Pac-12 Planning Games in China: Is International Ball the Future of CFB?

With the college football realignment happening before our eyes and teams switching conferences, geography plays a huge factor in where the teams end up. An east coast team having to travel down south all the time or a mid-west team having to travel to the east coast are big deals.

How about a Pac-12 team traveling out of the country to play a football game? How about China?

According to Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, it could be happening very soon. He expects games to take place in China within in the next three to five years.

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“As we’ve tried to push the boundaries and redefine what our conference can do for our schools in the U.S.,” Scott said. “We’re pushing boundaries to try and value the university more broadly, including their international aspirations.”

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There are also plans to have the Notre Dame vs. Stanford game in 2013 to take place in you guessed it, China.

Other sport teams have gone overseas before to compete, but this is something completely different. This is an entire football conference trying to establish themselves as an international brand.

Scott is in China for four days and is talking with several media companies, sponsors, government leaders and event promoters trying to take the next step to make this happen. He also has plans of making the league's television network available to Chinese citizens.

Of course these talks are very premature and there will have to be a lot of stuff done to make this happen. But is international college football in the future?

Notre Dame and Stanford makes sense, considering the Irish are one of the most prestigious programs in the country. They already have the brand and could easily become international. Stanford has the academics that would appeal to the Chinese people as well.

The problem that I have is the questions about travel and the effect it will have on academics. Oregon to China is over 5,000 miles and will take time away from school. If Boise State traveling to the Big East caused a problem with many, this move definitely will.

It'll also be interesting to see just how popular the sport becomes over there because we've all seen how the NFL has failed out of the country.

There are pros and cons to the sport expanding in other countries, but the main reason for this happening is obviously money. Which will then again open up the argument on if college athletes should be paid...

But that's for a whole different article.

Randy Chambers is a B/R Featured Columnist that covers College Football and the NFL. You can contact him @Randy_Chambers or [e-mail]