Pac-10: An Exhaustive Examination of Expansion Options

VI. Basketball Attendance, 2007 (in thousands)

Similar to the look at Athletic Budgets, this is a gauge of general athletic power.  Schools like Boise State and TCU have developed solid football programs, but how is the rest of the program?

Pac-10

Zona: 14.2

UCLA: 10.4

UW: 9.9

Cal: 8.4

Oregon: 8.4

WSU: 7.1

Stanford: 7.0

ASU: 6.9

USC: 5.7

Oregon State: 5.1

Non-BCS

Memphis: 14.5

BYU: 12.0

Fresno: 11.7

UNLV: 11.3

Utah: 9.5

UNR: 8.9

SDSU: 7.8

Hawaii: 6.4

CSU: 4.6

East Carolina: 4.5

Boise St: 4.3

TCU: 3.7

Southern Miss: 3.4

Central Florida: 2.7

Big XII

Texas: 12.9

A&M: 9.8

Colorado: 3.3

VII. Rivalries

Finally, any pair of schools invited into the Pac-10 probably should continue the pattern of sets of geographic and reciprocal rivals.  Of the Western schools, only BYU/Utah and UNLV/UNR can do this.

After all the numbers, it should be pretty obvious that BYU and Utah bring significantly more to the table than the Nevada schools.

Among the others, Hawaii has several ‘rivals’: Fresno State, Boise State, and BYU, but only from conference play.

Boise’s geographic rival is University of Idaho, but their jump to I-A football hasn’t gone as smoothly.

Colorado and Colorado State could develop into the kind of rivalry that the Pac-10 is looking for, but Colorado probably considers Nebraska their biggest rival, rather than the Rams.

So, those are the numbers.  To wrap up, if BYU and Utah are invited, the conference could be split in a way that gives all schools access to the Southern California market, as well as accenting the conference’s rivalries.  

University Division

Washington, Oregon, Cal, UCLA, Arizona, Utah

State Division

WSU, OSU, Stanford, USC, ASU, BYU

References:

http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/

http://web1.ncaa.org/d1mfb/Internet/attendance/IA_AVGATTENDANCE.pdf

http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/index.asp?key=782&lookup=true&search_flag=true&start=782&search_string=Arizona&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&back=true

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_radio_markets

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/search.asp

http://www.ncaa.org/stats/m_basketball/attendance/2007_basketball_attend.pdf

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