San Diego, CA
For subscribers only: San Diego State must wait to see how it fits into conference realignment picture
I used to be mountaineering in Slovenia’s Julian Alps final week when my telephone buzzed with a textual content from an athletic administrator about rumors USC and UCLA could be defecting from the Pac-12 to Huge Ten.
Just a few hours later, the tectonic plates of the school sports activities world have been colliding to type new mountain ranges — and new valleys — throughout the panorama, a lot in the identical manner the African and Eurasian plates slammed into one another some 65 million years in the past to create the Alps. The Huge Ten and SEC are the best ranges now, dwarfing the crumbling ACC, Huge 12 and Pac-12.
One of many distinctive emotions about mountaineering within the excessive mountains is it makes you are feeling small, makes you respect nature’s may, makes you settle for that extra highly effective forces management geologic future. And so it goes for San Diego State and its future within the convoluted period of convention realignment, the place hope and actuality are totally different entities.
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The Aztecs, in different phrases, have to attend to study their destiny. It could be significantly higher, could be marginally higher, may entail the identical, drained journeys to Laramie and Logan within the Mountain West.
In order that they wait. And watch.
It’s charming viewing for the informal observer, much less so in case your future is staked to the result. The Huge Ten (with the 2024 addition of UCLA and USC) and the SEC (with the arrival of Texas and Oklahoma) have claimed the excessive floor. Now the ACC, Huge 12 and Pac-12 are combating for the bronze medal.
The primary salvo was by the Huge 12, with information Tuesday morning it’s making an attempt to poach the perfect of the remainder from the Pac-12: Utah and Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State, possibly Oregon and Washington as properly. Just a few hours later, the Pac-12 countered by authorizing Commissioner George Kliavkoff to “instantly” open negotiations for a media rights contract.
That’s code for ESPN freaking out that its funding within the ACC, which has authorized language binding its members to the community by way of 2036, may very well be rendered irrelevant. ESPN additionally has a stake within the Pac-12, and one resolution is to hyperlink them in some style to consolidate the No. 3 spot whereas pushing apart the Huge 12.
However that solely works if the Huge Ten and SEC, the actual kingmakers right here, let it.
The following domino to tumble is Notre Dame and whether or not it joins the Huge Ten as properly, one thing insiders determine is a when, not if, proposition. In addition they say Stanford, coveted by the academically inclined Huge Ten, would turn out to be the 18th member to supply even numbers.
The query then turns into whether or not the Huge Ten stops there or succumbs to Phil Knight’s advances to take Oregon and Washington, giving it a West Coast department so UCLA’s softball and volleyball groups don’t should cross a number of time zones every week.
Why the scramble to get into the Huge Ten? As a result of it, just like the SEC, quickly pays its members upwards of $100 million per 12 months. The following tier of conferences might be nearer to $30 million or $35 million. Extrapolate that over a decade, and also you’re $700 million much less in your athletic division finances.
Now what occurs when colleges begin paying salaries to soccer and males’s basketball gamers, one other inevitability within the shifting sands of school sports activities? The Huge Ten and SEC will be capable of pay them two or three (or 4 or 5) instances what their former energy convention brethren can, similar to Premier League soccer golf equipment in England in comparison with the decrease divisions.
It doesn’t imply the Huge Ten and SEC may have all the perfect gamers. However with liberal switch guidelines, it means they’ll finally get most of them.
The place does all this go away SDSU?
Too early to inform.
The Pac-12 additionally says it’s exploring enlargement, and the Aztecs, you’d assume, are at or close to the highest of the listing. It’s a massive public college that’s gaining tutorial respect, with a brand new soccer stadium, with a perennial NCAA Match basketball program, with a Southern California presence, with the nation’s 27th largest TV market. The identical goes for the Huge 12, which insists it isn’t carried out increasing.
The calculus turns into geography versus worth. Turns into: Is having a Southern California footprint value lowered TV proper payouts?
Bob Thompson, the previous president of Fox Sports activities Networks who negotiated dozens of media rights offers over the previous 25 years, instructed Oregon journalist John Canzano that the Pac-12’s general value dipped from $500 million per 12 months with its Los Angeles contingent to $300 million with out them. That’s $30 million for every of the remaining 10 members, which suggests including anyone who brings lower than $30 million in annual worth doesn’t make financial sense.
With its particular person carve-out for residence soccer telecasts, Boise State will get just below $5 million per 12 months from the Mountain West; SDSU and everybody else will get $3 million. Thompson estimated, even in the perfect circumstances, the Broncos wouldn’t be value greater than $8 million per 12 months to the Pac-12. SDSU could be the identical or barely much less.
Or put it this manner: If the Pac-12 is now value $300 million, including SDSU and Boise State may get it to $315 million. As a substitute of $30 million per faculty, that turns into extra like $26 million with two extra mouths to feed.
The opposite choice, in fact, is to supply SDSU an enlargement spot at a lowered distribution extra in keeping with its media worth — and SDSU could be inclined to just accept simply to unshackle itself from the Mountain West. However do you actually need to add members who might be at a major aggressive benefit?
And even when the Aztecs settle for a proposal to hitch the Pac-12 after USC and UCLA go away in 2024, who is aware of if the Convention of Champions nonetheless exists by then. Keep in mind when SDSU and Boise State introduced their departure to the Huge East for soccer and the Huge West in most different sports activities? That was December 2011. By December 2012, the Huge East as a soccer convention had disintegrated they usually slinked again to the Mountain West, Boise State with an $1.8 million annual carveout and SDSU with nothing.
Right here’s one other situation: Stanford and the foremost northwest colleges go to the Huge Ten, the mountain and desert colleges go to the Huge 12 and the Pac-12 turns into the Pac-3. That leaves the leftovers — Washington State, Oregon State, Cal and anybody else — to be absorbed by the Mountain West or type a brand new West Coast convention that will function within the shadows of school sports activities’ elites.
It might resemble the preliminary Mountain West, again when it had BYU, Utah and TCU. Higher than its present iteration, however on no account an influence dealer.
Yet one more situation: The Pac-12 stands pat, indicators some form of non-proliferation treaty with the Huge 12 or ACC, and SDSU goes nowhere.
It’s all on the desk, all in play. The opposite factor you study concerning the excessive mountains is the climate adjustments shortly, usually with out warning, generally sunny, generally stormy, and there’s nothing you are able to do about it.
Evacuations were ordered by first responders Thursday afternoon after a brush fire began burning in East County near where state Routes 125 and 54 intersect.
By 12:30, officials said, the flames in Spring Valley had charred just one acre near the Jamacha Boulevard exit of the freeway, but the fire spead significantly in the following hour.
Mandatory evacuations have been ordered in some areas, including at Leigh Avenue and Spring Canyon Drive, but a map of the nearby residential neighborhoods that have ordered out was released (see below).
Cal Fire has two firefighting helicopters at the scene, assisting the San Miguel Fire & Rescue with its ground crews deployed to the incident, according to Cal Fire Capt. Mike Cornette.
Evacuees have been told they can meet at the gym at Mt. Miguel High School, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
Check back for updates on this breaking news story — Ed.
When the San Diego Asian Film Festival gets under way next Thursday it will mark 25 years of artistic achievement and a quarter-century of growth into an international event.
That growth, says Alex Villafuerte, executive director of the festival-presenting Pacific Arts Movement, has been the result of “grit and determination. Lee Ann Kim assembled a great team that took the festival through its formative years. From there it became an institution that filmmakers from around the world look to to showcase Asian cinema.”
“That very first year, in 2000, we were in classrooms and auditoriums at (the University of San Diego). We’ve grown to a 10-day festival now showing 170 films, making us one of the largest showcases of Asian cinema in the country.”
This year’s festival, with screenings at Regal Edwards Mira Mesa and at the Museum of Photographic Arts at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park among other venues, will include films from 35-plus countries in 40-plus languages. The schedule is comprised of full-length features, shorts, documentaries, classics and more.
The opening-night screening at the San Diego Natural History Museum will be of “Cells At Work!”, Hideki Takeuchi’s live-action adaptation of a popular manga series by Akane Shimizu. Takeuchi will be on hand for a discussion after the 7 p.m. screening.
For star power, look no further than Yen Tan’s “All That We Love,” screening Nov. 10 and starring Margaret Cho. “It’s a film about a divorcee whose family dog passes and she uses that to reassess her relationship in her life,” said Villafuerte.
That film comes with a note of symmetry: Director Tan had once been a volunteer graphic designer for the SDAFF, and comedian Cho was part of the very first festival 24 years ago. For details, visit sdaff.org/2024.
Theater
Another comedian and another pioneer in the business, Joan Rivers, is the focal point of a world premiere play by Daniel Goldstein at South Coast Repertory Theatre, just north of us in Costa Mesa. It’s simply titled “Joan.”
The production running through Nov. 24 and starring Tessa Auberjonois is part of South Coast Rep’s “American Icon” series, and Rivers was certainly that. This is not a one-person show re-creating Rivers’ act. It’s a full-cast play that concerns itself not only with Rivers’ career but with her life as a mother, to Melissa Rivers.
That it’s advised that the play contains “adult language” should come as no surprise.
Gospel music
Kirk Franklin has been performing his brand of urban contemporary gospel for decades and has earned 20 Grammys along the way. In case you’re wondering where he’s been lately, you can catch up with Franklin when his “Reunion Tour” comes to SDSU’s Viejas Arena on Saturday night.
Franklin, now 54, is bringing some special guests with him: Yolanda Adams, the Clark Sisters, Marvin Sapp and Fred Hammond. The presence of Adams on the bill is a special treat for those who are already fans of the performer known as the “Queen of Contemporary Gospel Music.”
Tickets start at $36 and go up. Way up.
Book event
San Diego’s women authors will be celebrated on Monday at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park, when the museum’s “Community Mondays” program teams up with the San Diego Writers Festival for an event titled “Women Powered.”
Besides a book fair, the evening is a launch party for poet Jane Muschenetz and her collection “Power Point.” The free event runs from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Registration is required at sandiegowritersfestival.com.
Movie screening
It takes a lot to get me to a movie theater at 11 o’clock in the morning. It takes a lot to get me to do almost anything (besides working) at 11 o’clock in the morning. But with Mel Brooks’ classic “Young Frankenstein” being currently unavailable on either Netflix or Prime Video, I’m tempted to head to Media Arts Center San Diego’s Digital Gym Cinema on Saturday.
That’s when, at 11 a.m., “Young Frankenstein” will be screened, an event in partnership with the San Diego Public Library. Brooks’ 1974 spoof of Mary Shelley’s 1818 horror story is the best film he ever made and it features iconic comic performances from a great cast led by two gone too soon: Gene Wilder and Madeleine Kahn. Marty Feldman’s Igor and Cloris Leachman’s Frau Blucher are also unforgettable, as is Peter Boyle as the monster and Gene Hackman in a side-splitting cameo as a blind man serving soup and a cigar for that same monster.
U-T arts stories you may have missed this week
UCTV
University of California Television invites you to enjoy this special selection of programs from throughout the University of California. Descriptions courtesy of and text written by UCTV staff:
“Gene Perry & Rumba Ketumba”
Watch the electrifying performance of Gene Perry & Rumba Ketumba recorded at UC San Diego’s Park & Market. Perry, a fixture in San Diego’s music scene since 1974, was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and is a pioneer of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Caribbean music. His ensemble, Rumba Ketumba, features a vibrant mix of San Diego natives and international musicians. The group delivers high-energy Afro-Latin, Caribbean and Spanish Rumba rhythms that will keep you moving. “Gene Perry and Rumba Ketumba’s extraordinary musical talent and personalities are hard for audiences to resist,” says host Yael Strom, who has collaborated with the group on several groundbreaking cross-genre projects.
“Storytelling for the Screen: ‘The Citizen’”
Writer/director Sam Kadi and actors William Atherton and Rizwan Manji join moderator Juan Campo for an engaging discussion about “The Citizen.” The film tells the story of Ibrahim Jarrah, an immigrant from the Middle East who arrives in New York City one day before the tragic events of Sept. 11. The panel explores their experiences making the film, drawing inspiration from real Arab American stories, and its continued relevance. They discuss themes of citizenship, the immigrant experience, racial prejudice, and the right to protest, as well as the representation of Arab Americans on-screen. “The Citizen” offers a compelling look at the struggles and triumphs of pursuing the American dream in challenging times.
“AI for Security, Security for AI”
How secure are computers, and how does artificial intelligence impact security? In this program, Christopher Kruegel, professor of computer science at UC Santa Barbara, addresses two important questions in security and AI. First, how AI can enhance security? For decades, traditional machine learning models have been used in security solutions, but recent advances in AI are opening up new and exciting opportunities. Second, the security of AI systems themselves. Like any other software, AI systems are vulnerable to exploitation. Given their critical roles, it is essential to secure AI against attacks such as training data poisoning and adversarial inputs. Join Kruegel as he explores both the promises and the vulnerabilities of AI in today’s digital landscape.
And finally, top weekend events
The best things to do this weekend in San Diego: Nov. 1-3.
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