Pac 10/11/12 Updates

Well we are now the Pac 12 as Colorado was added last week and today Utah was added. A whole new world begins August 2011 when Women’s Volleyball and Football will see new schedules, soon followed by Women’s Basketball. Right now all reports indicate the following 2 divisions:

North:

Stanford
Cal
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State

South:
USC
UCLA
Arizona State
Arizona
Colorado
Utah

It seems that Colorado was told if they move west they would be in the same division as the LA schools. Hard for me to believe that the Bay Area schools would kowtow to this, but this is what the media is reporting.

On the other hand, this could mean in Football, Stanford plays the 5 schools in their division every year, USC and UCLA every year, and 2 more conference game every other year.

I mention Football first because it would, well could, have the same affect on the Women’s (and Men’s) basketball schedule. First let’s talk why this is being done: Money. This is from ESPN on Conference TV contracts:

Conference Amount of contract
Big Ten $242 million
SEC $205 million
Big 12 $78 million
ACC $67 million
Pacific-10 $58 million
Big East $33 million

If the new Pac 12 can form its own TV network, something in the works, and if the Pac 12 can up its price for one or more TV networks, Fox, ESPN or Comcast, then the real possibility of closer to $100M could be realized. This means each Pac 12 school would get closer to $8M up from about $ 6M. Now some like to think the money would go to Football, but we who are Stanford fans know, from the 35 sports Stanford supports, that the money would go mostly to the other 34 sports, including Women’s Basketball. The fact that in sports Title IX is supported by Football may be the irony of all ironies but it’s factual.

A Pac 12 TV network would also mean more Women’s basketball games on TV (I would be on the horn with the Pac 12 to bring back Jake Kelman as a prime time announcer) So the end result should be and I believe will be for the good of all sports, especially at Stanford.

Now back to the divisional alignment. Let’s say Stanford plays the other 5 teams home and away, that’s 10 games. Then we keep our rival USC and UCLA home and away, and as important, they keep us. That’s 14 conference games. Then we do like the Football schedule I suggested, home and away with 2 of the other 4 Pac 12 teams, ASU, Arizona, Colorado and Utah every other year. Back to the present 18 conference games.

Some may think we should have more games against top non conference teams but those games are hard to get. It means someone has to travel west and that might require a partner, like playing both Stanford and Cal. Very hard to do this. Plus we still have 11 non conference games under the Plan presented above.

As to the Conference Tournament, it would remain pretty much as is. And for sure its here to stay.

Utah just signed their contract with the Pac 10, it’s now officially a 12 team conference.