BASEBALL

USC Sunday Buzz: Time To Step In With A Reasonable Commitment

Two weeks ago, Jen Cohen bragged that athletic dept. revenue at USC is up 60 percent the past three years and donors have increased the department’s financial reserves by more than 700 percent since she took over as athletic director.

So where is the commitment to USC baseball?

The Trojans just went to the Super Regional for the first time in 20 years, so how about letting baseball bring in 2-3 marquee transfers? USC always seems more likely to lose baseball players to the portal than adding them. Why did USC have to lose its best pitcher, Cade Aoki, after last season? He is in Omaha right now with Georgia.

Here’s the thing: It really isn’t much of a financial commitment compared to football or basketball. And it’s a big bang for relatively small bucks. That is, if you really increased revenue and the financial reserves.

16 thoughts on “USC Sunday Buzz: Time To Step In With A Reasonable Commitment”

  1. I wouldn’t get into an NIL bidding war over a baseball player. If you overspend in a non-revenue generating sport like baseball and produce only an average to good team, it is worse than spending virtually nothing and producing a poor to average team. Maximize football spending to the detriment of the lesser non-revenue producing sports. I wouldn’t spend any NIL dollars on any sports other than football, men and women basketball, baseball and a few track and volleyball athletes and all sports other than football would be on the low end. I think we are currently overspending on basketball.

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    1. Everybody is happy USC did so much with so little this year in baseball —and they’ll be happy with the same next year.

      But they won’t be happy if USC’s football team loses to Oregon and Ohio State at the coliseum.

      Good news: Highly respected Lindy’s Sports rates USC Football as Top Ten in 2026.

      Bad News: Oregon, Ohio State and Indiana are all rated ahead of us [with Oregon being named National Champion].

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      1. So four from the BIG in the top 10. And Washington and Penn State are not exactly chopped liver. Wonder what the SEC with Georgia, Texas, Texas A&M, Alabama, Oklahoma, Old Miss, Missouri, Auburn and LSU think about the Lindy predictions. There may be a new sheriff in town.

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    2. Per men’s basketball – that play was gone when Wooden dominated in the 1960-70’s. The university has never been able to recover and I believe it is because there is no real interest in doing so. That feeling flows outward – USC will never generate enough interest to be a magnet for ntl’ attention and everyone knows it. It’s why I and many alums don’t care for men’s basketball USC or any other – NBA I’ll watch it but college? Who cares.

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      1. Agree Rusoviet. Even when USC managed to field some good teams they didn’t sell out. The Galen Center is a nice venue and NIL is competitive and yet still no real interest by the fan base. The students don’t go to weekday games and neither do the alumni who work in downtown LA. I wish USC would just accept their situation and stop wasting money on a 4 million dollar coach and one and done player at 1 million. Rather, develop the local high school kids from Bosco, Mater Dei, ect. and try to keep them together for 3 or 4 years and see what happens. I bet the chance to play with their high school and travel club friends will entice them. Hire the Bosco high school coach for the USC job. He has won a few state championships and his brother is married to my niece. I will talk to him and make the deal. I bet he would do it for 500K and then use the other 3.5 from Musselman’s salary for NIL to the local kids.

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      1. I rather hope the Pac-12 makes an offer to NM St. ‘Aggies’, as their 9th member keeping that streak of ‘name of city/state ‘St.’ UTEP is wisely leaving the Conference USA for the Mtn West. ND St. is the most intriguing joining the Mtn West

        Going to be weird reading No. IL, in the Mtn West, traveling west as Sac St., in the Mid-American, goes east next year.

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