and he spoke at our head coaches meeting and is really serving as a consultant to a lot of our head coaches on how to optimize performance and when to leave, when to travel to the East Coast,” Larson said.
Larson added the school is now flying out of San Francisco’s airport instead of Oakland due to San Francisco having more East Coast flights.
Many assume these transitions would lead to additional travel costs. However, these three schools say that’s not always the case.
According to Williams it’s too early to tell, but travel costs are dependent on the sport, new hotels, cities and more.
“I think what we could potentially save and stay in a place a little longer instead of going to one place and then coming back,” Williams said.
USC’s Worsham said it’s also important to realize not all sports are impacted by the new conference. He said only nine out of 23 USC sport teams are moving to the Big Ten and the move only impacts about 40% of their student athletes.
“Some of our other sports are in the MPSF which is separate from the Big Ten,” Worsham said. “So for example our beach volleyball program.”
This is the same case for Cal and ASU.
When it came to choosing their new conference, Cal actually turned to its students. Larson says students wanted to stay in a power conference, while the university also wanted to be with similar schools. He said that’s what the ACC offers.
“So we feel we’re in the right home as far as like-minded institutions,” Larson said.
Larson added that the school will now have the opportunity to be on national television citing ESPN’s ACC channel.
“Again to play in front a national audience and get in front of more of our alums and build our brand,” Larson said.
With all of the new moves, these schools have also tried to focus on the transition for athlete’s. According to ASU’s Marcus Williams, ASU provides their students with all the support they need.
“Our academic advisors travel, they travel with the team,” Williams said. “So for example, whenever football goes to an away trip, they have study hall time.”
ASU Volleyball player Claire Jeter said ASU has been supportive of athletes during the transition.
“I mean they do everything they can to make it easy on us,” Jeter said. “They make sure we’re provided with food, they make sure we have good study schedules, that we have time to do our homework.”
Jeter is a graduate student from Texas and said it's good to be back home when she gets the chance to play teams in that state.
Jeter said there have been some minor challenges.
“There’s been some difficulties just with like flights and stuff,” Jeter said. “There’s not a lot of direct flights to certain areas that we have to go. So some of those are kind of hard.”
The middle blocker said the Big 12 has welcomed ASU and says getting to play new teams is exciting.
These former Pac-12 schools say they’re excited to be in their new conferences and play new opponents they haven’t played before.
