Pac-10 expansion will get earnest consideration

[Dback Jon]

Debating Pac-10 expansion is no longer idle chit-chat. Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott made that clear during a teleconference with reporters Tuesday.

"It really is over the next six to 12 months that we'll start having serious analysis and serious conversations," Scott said about potential expansion.

Scott was joined on the conference call by Kevin Weiberg, his new right-hand man. Weiberg, the former Big 12 commissioner and Big Ten executive, was named deputy commissioner and chief operating officer this week.

Scott said he spent the first six months of his tenure listening to administrators throughout the conference. Now he's turning his focus toward action.

"The announcement of Kevin is really the start of changes and repositioning you'll see for the conference over the next 12 to 18 months," he said.

That time period is vital because the conference's TV and media contracts expire after the 2011-12 academic year. The conference needs a significant upgrade in revenue if it is going to keep up with the other BCS conferences, particularly the SEC and Big Ten.

And expansion could make the conference more alluring during negotiations.

"It makes sense [to consider expansion], if you are going to do it, to do it when you can monetize it and get value for it commercially," Scott said.

It also appears that some sort of Pac-10 network -- it could be a partnership with another BCS conference -- will get serious consideration. Scott said Weiberg's experience building the Big Ten network was "very significant."

 

[TheHopToad]

The question is going to be which schools would be under consideration to join the conference. There really aren't many other major universities in the west that could be competitive all around.

IMO, BYU and Utah is the best shot. Both have balanced and competitive athletic programs and also maintain the Pac-10's geographic structure of having two teams paired together (ASU-UA, USC-UCLA, Cal-Stanford, etc).

Boise State would work for football, but not sure how well their other programs are. There are other regional schools with unbalanced programs as well, like Fresno State and UNLV.

 

[PoolBoy]

Boise State should get a very serious look especially considering their rivalry with Oregon.

 

[Dback Jon]

Boise State should get a very serious look especially considering their rivalry with Oregon.

Not a chance is hell Boise gets invited.

They bring very little in terms of revenue.

 

[PoolBoy]

they would bring a lot of interest in football. they are always on ESPN and such. put them in a real conference and they will bring money

 

[Dback Jon]

they would bring a lot of interest in football. they are always on ESPN and such. put them in a real conference and they will bring money

Again, absolutely NO CHANCE of them being invited.

The Boise market is small. They don't add anything.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Boise has no chance. It's Colorado, Utah, Texas schools, or bust. BYU also if they make some concessions.

 

[DWKB]

If you're gonna mention Boise St then you might as well include Gonzaga. They have about as good of a chance, i.e. none.

 

[Southpaw]

I would think it would depend on whether the Pac 10 wants to bring in patsies or competition. Plus the new schools will have to buy in.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

It's not about competition or patsies, it's about money. The Pac will try to lure whoever brings the most of it.

 

[Arizona's Finest]

It's not about competition or patsies, it's about money. The Pac will try to lure whoever brings the most of it.

Market size, strength in more then one sport, keeping natural rivalrys, and proximity will all be brought into consideration as well. With the Pac-10's Thursday-Saturday basketball schedule helping allieviate religious concerns, my money is BYU/UTAH.

 

[Russ Smith]

I hope the plan falls through the setup for basketball and football will change in ways I just won't like.

I like that current format, I don't see it working you bring in 2 more teams and suddenly an 18 game basketball season is 22 games before the conference tourney. We know they won't junk the tourney so they'll split the conference into two 6 team groups and it just won't be the same home and home. You'll play the 5 teams in your group twice home and home and the 6 teams not in your group once or some nonsense like that.

 

[ajcardfan]

Market size, strength in more then one sport, keeping natural rivalrys, and proximity will all be brought into consideration as well. With the Pac-10's Thursday-Saturday basketball schedule helping allieviate religious concerns, my money is BYU/UTAH.

Those two would, by far, be the most logical way to expand the conference.


But, if Texas is actually landed by the Big Ten? All bets are off, it will get CRAZY if that happened!

 

[ajcardfan]

I hope the plan falls through the setup for basketball and football will change in ways I just won't like.

I like that current format, I don't see it working you bring in 2 more teams and suddenly an 18 game basketball season is 22 games before the conference tourney. We know they won't junk the tourney so they'll split the conference into two 6 team groups and it just won't be the same home and home. You'll play the 5 teams in your group twice home and home and the 6 teams not in your group once or some nonsense like that.

Yeah, that's how the Big 12 and SEC schedule it.

What they see is they are getting killed in terms of TV money compared to the other conferences. I'm sure they feel they can't stand pat or they might lose too much ground and go the way of the old SWC.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

I like how it is now as well, but aj's right - the Pac-10 is getting killed by having to play nine conference games in football and with the idiotic Thursday/Saturday basketball rotation that pits every game against one another on television. It hurts revenue, recruiting, and exposure.

While we can argue right now about who to include or exclude, there's really only a few options that make sense from a geographic purpose and it seems like the expansion ship has sailed and it's definitely a go. The biggest fight will likely be the alignment of the divisions. Every school wants to travel to LA in football and basketball every year for recruiting purposes and with twelve teams that cannot happen.

The Pac would obviously love Texas schools but that ain't happening. CU supposedly wants out of the Big 12 and Utah would jump in a millisecond so I'm assuming it's those two when all is said and done. The California state schools (Fresno-SDSU), UNLV, or Boise will never happen for dozens of reasons so they're not even worth discussing.

 

[devilalum]

Utah and BYU are natural rivals. They'd be perfect to complete the PAC12 North.

You don't have to worry about BYU and Sunday or any of that crap. When God sees how much money is involved he'll tell the prophet it's OK.

 

[HooverDam]

Utah-Colorado or Utah-BYU are the only ones that make sense. I assume the Pac 10 would prefer Utah-Colorado so they could get into both the SLC and Denver markets, even if they aren't as proximate to one another as all the other Pac 10 pairs.

There's no way the California schools would allow themselves to be split up into two divisions I wouldn't think. So that means you have a Pac South of California+Az and a North of Wash+Oregon+Utah+Colorado. In other words, that south is going to be brutal in all 3 major sports. Itll be like how the Big 12 south is almost always stronger, which in my opinion makes things kinda lame and uninteresting.

I really wish they'd just leave it alone though, playing everyone in your conference in football and playing everyone home and home in basketball is wonderful. All the other conferences should scale back to 10, not the Pac 10 expand, its just wonderful how it is.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

The mountain schools in a Utah/Colorado expansion look actually tougher in football in the near future with Kiffin at USC and nobody else going anywhere, not so much in hoops obviously unless Oregon really hits a home run in April. I don't consider baseball a major sport but I'm not sure it would really be affected. Do CU and Utah even have baseball?

 

[HooverDam]

With baseball I wasnt referring so much to the addition of the new schools as having all the strong schools in one conference. Youd just have SC and ASU in the Southern conference w/ only Oregon St in the Northern conference as a real strong power. Im not sure what CU and Utahs deal is with baseball, it might be sorta tricky for them given their elevations....? Not sure.

 

[DWKB]

Guys, there is no "Denver market" for CU. Colorado doesn't show for college sports. They've got too many decent pro teams and too much outdoor activities to worry about CU. The only advantage would be former PAC-10 alumni that live in Colorado coming to or tuning in when CU plays their teams.

Folsom turns Red when CU plays NU and Coors turns Blue when CU plays KU. Otherwise there is nobody.

 

[Gaddabout]

I think Colorado and some other school would be their choices. I've heard TCU but I just don't see it. Geographically doesn't make sense and they're third fiddle in the Dallas market -- TCU in the Pac-10 isn't going to create any more interest in Texas than no Texas team in the Pac-10.

Colorado may or may not be interested. I don't see the Pac-10 expanding without them, though. No other team comes close to representing an upward push in revenue.

Allegedly Utah guv is making a push that the Pac-10 takes both BYU and Utah or neither. In that case I think the Pac-10 would say, "Neither." BYU and Utah share a TV market.

 

[Russ Smith]

Does the expansion REALLY help with tv money? The main problems are as mao said more often than not the games are on at similar times so competing and that's because if you start at 4:30 or even 5:30 you lose home attendance too early gametime and they think if the games run late nobody will watch a game that starts at 9 or 9:30. I've always felt if you start half the games at 6:00 the other half at 8 it helps.

But then I'm one of the weirdos that will watch Cal/UW, switch at halftime to Stanford/WSU, then watch the start of UA/Oregon and still have time to switch over and watch Survivor. UCLA games are virtually the only Pac 10 games I watch start to finish I kind of like being able to go between multiple games so being on at similar times helps me(hell last night I caught 5 minutes of a local HS game too).

 

[Gaddabout]

Guys, there is no "Denver market" for CU. Colorado doesn't show for college sports. They've got too many decent pro teams and too much outdoor activities to worry about CU. The only advantage would be former PAC-10 alumni that live in Colorado coming to or tuning in when CU plays their teams.

Folsom turns Red when CU plays NU and Coors turns Blue when CU plays KU. Otherwise there is nobody.

It doesn't really matter. The fact they exist in the No. 16 market is all the Pac-10 needs to get more revenue. Colorado/USC, Colorado/UCLA ... those games are going to be a draw in that market, and that's what they're selling.

Salt Lake is No. 31, which means one team would be appealing. Two teams in that same market, no.

This is why Boise is a big fat no: They're No. 112 in the U.S. The Pac-10 already owns these markets (Bay Area schools count Sacramento, SoCal schools count San Diego, which is why SDSU will never be invited):

2. LA
6. Bay
12. Phoenix
13. Seattle-Tacoma
20. Sacramento
22. Portland
28. San Diego
66. Tucson
75. Spokane
119. Eugene
164. Yuma
189, Bend, Ore.

The Pac-10 claims nine other metered markets in the top 210 in the U.S. via its contract with ABC/ESPN. Those markets are expanded further, IIUC, via their contract with FSN.

Other markets of interest in this debate:
5. Dallas-Ft. Worth
42. Las Vegas
44. Albuquerque-Santa Fe
55. Fresno-Visalia
92. Colorado Springs-Pueblo
98. El Paso
108. Reno
162. Idaho Falls-Pocatello

So you can see why Colorado and TCU are the ones getting buzz, and college football darlings BYU, Utah and Boise State really don't have an argument. UNLV has a better argument than BSU, and ... I could sort of see them entering the picture because UNLV also could come with a host of new advertisers. Don't kid yourself. Vegas resorts would love nothing more than to tap into the Pac-10 as a regular tourist base.

 

[82CardsGrad]

It doesn't really matter. The fact they exist in the No. 16 market is all the Pac-10 needs to get more revenue. Colorado/USC, Colorado/UCLA ... those games are going to be a draw in that market, and that's what they're selling.

Salt Lake is No. 31, which means one team would be appealing. Two teams in that same market, no.

This is why Boise is a big fat no: They're No. 112 in the U.S. The Pac-10 already owns these markets (Bay Area schools count Sacramento, SoCal schools count San Diego, which is why SDSU will never be invited):

2. LA
6. Bay
12. Phoenix
13. Seattle-Tacoma
20. Sacramento
22. Portland
28. San Diego
66. Tucson
75. Spokane
119. Eugene
164. Yuma
189, Bend, Ore.

The Pac-10 claims nine other metered markets in the top 210 in the U.S. via its contract with ABC/ESPN. Those markets are expanded further, IIUC, via their contract with FSN.

Other markets of interest in this debate:
5. Dallas-Ft. Worth
42. Las Vegas
44. Albuquerque-Santa Fe
55. Fresno-Visalia
92. Colorado Springs-Pueblo
98. El Paso
108. Reno
162. Idaho Falls-Pocatello

So you can see why Colorado and TCU are the ones getting buzz, and college football darlings BYU, Utah and Boise State really don't have an argument. UNLV has a better argument than BSU, and ... I could sort of see them entering the picture because UNLV also could come with a host of new advertisers. Don't kid yourself. Vegas resorts would love nothing more than to tap into the Pac-10 as a regular tourist base.

Agree completely...

Personally, I would prefer to see the Utah schools and/or Boise St get the nod, but it won't happen. It will not doubt be Colorado or TCU, or both.

 

[Gaddabout]

Agree completely...

Personally, I would prefer to see the Utah schools and/or Boise St get the nod, but it won't happen. It will not doubt be Colorado or TCU, or both.

Imagine if UNLV came in with bid sponsored by Las Vegas casinos promising to throw money and perqs at the conference if UNLV joins and allows Vegas to host the Pac-10 football championship and the basketball conference tourney.

That would be hard to turn down.