The Pac-10: Welcome, Mr. Scott, to the Conference of Champions

Hello, Larry Scott. Welcome to the Pacific-10 conference, “The Conference of Champions.” 

Most Pac-10 boosters, alumni, and fans were not sad (fairly or unfairly) to see Tom Hansen retire.  Most of us feel like the Pac-10 never reached its full potential under Hansen—our television contracts and our bowl games are sub-par compared to the other BCS conferences. 

Too often it also felt like Hansen wasn’t vocal enough in his lobbying for the conference, instead being more than happy to take the morsels left by the SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12 conferences.

As we move forward into a new era, there are several key issues the new commissioner will have to address, including our bowl ties, television contracts, and, of course, the dreaded expansion.  Going through the issues one by one, it is easier to "forgive" Hansen and realize the daunting challenges facing Scott.

Bowls

Much to the chagrin of Pac-10 fans and alumni, the Pac-10 has only one New Year’s Day bowl game—the Rose Bowl for the conference champion.  Meanwhile, fans spent the best day in college football this year watching two average teams from the Palmetto State (South Carolina and Clemson) matched up with mediocre teams from the Big 10 (Iowa) and Big 12 (Nebraska). 

Now, while the New Year’s Day bowl games may not hold the same luster as they did 20 years ago, these games are still watched religiously by many football enthusiasts as they enjoy this holiday.  Not only are we missing out on the exposure, but we are missing out on the bigger payouts these games provide.   

The Pac-10’s second place team plays in the Holiday Bowl against the third place team from the Big 12 conference.  This bowl is a sleeping giant, and most college football fans realize that this game is usually "must see television."  Despite the fact that it is not played on NYD, this is an excellent game for the conference. 

It is played in San Diego, usually on the Friday night before New Year’s, and is televised nationally by ESPN.  One cannot complain about the matchup, as the conferences have split this series (six wins for the Big 12, five for the Pac-10) since it began in 1998.

This is where the change needs to happen.  Our third place team gets sent to Ciudad Juarez (El Paso, TX) for the Sun Bowl (unless they were deported the year before, then the fourth place team is sent) to matchup with someone irrelevant from the Big East or Big 12 conferences in a game played around noon on New Year’s Eve on CBS. 

Although this game is televised nationally, there is nothing exciting about playing in the Sun Bowl.

The Pac-10’s fourth place team then gets to go to fabulous Las Vegas to play the Mountain West Conference champion, before Christmas and ESPN’s “Bowl Week” (Read: before people actually start caring about college football again).

Now don’t get me wrong, the MWC is a highly underrated conference, and probably deserves a better game also.  More often then not, these games feature a Pac-10 team feeling like they’ve underachieved (and have mailed in the season already) against a MWC team with a chip on their shoulder, ready to beat up the “bully next door.” 

Now, this game has some potential (good location for travel and a solid opponent), but also has some glaring holes that can’t be ignored.  The stadium is a joke and doesn’t make fans on the East Coast think “big time football.”

It also doesn’t help that it's only half full, unless BYU is playing (due to the large LDS population in Las Vegas and its proximity to Utah). 

The other matchups are even more of a joke.  The fifth place team gets to go to San Francisco to play the seventh place team from the ACC.  Again, good city for travel, but it’s played in the baseball stadium and usually matches up two teams who wish they were somewhere else. 

Ditto for the Poinsettia and Sheraton Hawaii bowls, not that anyone is really too worried about where our sixth and seventh place teams play.

What do Pac-10 boosters want?  How about a bowl matchup with the SEC?  Supporters of these two conferences love to talk smack about each other. Wouldn’t it be better to actually have a matchup once in a while? 

The Pac-10’s biggest problem concerning its bowl ties is location.  Pac-10 fans and alumni can’t compete with the Big Ten or Big 12 teams' promises of full stadiums, hotels, and restaurants. Of course, if you live in "snowy" Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, or Nebraska, you’re looking for a winter vacation more than if you live in California or Arizona. 

SEC fans will only travel throughout the south, but they do travel, and there are plenty of great southern bowl destinations.  This kills the Pac-10.  Fans and Alumni of Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC, or the Arizona schools aren’t going to travel in mass to San Antonio or Jacksonville to watch their 9-3/8-4 team take on a similar opponent from another BCS conference.  Therefore, these bowls don’t want us. 

Good luck, Mr. Scott.

Television

Does anyone besides Hansen like the Pac-10’s television deal with the Fox Sports Network?  First, the quality of the production is second-rate.  Watch a game on ESPN and then one on FSN and the difference is quite noticeable. 

Next, FSN is a regional network system, meaning that if you live outside of the Pac-10 region, you might tune in to watch the Oregon-Washington basketball game, only to get a women’s game between the College of Charleston and UT-Chattanooga. Great job, Hansen. 

Now, our deal with ABC isn’t much better. Too often, the Pac-10 game isn’t shown east of the Rockies without purchasing ESPN’s “Game Plan.”  The quality of football and basketball is too good to be segregated to only people on the west coast, who already appreciate the product. 

This lack of exposure only perpetuates the “east coast bias” that belittles the quality of our league. 

Also, there have been some rumblings about creating a “Pac-10 Network,” similar to the Big Ten Network, which is widely available on many cable and satellite providers.  Not only would this network allow more telecasts involving Pac-10 football and basketball games, but it would give a ton more exposure to the non-revenue/Olympic sports (the sports that boost the “conference of champions” claim every year). 

Of course, a lot less “honey-do” lists would get finished in the spring with the televising of Spring Games, baseball, and track meets. 

However, this isn’t the network's biggest obstacle.  The Pac-10 isn’t the Big Ten.  The Big Ten is composed mostly of large, state universities such as Ohio State, Illinois, Penn State, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, that are the only major universities in highly-populated states. 

These universities have large pockets of fans and alumni throughout the United States (Big 10 graduates often migrate south and west to find jobs and avoid the winters).  Pacific-10 schools are generally smaller than their Big 10 counterparts and their alumni are less likely to leave the region. 

Also, the Pac-10 conference is compacted into four western states, with each state having at least two major universities (Big 10 has eleven schools encompassing eight states).  Given this demographic disparity, it is hard to imagine the Pac-10 creating a network that could match the success of the Big 10 network (no matter how much better the product on the field, court, track, or diamond may be).

Expansion

To most Pac-10 enthusiasts, this is a nightmare scenario (whether they realize it or not).  All fans, boosters, and alumni, better hope that Larry Scott (and Pac-10 AD’s and Presidents) doesn’t start buying the hype about expansion. 

While expanding to 12 teams would allow for a Pac-10 championship game and potentially more money and exposure, it would probably destroy what makes the league special. 

No other league in America has the symmetric beauty of the Pac-10. Every school has a natural arch-rival.  Scheduling is natural, fair, and balanced.  No other conference can make that claim. 

Aside from the traditional reasons for not expanding, it also makes no sense financially.  There are no perfect candidates worthy of inclusion in the league.  Brigham Young University is the best non-BCS candidate, as it has solid facilities (LaVell Edwards Stadium holds 65k and the Marriott Center 22k for basketball) and a loyal fanbase that can match almost any Pac-10 schools. 

It also has a natural arch-rival that would fit symmetrically in the University of Utah.  However, while BYU is a fine academic institution, it is not a “pure research institution,” a Pac-10 conference prerequisite. 

More importantly, while expansion would be great for the Utah schools, what would it do for the schools already in the Pac-10?  Utah only has a population of 2.7 million people, about a million less people than there are in the Pac-10’s least populated state of Oregon. 

Does it open up new, fertile recruiting grounds?  No, Pac-10 schools already are very successful at signing the top prospects from the Beehive State. 

Does it open up new television markets?  No, even under our current television deal, Utah gets the Pac-10 regional game more often than not.  Expansion becomes even less appealing if you want to consider other candidates such as Boise State, Fresno State, or UNLV.

What it would do is force the separation into two divisions, which would break up the scheduling symmetry and separate the northwest schools from their large alumni and recruiting bases in California. 

Also, adding the Utah schools wouldn’t help us one bit with our current bowl dilemma or television contracts, only splitting the revenue 12 ways instead of 10.  Not to mention the expanded travel costs for non-revenue sports.   

Other suggestions include

• If Omaha can host the College World Series every year, why can’t Eugene host the NCAA track and field championships annually?
• Is their any way to prevent the NCAA basketball tournament selection committee from schedule Pac-10 teams for games starting at 9:00 am and 10:00 am PST—do we ever win these games?
• Move the Pac-10 basketball tournament from Los Angeles to a rotation of all of the NBA arenas in the region (Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Oakland, LA, and Sacramento).
• How about better evaluation of officials. Do we need to be the joke of America?

Conclusion

Mr. Scott has his work cut out for him.  Fans, boosters, and alumni of the Pacific-10 conferences universities are not going to be satisfied until they feel that the league gets the respect and exposure that it deserves. 

While we may all have wonderful ideas and blueprints for making the conference better, selling all of the necessary parties on our goals is going to be harder than putting an economic stimulus bill through Congress. Oh, and yes, just like in politics, there will be a ton of second guessing his every move. 

Good luck, Mr. Scott. I hope you're up to the challenge.