Pac-12?
by bruinski on Jan 4, 2009 5:38 PM PST
24 comments
Is it time for the former Pac-8, then the Pac-10, to become a superconference and be the Pac-12? This model would be like the 12 member SEC, Big XII, and ACC.
The two universities to add would be Utah and BYU. I suggest these two as they are the only 2 universities in the west to not only have big time football, but also strong traditions in basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, etc.
I think adding these 2 universities would solidify the new Pac-12 as the premier western conference to equal the abovementioned superconferences.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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i personally like a 10 team conference
The conference title game used by the mentioned conferences is just a waste of time. There isn’t a full round robin schedule, and the Pac 10 is the fairest conference in the country in terms of how they decide the conference champ. It’s an interesting proposition, and one that’s been discussed before, but I favor leaving the Pac 10 as it is.
No
This same topic was brought up a few weeks ago by another Utah troll. Before Nestor gets on you, let me be the first to say welcome to Bruisnation and when you decide to post something, please do a simple search to see if there is already a thread about this topic. I am going to give you the Bruin benefit of the doubt and say that you aren’t another Utah troll (despite your Real Salt Lake fanhood) trying to stir up support for this Pac 12 scheme.
As for the proposal itself, Utah and BYU are both good programs and if there were going to be any expansion of the PAC 10, they would be the only teams worthy of adding. That said, the PAC 10 is a special conference because as Bucknellbruin mentioned, everyone has to play everyone and at the end of the season, there is no dispute over who is best. Besides, their inclusion might mean more games on Versus and that is something the world does not need.
Having been born in the UCLA medical center, attended University Elementary School, a UCLA degree holder, son of 2 UCLA grads, and resident of LA for 27 years, I am not too thrilled with being called a Utah troll.
Having said that, yes I now live in Utah and there are an awful lot of UCLA and USC license plate frames around here.
I agree with all your points about the Pac-10. You are correct about playing the whole conference, etc. No points of disagreement there.
Just there would be a perception advantage to being set up like the Big XII and the SEC and being the superconference of the West.
Yes, I realize that this is not an original idea and it is batted around from time to time. Just something to think about particularly in light of Utah’s recent success.
Powder to the People
The problem being the probability of turning into the ACC...
rather than the SEC (if one believes it to even be a model conference).
The problem is that the mere fact that a conference expands does not guarantee any increase in perceived relevance. The SEC is seen as a success, llkely in part to the member schools being logical partners, and in part due to the people who proclaim football teams/conferences being located in that part of the country. The Big XII has been a decent success, if it is more a confederation of 2 6-team conferences than a unified entity (and arose fairly naturally from the ruins of a pair of dead conferences).
The post-expansion ACC has been a failure. Like a proposed Pac-12, it came into being not due to any objective need, but because someone thought ‘gee, if 9 (or 10) teams are good, then 12 must be even better’. The result is that the ACC is, at best, the 5th best D-1 football conference, while the football championship game which was to be the centerpiece of the expansion is nothing but a joke, the laughingstock among those who like to throw the “superconference” title around.
It won't work
Adding Utah and BYU will NOT gain the Pac-10 any more respect from the East Coast homers. If there was any respect for Utah, they would be in the Championship game this year as the only undefeated team in the country. They would not add anything to the Pac-10 other than messing up our true round-robin format for football and most importantly, basketball. Just because these teams have a good season every now and then does not mean we should add them. They would just be another Oregon State or Washington State where they have good years every now and then but are widely regarded as perrenially bad teams in our conference.
GO BRUINS!
oh jeez...
more games on versus. never even thought of that…that’s the last thing we want lol
by bucknellbruin on Jan 4, 2009 7:29 PM PST up reply actions
some of this comments make sense, some don't
I’m not sure when that picture was taken, but it wasn’t this year’s ACC Championship game.
The comments about the advantage of the 10 teams everyone plays everyone every year are good comments.
The comparison to the ACC championship game don’t seem so relevant. BC and VT played each other in Tampa, a bazillion miles from both schools, and the rankings were #17 and #25. So not much interest and 53,000 attendence isn’t all that surprising.
But there is no reason to expect that a Pac-12 set up would be the same. So let’s say the Pac-12 championship game was USC vs Utah. And the venue goes to be the higher ranked school (just arguments sake). So that matchup in the Coliseum would have had huge interest. Higher interest than say the USC vs PSU Rose Bowl. In fact, all the ESPN guys have been blabbering on and on how much they would like to see a USC vs Utah (or similar) matchup.
As for more games on Versus. There is not reason to expect this. Some of these matchups might result in more ABC or ESPN games, not fewer. The Versus games are the result of BYU vs New Mexico that no one cares about. This would not be the case if it was BYU vs Cal.
Powder to the People
of course
2 lower ranked teams, far away, might as well have been the Sun Bowl.
Not comparable to a Utah vs USC in the Coliseum matchup.
Powder to the People
true, but you assume the Pac-10/12 leadership would have common sense.
A trait sorely lacking in the current Pac-10 leadership. That game could as likely be held in Phoenix, or Seattle. Also, who is to say that Utah and SC would be placed in differnent divisions; a SoCal/Arizona/Utah-NorCal/Washington/Oregon could make as much sense as a California/Arizona-Wash/Oregon/Utah division of the conference.
This year, true...
But you have to look at the long run, what the competitiveness and interest in such a game would be. Just because this year (assuming proper conference division) would produce a compelling game does not mean that such holds true over time.
Putting aside any issue with how well BYU/Utah would compete in the Pac in a given year, last season might have placed #19 BYU or unranked Oregon State opposite USC, while 2006 would have likely seen a Cal/Oregon State rematch with USC. No doubt that BYU and Utah fans are committed and willing to travel, but the games are not necessarily such which would attract the attention that a conference expansion would be aimed at attracting.
Also, the matter of where such a game would be played arises. You seem to favor the higher ranked team hosting, in effect giving that team an extra home game (with a larger visitor’s allotment). The 3 BCS conferences which have created Championship Games have realized that allowing the higher ranked team to host, besides the logistical problems with having only 1 week of notice to plan the game, is the unfairness of allowing one of the participants to host.
The unbalanced nature of schedules in a divided conference makes this fairness issue more acute (think comparing an 7-1 Big-XII north team not having played OU/Texas/Texas Tech with a 6-2 south team having played Mizzu/Nebraska/Kansas). The common factor among the 3 power conference Title games is that the game is held at a neutral site: ACC – Jacksonville/Tampa (with Charlotte as a more logical alternate site), Big-XII – Kansas City, SEC – Atlanta.
The Pac-10/12 does not have many choices as to a fair, neutral site in which to hold a championship game. San Diego is the only truly neutral city in the western US with a suitable stadium to host the game, but raises the issue of giving Pac-12 South teams and fans a travel advantage. In Pac-10 B-Ball tourney tradition, the game could be held at a neutral stadium in a conference city: Glendale, Az; Oakland and Seattle would be the options; Glendale having the same travel issues as San Diego, Seattle stricken due to weather concerns, and Oakland making perfect geographic sense, but not ‘sexy’ enough for the game (like San Jose for the Men’s tourney).
Thought of that
Problem being that Sam Boyd Stadium is not really suitable for a championship game, while Vegas does not offer much of a geographic advantage over San Diego.
a hypothetical question
Let’s say SDSU and UNLV were of the caliber of say ASU and Zona, so they were pretty good most of the time (not like a Texas) but they brought both San Diego and Las Veags markets into the mix.
Would you like it then?
Powder to the People
and last years was worse
same teams – ranked 6th and 11th in the country. Two top 11 teams, tied in the 3rd quarter, and NO ONE in the stands. That’s just embarrassing…
by bucknellbruin on Jan 4, 2009 11:47 PM PST up reply actions
More on attendance
There are 6,000-plus volunteers for the Super Bowl in Tampa this year. Each of those volunteers was offered free tickets for the ACC title game. (I don’t remember if it was 2 or 4.)
The ACC focus is in part due to personal experiences, I believe.
I have lived in that part of the country for a few years, am an ACC alum (UVa) as well as a Bruin by history, and have stood flabergasted by the ACC’s mismanagment of its expansion process. While it certainly is not certain that the ACC’s failure would foretell a similar failure by the Pac-10, it helps to look at the particulars which led to the 12-team ACC, Big-XII, and SEC.
The SEC, in terms of competitiveness and fan interest, seems to be quite the success. I am not as well versed as with the ACC and Big-XII, but the conference seems to be composed of schools and regions which share a history, competitive and otherwise.
The Big-XII, as I noted earlier, seem more like a confederation of 2 6-team mini conferences from a current competitive standpoint; the South shapes up to be a slimmed down SWC (with one-time members Oklahoma and Oklahoma State added), while the north preserving the old Big-8, shedding the Oklahoma schools. The inter-divisional rivalries have a deep history, with enough competitive history between teams between divisions to keep things interesting (if relative strength in football has been hampered by the weakening of Colorado and Nebraska in recent years).
I could go on about the ACC’s process, but to keep it short, it sucked. The concept generally was unwise imo, but was made worse by shortsightedness by the conference – creating the ‘new ACC’ around placing FSU and Miami in opposite divisions, assuming they would win their respective divisions every year, and placing the game in a neutral Florida site to accommodate this. The expansion could have been handled in a more efficient manner (BC/UMD/UVa/VaTech + 2 NC schools = north/Nc school, Clemson/GaTech/Fla schools = South, Title game in Charlotte). The way the conference has been arranged makes no real sense, which does lead to outcomes often making the title game of less interest.
Not a fan of the idea
The concept has come up for discussion from time to time in the past 15 years, starting with the thought that Texas (and CU?) could be lured after the demise of the SWC. Also, if this were to occur, those two schools would be the likely additions.
Personally, I don’t get the big deal about conference expansion and the whole idea of a “superconference”. The only tangible benefit is the revenue that may come about through the addition of a conference championship game (see the ACC for fan interest), with the downside of losing the round-robin (football), and home-and-home round robin (basketball) which allows the Pac-10 to crown a legit regular season champion.
What does Utah and BYU bring to the table?
Frankly, I don’t see the appeal of adding them. If we’re going to add teams, it’s going to be because they are a national name or in a big market so it increases or exposure and recognition. Salt Lake City isn’t a big enough market and neither team carries enough cache. Throw in the fact that neither has high enough quality smaller sports and last I checked BYU isn’t a research institution, I’ll pass.
As I’ve said multiple times, if we’re going to expand it has to be with Colorado (for the Denver market) and/or Texas. I’m willing to break from the traditional rivalry pair if those two entered and if only one came I’d be okay with them bringing a rival (Colorado St. or Texas A&M). If we’re not getting a major school like that (which I doubt we will) then it doesn’t help the conference.
Also, with regards to its impact on football and basketball, I don’t see Utah and BYU helping. In basketball adding them would require us to change our round robin schedule and we’d have to nix our Thursday-Saturday schedule. That’s something I don’t want to do because it works well as is and I truly believe Pac 10 teams benefit in the NCAA Tournament from being accustomed to the 2 day turnaround.
In football we’d add a conference tournament game, but we’d also be sharing the TV money and other revenue 12 ways as opposed to 10. Can you guarantee enough attendance and a bump in TV money for it to cover the extra people in on the pie? My other two concerns with Pac 10 football is TV coverage and bowl affiliations. Does BYU or Utah have a relationship with ESPN or other major networks that could benefit us when we do a new TV deal? No. Are they in a big enough TV market to make us more appealing to ESPN and other networks? No. When it comes to bowl affiliations they won’t help either. Utah played arguably their biggest game EVER this year when they went to the Sugar Bowl (a fantastic performance by the Utes btw) and yet they struggled to sell their allotment of tickets. Utah isn’t going to entice bowls to affiliate with us so they don’t help there. BYU helps some because Mormons all over the country root for BYU, but often BYU gets a lot of local Mormons at bowl games which bowls take into consideration because they want tickets sold and people staying in hotels, eating at restaurants, etc.
From a competitive standpoint the 10 team conference is best because of the round robin schedule and high quality programs in the smaller sports. Now I’ve been extremely critical of Tom Hansen and the conference for their inability to market the conference better and increase revenue so I’d be willing to give some of the competitive side up for more money and exposure; however, Utah and BYU do not give us that. Give me Colorado and/or Texas and I say make it happen, but BYU and Utah are a no-no.
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Jan 5, 2009 12:10 AM PST reply actions
A historical note
The longest-running conference in the West was the Pacific Coast Conference, which lasted from 1915 to 1959, and which UCLA joined in 1928. The Pac-10 is now 30 years old, having added Arizona and Arizona State to the Pac-8 in 1978. The PCC broke up because of scandals, but it also included as members, at least for some of the time, Idaho and Montana. Edwin Pauley—yes, that Pauley—wanted a conference of California universities alone, disdaining our northern neighbors,
Around the time of the breakup, there was talk of a superconference, which would have included USC, UCLA, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Texas, etc., but the conferences stamped that one out before it could catch fire.
So nothing is written in stone. It’s fantasy to think that the Pac-10 could attract Colorado and especially Texas, whose rivalry with Oklahoma is as bitter as ours with SC, not to mention the historic animosity between hippie Austin and militaristic Texas A&M.
The greatest advantage for UCLA of a split conference would be a concentration in the south of the four California colleges and the Arizona schools, who represent the real power of the conference, across the board. I’m sure many Bruin athletes would be happy to travel less frequently into the Washington snows, those horrendous plane and bus trips to Pullman. The greatest disadvantage of the 10-team format is precisely its competitiveness: it’s harder to go undefeated in a round-robin schedule than in a selective one.
All that said, the Pac-10 is the strongest conference in the country and needs no tampering. UCLA, Stanford, and USC are regularly at or around the top of the Directors Cup every year (challenged only by North Carolina). I’m not a conservative, so I don’t think things have to always be as they are, but for now, our conference is as good as it gets, sport for sport. Rather than 12 teams, how about an ESPN/ABC contract? How about some better refs? That would be, as our president-elect might say, meaningful change.
No No No
1. I don’t want to expand the conference, we are the only conference with a true champion.
2. I don’t like BYU and I don’t like their fans (based on personal experience).
There really is no benefit to expanding the conference, in my opinion. The only teams that would benefit are Utah and BYU.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
don't sugar coat is, tell me what you really think
Interesting comments.
Easily the best arguments for not changing anything are the 10 team format, the true round robin, true champion, and the basketball scheduling issue.
As for media markets, if that were the main concern then SDSU and UNLV would be great picks. They are easily the largest media markets in the Pacific Time Zone not already in the Pac-10.
As for other media interests, believe it or not BYU does have a pretty large following outside of Utah. Certainly there are more BYU fans in So Cal than there are WSU fans. The attendence of the recent UCLA vs BYU game in the Rose Bowl shows that.
As for Salt Lake City, it is certainly a bigger city than Gainesville, Tallahassee, State College, Madison, South Bend, etc etc etc.
As for Utah attendence at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. I would venture to guess that Utah’s attendance at the Sugar Bowl was better than would be for ANY current Pac-10 team. Good attendence is based on how sucky your home town is in the winter, and frankly the west coast is a pretty nice place compared to Ames, Norman, Urbana, etc etc etc.
As for the various comments regarding dumb things done by other conferences. I didn’t suggest “hey lets repeat the dumb things done by other conferences.” In discussing this I wouldnt want to bake in all the mistakes of others.
The model which seems to work is two natural geographic divisions like the SEC East and West, the Big XII North and South. The ACC Atlantic and Coastal model was a big mistake. I would suggest having the Calif and AZ schools in the Southern Division and WA, OR and UT in the Northern Division.
Also, having the champtionship game thousands of miles away from anyone also seems like a bad model. I would throw home field advantage to the higher ranked team. I don’t mind giving that advantage, no different than home field advantage in the NFL or MLB playoffs.
The point would be to raise the profile and prestige of the conference as a whole which would translate to more ABC and ESPN coverage, better bowl affilliations, poll rankings, etc. It’s about perception and power.
Powder to the People
The problem is presupposing that expansion = better perception of the conference
While I stressed the angle that mismanagment and flawed thinking led to the flawed ACC expansion, the root of it all was that the ACC leadership (incorrectly) made the same assumption that you seem to be making here; that adding 2 schools will automatically make the Pac stronger, in perceived power if not also competitively. My point is to look at the big picture, see what forces led to these “power conferences” being created, and whether or not they have become stronger than their former state.
The ACC has so far failed in its objective not only due to flawed execution of the expansion process, but by the type and scope of expansion. It saw adding a championship game as the solution to its perceived weakness in football (as well as a way to get more TV money); conference expansion was a necessary step to allow this to occur. The problem faced by the conference is that expansion has done nothing to improve the perception or the relative strength; the past few years has seen the conference struggle in the BCS games that its teams have played in, has gotten no at-large teams into the BCS, and is widely perceived to ranked only above the (Miami/VaTech-less) Big East in football relevance. IMHO, the conference would have been better served by adding one of Miami or Virginia Tech, providing an additional strong football program, and a basketball team which would, at worse not dilute the conference (and in Miami’s case, adding non-revenue athletic strength).
The Big-XII came about due to the fortuitous demise of the SWC; Between the small size of the then Big-8 and the free agent-like status of the SWC schools, expansion made perfect sense – If Texas and TamU are available, you run, not walk to bring them into the fold. Texas Tech has the regional popularity and alumni base, if not the current level of success; Baylor…, well, I suppose you can’t let the Big Ten(11) have all the odd-numbered fun.
Not to slight BYU or Utah, but adding Texas and Texas A&M (as the Big-8 did) to one’s conference is a far cry from BYU/Utah. As well, the ACC’s expansion involved poaching the best football programs from another, (then) stronger BCS conference (Big East), rather than taking schools from a conference perceived to be weaker than itself (like the MWC’s standing compared to the Pac-10).
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