Why are sports such a failure out west?

For many years, the National League West was the worst in baseball. The team to win the division was barely .500 and the whole baseball establishment was critical of allowing any of them in the playoffs.
In the NFL, the AFC west was horrible, outside of the Chargers, with the imploding Broncos, the imploded Raiders and the just plain sad Chiefs. The NFC didn't fair any better, with only the Cardinals not being completely worthless. They boasted the atrocious Rams and Seahawks, as well as the merely bad 49ers.
Now the suck is spreading to PAC 10 basketball. This year, the leader in conference, California, is merely 7-4 in the conference. This is a conference that has had losses to Illinois Chicago, Portland and San Diego State. Not good, not at all.
Oregon State lost to Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Sacramento State, and the aforementioned Illinois-Chicago. Every conference has a worst team, and in most power conferences, Oregon State would be it. They are 4-6 in the Pac 10, 2 1/2 games behind Cal. Tied with Oregon for 8th. Horrible.
We are at a point where the conference will only put a team in the Big Dance that wins the end of year tournament. That's pretty unbelievable.