Why Pac-10 Expansion Is A Horrible Idea

I understand the idea of the Pac-10's desiring to expand in order to make themselves more competitive in the next round of TV contracts, and to keep pace with the Big 12, Big 10 and SEC in revenue. This is a serious issue, because athletics programs who generate the most revenue are able to spend more money on the best coaches and the best facilities, which generally — though not always — results in the best players. So, their desire to keep from falling behind the competition is understandable, especially since their partner/rival the Big 10 is strongly considering adding a team and has several options among Big East, Big 12 and mid-major teams.

However, as good and tempting as the idea sounds, the Pac-10 leaders need to do their jobs, which is to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to diligently considering, researching and exploring the idea, and then outright rejecting it. The reason is that Pac-10 expansion is simply truly a horrible idea.

The Pac-10, again, is trying to follow in the footsteps of the successful SEC and Big 8 expansions. This ignores a key point: the SEC and the Big 8 were already very strong in football BEFORE they expanded, and this is whether the measure is winning, revenue, and image/perception.

Though I respect Pac-10 fans who do an excellent job in defending the accomplishments of their conference, the fact is that if the Pac-10 (or more accurately the Pac-10 beyond USC) was bringing in more titles and revenue and was regarded as a football power nationally, no one would be even talking about expanding. But the issue is that where the Pac-10 is seeking to expand to improve their football product, the SEC and Big 8 already had strong football products when they did so. The SEC and Big 8 didn't expand trying to get rich quick. Instead, it was the rich expanding to get richer.

For example, in the new SEC's first year, Alabama beat Florida for the SEC title and defending champs Miami for the national title, and Nebraska had won two straight titles right before the Big 8 expanded. It wasn't just Alabama and Nebraska either: back then Colorado and Kansas State were very strong in the Big 8 (along with traditional powerhouse Oklahoma), plus Florida and Tennessee had recently hired Steve Spurrier and Phil Fulmer, who went on to win national titles.

Also, consider that the SEC didn't add much in South Carolina and Arkansas. Neither has won an SEC title, and neither added significant recruiting hotbeds or lucrative TV markets, especially in the case of South Carolina, whose athletes and TV screens were patronizing the SEC already. Now the Big 8 did get the benefit of the Texas talent pool and TV markets by adding Texas and Texas A&M (Baylor and Texas Tech not so much).

Unless the Pac-10 is willing to throw long and add TCU and Houston (which, incidentally, will be who the Big East or Big 12 will target to replace whoever the Big 10 raids), this is not something that the Pac-10 will receive a similar benefit from.

Other than the chance to add a major TV and recruiting market like the Lone Star State, expansion should only be done to make an already good product better. Otherwise, you get the mess that is the ACC expansion. Adding Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech didn't add many viewers who weren't watching ACC football already (as folks in Boston could care less about college football, and BC hasn't given them a reason to feel otherwise since Doug Flutie) nor did it expand the ACC's recruiting base. It only added three good but not great football programs to a group of already good but not great ones, creating an even larger group to beat each other up in recruiting and on the field.

So if the Pac-10 adds Colorado, you do get the Denver TV market. But will folks in Denver start caring any more about Oregon State playing Arizona than they do now? Sure, they'll watch Colorado play Pac-10 teams ... when Colorado is good.

But as Colorado has powerful elements in their administration and local community that's notoriously hostile to football, the Pac-10 will be picking up a program that will goes 4-8 and 7-5 every year, and will be so happy to exchange the rustic football factories of the midwestern Big 12 for rubbing elbows with the folks at Cal-Berkeley and UCLA (the type of school that CU-Boulder aspires to be) that they won't have any incentive to get better ... the anti-football faction in Boulder will have won. Add in Colorado's relatively thin recruiting base, and why bother?

Adding Utah, BYU, Boise, Fresno or any other western mid-major and it will be the same result for the Pac-10 that the ACC got in adding the former Big East schools: a complete failure. (And let me point out that a major part of the ACC's plan was to cause the Big East to lose their BCS bid and basically collapse, and for the ACC to gain most of the better football and basketball athletes that now go to Big East schools. Had the ACC known that the Big East would survive their raid, they would have never attempted it.).

The Pac-10 would "add" viewing areas who already watch plenty of Pac-10 football and no big recruiting areas, and in return get schools who will draw talent from the likes of UCLA, Oregon State and Cal — thereby weakening existing Pac-10 teams — without becoming the Ohio State, Oklahoma, or Florida that the Pac-10 needs alongside USC.

Again, look at the ACC: before expansion, North Carolina State, North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia were consistently top 20 teams. Since then, they haven't done a thing in no small part because Virginia Tech and BC used their increased exposure to recruit their players, and incidentally having to play against those schools plus Miami doesn't help matters either any more than having to play conference games against Boise and Utah is in the interests of the Pac-10.

So, the ACC after all the hype, controversy and harm to their image and tradition wound up with a conference title game that never sells out and no one watches and revenues and ratings that are actually worse now than they were before expansion. Instead of following their path, the Pac-10 needs for Oregon, Arizona, Oregon State, Washington or UCLA to step up and become a nationally prominent program. That is what will bring viewers, TV contracts and money, not more teams and a conference title game.

Speaking of this conference title game, where would this event be held? Why, Los Angeles of course. Similar to Atlanta for the SEC, Los Angeles is centrally located, is the largest media market, has great weather, excellent accommodations for the major bowl game-like event of a conference title game, and would be unmatched by any other plausible site for exposure and recruiting purposes. And pardon me, but who in the Pac-10 is going to beat USC in a CONFERENCE TITLE GAME that is held in LOS ANGELES EVERY YEAR?

And that is precisely the point. The Pac-10 doesn't need 12 teams and a conference title game. What it needs is another national contender, not so much to compete with the mighty Southern Cal Trojans, but to compete with programs like Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Penn State, Florida, Alabama and LSU that are in other conferences.

The ratings and revenue are low because no one outside the Pac-10 region (and also not enough people IN the Pac-10 region) is going to pay much attention to programs who go 20 years between winning major bowl games. Pac-10 folks call it "east coast bias" (and excuse me, but how is adding western teams like Colorado, Utah, BYU or Boise supposed to solve "east coast bias"?), but do Pac-10 folks watch USF play Pitt, or Maryland play Clemson?

So, instead of wasting time with expanding, Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott needs to step up and say what former Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen never had the guts to, which is the Pac-10 needs more programs capable of regularly contending on the national scale than USC, and in order for that to happen they need presidents and athletics directors who take the sport seriously and coaches who can recruit the athletes and build the teams that it takes to get it done.

Expansion? No. Getting the next Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Bob Stoops, Jim Tressel or Mack Brown into the Pac-10? Yes.