Absolutely can give more detail
Monetarily: I don’t believe Fox would agree to increase the payouts pro rata for Cal like they have with CU and potentially others. I fully admit I could be wrong on that.
Athletically: Cal is poor in football and basketball. I can’t necessarily speak to their other sports, but they haven’t been competitive in the two main ones in 10+ years. In football they are 66-84 since 2010. In basketball their last tourney appearance was 2016 and last sweet 16 was 1997. I’d say that’s probably on par with ISU athletically. But if the tables were turned here, I don’t think ISU would be considered for P12 membership unfortunately
Culturally is tough to explain, and anecdotal, but I’ve worked with several Berkeley grads and CU grads. Berkeley is just a different world than the Midwest. Well beyond your typical liberal campus environment, even for a liberal campus like Boulder. I’m not saying that’s bad, and don’t want to cave the topic. I’m not using liberal for a political discussion, just as a descriptor. I’m saying the Big 12’s priorities on football and Cal’s priorities, vision and goals won’t align. This is a student body/alumni that had a massive, 2 year tree sit-in over the removal of a grove of oak trees to build an athletic facility in 2008. That is an example of how culturally the school and conference don’t align