The Pac-10 Commissioner is Retiring. Let’s Handicap Expansion Options!
Sager Bombs
The announcement that Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen is reitiring next summer means we can start speculating like a sewing circle for jocks (right? nothing but a bunch of jocks around here?) when it comes to the future of the Pac-10. Will the league pony up with Fox Sports again for tv, a move that many claim has hurt the league’s reputation and visibility? Will the league consider starting their own television network like the Big 10? Will they continue to drag their feet when it comes to the evolution of the BCS? No one knows.
Arguably the biggest topic of debate will be expanding the league to 12 teams. Doing so would allow the league to add a conference championship game for football, expand the basketball tournaments, and build a lap pool at conference headquarters for which executives could lap swim in all the new money they make. Whether or not it will happen is another debate for another time, but there are lots of potential teams that could be added to the mix. Let’s look them over shall we?
Many different sportswriters have weighed in on this topic, offering there thoughts on expansion and a list of many potential schools to add into the Pac-10 fold. Most of their points have been valid and interesting. A few have not. I feel like a couple things can be assumed off the bat:
- A few scribes suggest that Texas schools (University of Texas, A&M, TCU) will be an option. They’re not going to be. UT and A&M would be incredible gets, but they aren’t leaving the Big 12 anytime soon. The Texas government wouldn’t allow only the two to leave the SWC alone in 1995, and if anything, they’d be less likely to allow it now. Without them, TCU alone makes no sense. It’s crazy talk all around. Yee haw.
- Hawaii is a cute idea, but it would be a travel disaster, isn’t a particularly lucrative market, and would send a ton of potentially marquee football games into the tv-time shitter every season. If the idea is to strengthen the conference, this makes no sense.
- Any addition to the conference will likely come in the form of 2 schools with some sort of tie, be it geographic, prior conference rivalry, etc. This would be along the lines of the ASU/UA expansion, which added a new market, built in rivals, and upgraded the football and basketball strength of the conference. Rest assured if/when the conference examines schools, they’ll be looking for a similar home run.
So who’s in play? Let’s start by looking at:
Colorado and Colorado State
Colorado, and the city of Denver, seems to be a natural place for the Pac-10 to be looking at right off the bat. It’s a great market, Colorado/CSU is a major rivalry, and their annual football game is an early season event that takes place at a packed Mile High Stadium every year. Look closer and there might be more issues though. Can Colorado leave the Big 12? Would they even want to? Colorado State has been pretty middling in the Mountain West (Colorado hasn’t been much better lately), so could they pick up the performance in the big leagues?
OUTLOOK: As long as the Pac-10 is looking, these schools will be in play. Many questions, though. 6/1
Fresno State and Boise State
These are the two schools with arguably the most athletic upppppppside, at least in football and basketball. They take on all comers and would immediately be a factor in the major sports, especially at home. While they might not offer the sexy that Colorado brings, NorCal and all of Idaho are part of the current Pac-10 map and would bring in their own devoted audiences. Now, the issues. They’re geographically seperate, so when it comes time to split the conference into 2 groups of 6, there will be issues. Do you put them together with the WA and OR schools and create what appears to be (on paper at least) an inferior division a la the Big 12 North? Or do you split up Cal and Stanford and their natural rivalry for the sake of more equillibrium? Boise State and Fresno have no Doctoral Research programs and only award Masters Degrees, so if they want to pretend this is about the Pac-10 only having “research universities” it might become a major stumbling block. Similarly, both schools only have about 18,000 students a piece, which wouldn’t be a dealbreaker necessarily (that’s similar to Oregon State) but it isn’t exactly what you’d call upgrading the conference either. And that might be the biggest factor with these two.
OUTLOOK: Their reputations as bigger fish in a smaller pond might not be a direction the Pac-10 wants to travel, especially given the potential geographic and alignment based headaches. While they’re unlikely, they’re still both tempting. Especially if the conference is dead set on expansion, has one major player on the hook, and needs a second school. 15/1 (I will reduce the odds to 12/1 in exchange for additonal pictures featuring Chrissy Popadics’ thighs)
BYU & Utah
A large market worth expanding into. Easily the best rivalry of the schools available. Bigger schools, strong and consistent athletic programs, and fairly respected institutions of higher learning. Also: Mormon jokes. This is the pickup that arguably makes the most sense for the conference. These programs are great, but not perfect. The two primary issues I can see are tv issues and the idea of Utah itself. Salt Lake City is not much of a television market, and with both schools only 40-something miles apart you’re basically adding that and nothing else. The rest of Utah ain’t that much to shout about. Which leads to the bigger image issue. Have these programs peaked? Would you be better off with smaller schools that are still on their way up? Would they compound the Pac 10’s image as a No Defense Conference? Do you want to be the major conference that adds fucking Utah? I guess there aren’t really answers to these questions. So… yeah. The Utah schools aren’t a home run, but I’m not sure that’s going to exist.
OUTLOOK: The best option but not perfect. If you like the idea of expansion, they offer everything you want. If you think the Pac-10 should stay at 10, they offer plenty of reasons to support you as well. But if it’s going to happen, every conversation will begin here. 3/1
Nevada-Reno & UNLV
Forget about the fact that both these schools bring little to the table. UNLV and UNR would impact Pac-10 Sports Gambling. I’ve heard enough already. Get out of my post.
OUTLOOK: Fuck you, we’ll stick with 10 schools. Thanks.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I have never understood the idea of a twelve team “conference”. As of now the Pac-10 is a proper conference where every team plays every other team once during the football season and twice during basketball season.
Add two teams and all of a sudden we’re like every other shitty conference in the country where teams go years in between playing other teams in their own league. Bullshit. For once the west coast will stand up for tradition while everyone else races each other to add teams at a ridiculous rate like the Big East.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:06 am
Bob Condotta at the Times takes a similar position as you. Debating whether or not it’s a good idea is worth of an article all its own. But if there’s a chance of more money involved, there tends to be people supporting it. I’m not so sure expansion will ever happen, but you better believe it will be addressed by the conference in the very near future.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Maybe we should go back to the real tradition, and become the Pacific Coast Conference again, with only 8 schools. This would allow for a “PCC Conference Championship” in Football, or, for short, PCCCC. Kinda looks like CCCP backwards. Anyways, this would also allow scheduling of a few extra non-conference basketball games as well. I nominate Oregon State and…it’s a tossup for who else. I know it’s not gonna happen, but one can dream, right?
July 10th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Didn’t Colorado turn-down an expansion offer once already from the conference some years back? I’m officially on the record against any proposed expansion (or Romney candidacy), but CU is the only school that even makes sense here (why can’t we have a PAC-10/11?) However, I must add that I find BYU an intriguing possibility…if this Mormon thing ever catches on like the kids say its going to - BYU could become the new Notre Dame - or something like that. What about dropping the axe Anne Boleyn-style on OSU and WSU, they’d never see it coming; I’d enjoy exiling these baseborn rural hordes to the Mountain West where they belong; then we pick-up Colorado and BYU - and Bam! - the reputation of the conference is actually improved (I think). Imagine no longer having to put-up with any OSU fans misbegotten sense of pride; also we could still keep the apple cup as a non-conf. game and play it @ Qwest, if not just to satisfy tradition.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:59 am
I agree that if the conference just wants to do a nip/tuck and “tighten things up” they’d look immediately to booting WSU and OSU and grabbing Colorado or Utah schools. But what’s the precedent on that? Conferences just booting out a couple schools for their own interests screams “long drawn out lawsuit” to me.
Colorado and BYU would be the best case scenario for us, and would undeniably strengthen the conference. Putting them both in a Pac 10 “North” with the Oregon and Washington schools would be pretty badass in my opinion. And our football team wouldn’t have to make homemade Northwest Championship t-shirts anymore.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I think the big thing that’s being overlooked with his retirement is that UW loses a very important voice within the conference. Hansen despite his shortcomings has done a good job of keeping the balance of power within the conference. A new commissioner might like to play up the LA schools (since they seem to enjoy success more than we do) or give UO something to shake a stick at because of the Nike angle.
On another note, I find Numi brand Moonlight Spice Tea just the thing to get me through the afternoon at work. A lighter white tea, with just a hint of orange. Divine.
July 11th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Hansen was a Husky, don’t forget that. Another point in favor of Hansen, (although I know I’ll get crapped on for this) he continues to do deals with Fox over ESPN because Fox will go along with keeping games primarily on the weekends (sometimes on Thursdays). This keeps the student-athletes at school during the week. Every other conference sells their kids out and just says they are concerned about the “student” part of the equation. I am for that.
July 13th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
The Pac should expand and copy the Big East. It seems it will be several decades before any FB team can compete with SC, so the focus should be on becoming a bigger basketball power. Thus, here are the best options.
1) Gonzaga: High quality, high profile bball program, decent baseball program, and even used to have a FB squad (http://gozags.cstv.com/genrel/020306aaa.html). FB games could be played at ALBI, and with LCHS down the street GU could be a contender in a few decades.
2) University of San Diego: Had a great bball year, and with Billy Grier will only keep improving. FB needs work, but with the plethora of SoCal recruits, it shouldn’t be hard to build a solid program in America’s Finest City.
July 13th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Assuming your comment was serious, here are my problems with it:
-Both of these schools would need to build football stadiums, and that’s before the matter of the teams. USD would need to build a new basketball arena. Gonzaga’s arena is borderline Pac-10 acceptable (it would join Maples and McArthur court as the only venues to seat <10,000.
-The Big East is an example of everything that is wrong with conference expansion. In hoops they play an 18 game schedule among 16 teams, and fate decides whether you get UConn and Georgetown twice, or DePaul and South Florida. It’s more a confederation than a conference.
-There’s no way the Washington schools would allow another Pac-10 program to materialize in their recruiting backyard. And the Cali schools I’m sure wouldn’t be thrilled with an upstart there either.
No.
July 14th, 2008 at 8:58 am
OOOOOHHH - C-Stab loves the Big East!
July 15th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Response to echelon, who I do not know, but do respect:
1) Am I serious? I don’t know. USD is a stretch, but GU could be the best option with a little commitment to the addition.
2) USD’s arena is barely smaller than GUs. It is new, high quality, and from my architectural opinion, could easily be expanded to Rupp size. For GU, more important than the attendance factor is the national exposure factor. How many PAC schools are on national TV more than the Zags? My guess is 1) UCLA, 2) Arizona, 3) one other random PAC school with a great team or player that particular year (See USC, Mayo, O.J., Wanksta).
And Football stadiums are easy to build or upgrade, just ask your bra Todd Turner.
3) I can understand your viewpoint with the big east and with expansion in general - just comes down to how one feels about the best size of a conference. Pluses and minuses both ways.
4) The fact that other Pac schools wouldn’t want those teams in the conference is as good of an argument as any that those are the two best schools to pick.
July 15th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I guess Connecticut has proven you can create a football team out of thin air at a national basketball school. I suppose my argument is more “it will never happen” than “it wouldn’t be a good thing”.
Though I don’t think it would be a good thing, I just think it would never happen more. If that makes sense.