The Expansion Debate Rages

It’s just like clockwork.

At least once a month, usually more, over the past three or four years, I get posed a very simple question.

“If the Pac-10 were to add two more teams, who should they go after?”

And every single time, I beat around the bush on naming teams because every time I try to rationalize a couple extra teams into the West Coast’s finest collegiate athletic league, I end up talking myself in circles.

And, as a blogger, talking myself in circles is never a good thing.

The talk of expanding the league to a two-division, 12-team conference is always about and once again reared its head last week when Larry Scott took over for Tom Hansen as the conference commissioner.

Last week, we tried to define what Hansen’s legacy would be after 26 years at the helm of the Pac-10. He certainly presided over one of the league’s most stable eras and brought at least increased attention to what’s going on here on the left side of America.

However, the single question he got asked the most (other than “What the hell is up with your TV contract?”) has been about expanding the league to 12 teams.

All day today as I tried to formulate the words to pen my official opinion, I talked to numerous other Pac-10 superfans and members of the media, getting a read on what the consensus opinion on this topic is. Lots of pros, cons, possible teams and possible alignments were bandied about.

At the end of the day though, as I write this, I still just can’t be in support of the Pac-10 expanding. Not now, at least.

There are several reasons for why I don’t think adding two teams will be, in the short and immediate long term, a good idea for this conference.

1) It’s not just football we’re talking about.

What lots of people tend to neglect to realize is that expanding the Pac-10 would never be just for the sake of football. Creating a “Pac-12″ for football would certainly allow the conference to stage our own lucrative postseason championship game but would also tap into two more previously untapped media markets with greater gusto.

However, it’s not just football were rationalizing here. Along with those programs comes men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and a slough of non-revenue generating sports.

All of a sudden, we’re not just talking about adding two football programs. We’re now talking about this new leauge having to support and promote at least 35 new teams, or roughly 17 or 18 teams per new school. And, just like in football, you’d most likely have to realign each sport’s league into two divisions; this would be the case especially for basketball and possibly baseball.

2) But, if we’re just talking about football, the Pac-10 is the only league that has it right.

Since the NCAA mandated that every FBS school add one extra game to their schedules each year in 2006, teams across America have scrambled to fill that gap with a non-conference game every year.

Except for the Pac-10.

When the home office handed down that mandate, instead of letting their member schools pick up a fourth and potentially lucrative extra OOC game, the Pac-10 instead a ninth game to their composite conference schedule. This made it so that the league, each year, played a complete and full round robin; the only BCS conference to do so. (EDIT: The eight-team Big East also does a full round robin, but the odd seven game conference schedule allows each Big East team to schedule FIVE…yes…FIVE non-conference games.)

Men’s and women’s basketball and baseball do the same thing. Everybody plays everybody; in the case of hoops, everyone gets one home and one road game against each conference opponent.

This is opposed to conferences like the Big Ten, whose member teams in football still miss two conference foes each year. Sometimes, this can significantly skew standings at the end of the year; as was the case with Wisconsin in 2006 who finished 11-1 but didn’t have to play Ohio State, who went 12-0.

If every team playing everyone doesn’t establish a true king of the hill every year, then I don’t know what the purpose of it really is.

3) What’s the big whoop with a conference championship game anyway?

In 2005, Florida State and Virginia Tech staged the first ACC Championship game since the league gobbled up the Hokies, Miami and Boston College and staged their first 12-team season. The league and commissioner John Swofford were hellbent early in this decade about adding those three teams for the sake of staging the big money after-the-seas0n title game without regard for what it would do for conference parity or geography.

Since then, the ACC Title game has features such thrilling matchups as Wake Forest/Georgia Tech (yawn), Boston College/Virginia Tech (YAWN) and, again, Florida State/Virginia Tech.

Outside of the first one, which nearly sold out Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, each of those games has been a complete snoozefest played in front of a half full stadium.

So tell me, what would you rather have: the aforementioned complete round robin where everyone plays everyone? Or a gimmicky conference title game which will probably never sell out and could end up featuring a super thrilling matchup between Oregon State and California?

I’ll take it the way we have it. I like seeing each team once. It’s easier that way. In 2007, ASU and USC both finished 7-2 in conference, but it was simple to point to the Trojans and say that they beat Arizona State and therefore were the conference champions. If we were in a 12-team league, undoubtedly USC and ASU would be playing in the same “South” division, if you will, and USC would have to go play an extra game against some also ran from the “North” (judging by the final 2007 standings, it would have been Oregon State, who has taken two of the last three from USC in the series) in the Pac-12 Title game.

Though there would certainly be some intrigue, you better believe that this game would draw no TV ratings across America and would have certainly shut out Arizona State from even being considered for the BCS as they were at the end of ‘07. Instead, they would have been pretty much guaranteed a spot in the Sun Bowl.

4) Who plays where?

Fine. Let’s say that the Pac-10 does decdide to absorb two teams. For the same of keeping the conference structure intact, the league decides that it must take two teams from the same region that already have a natural rivalry; such is the case with the other 10 teams currently in the conference.

The choice then is simple: the Pac pillages the Mountain West and absorbs the Utah Utes and BYU Cougars.

But how great would that really be? Judging by TV market size, the Salt Lake City/Provo demographic would still only rank 6th among the 9 TV markets the conference’s home teams serve.

1) Los Angeles (#2)
2) San Francisco (#4)
3) Phoenix (#12)
4) Seattle (#13)
5) Portland (#25)
6) Salt Lake City (#30)
7) Tucson (#51)
Eugene (#75)
9) Pullman (#209)

Then, after all of that, conference alignment seems simple, right? Obviously, Washington,WSU, Oregon and OSU would be in the North while USC, UCLA, ASU and Arizona would be in the South. You can’t separate Cal and Stanford based on their proximity nor can you divorce BYU and Utah. So, do you group the NorCal schools in with it’s SoCal brethren and assign the Utah schools to the North? Or do you keep travel in mind and bunch the Cardinal in with the Northwest teams?

Either way, someone ends up unhappy and grumbling year in and year out.

5) And what of those other conferences? Those poor, poor non-BCS conferences?

When the Big 12 was formed out of the existing Big 8 and the Texas remnants of the Southwest Conference in 1996, the fit was easy. The new mega-conference ate up Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor as a tremendous geographic benefit and, better yet, no other conference was truly affected by the additions.

It was a whole different story with the ACC plundered the Big East in 2003. What they did by absorbing Miami, VA Tech and BC set off an enormous chain reaction that completely altered the face of college football. In response to losing those teams, the Big East raided Conference USA in 2005 and absorbed Cincinnati, Louisville and then South Florida and then welcomed UConn after their transition period into Division I. For years after, the Big East was a shell of a conference and rebuffed numerous cries to revoke their automatic BCS bid.

Outside of football, the Big East also took Marquette and DePaul for their basketball competition; stealing away the high profile Warriors along with big money Cincy and Louisville.

In turn, desperate for teams of their own, the now crippled C-USA went on a spree of their own, taking Rice, SMU, UTEP, Tulsa and (for a period) TCU from the bloated WAC.

So, what does this all have to do with a proposed two-team addition to the Pac-10? We’d most likely see the West Coast’s version of pigskin armageddon.

In response to BYU and Utah leaving the MWC for the Pac-10, persay, the Mountain West would most likely set their sights on the WAC’s two best teams to fill that void: Boise State and Nevada. While that would immediately restrengthen the MWC, the WAC would once again be left in tatters with only Hawai’i, Fresno State and 5 other teams that can only be considered “fringe” in the grand scheme of FBS football.

However, the WAC doesn’t have the luxury of stealing teams from another league like the Big East did. There’s literally no one left geographically that makes sense.

In essense, if Pac-10 expansion were to happen, it’d most likely be the end of the Western Athletic Conference.

6) But wouldn’t two extra teams draw more exposure to the league?

That’s laughable. There is not one single team on the West Coast that would give the Pac-10 more national credibility. Boise State? Regardless of how terrific they’ve been over the past decade, no one tunes in to watch them unless their running back is on one knee, proposing to a gorgeous cheerleader.

BYU and Utah? The Cougars certainly have a national fan base that could be tapped into, but the Utes are a different story. Utah is a highly regional school with only a modest national alumni base.

Those really are the only three that garner significant consideration: Nevada, Fresno State, Hawai’i, UNLV and New Mexico would crumple under the weight of having to play the likes of USC, Oregon, California and otherwise year in and year out. None of those four would plausibly contend for a Pac-10 title in at least the first decade of play within a Pac-12.

I think I’ve gone above and beyond stating my opinion. I’m now opening the floor for debate.

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