BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

No I was not. Just not a fan of adding a school no one has ever heard of outside of its area code, and definitely not a fan of anything Texas.

It appears the Pac-6 plans to expand by three more and at this point has far more suitors than openings so it's still a seller's market. I'd prefer they stay in the Mountain and Pacific time zones for a truly western conference but that's not going to happen.

 

It gets the state of Texas, some pretty good recent success and a pretty decent TV market. End of story.

I don't think anyone expects this thing to become a power conference. But being able to be the next top conference and growing from there should be the goal.

If they get Memphis, Tulane, UNLV and UTSA, it is not a bad start. I would leave it at 10 too (but as I said would think strongly about Gonzaga and Saint Mary's for basketball purposes).

 

Why would the Pac-6 expand by three teams? I would think they would want an even number.

 

Nine isn’t bad if you want to do an eight game league schedule and leave room for an extra non-con. Lets you balance out a pair of home-and-homes with someone in your peer group and then a couple of body bags to get to the magical seventh home game ADs always drool over.

 

Whatever the potential media partners say! Ten feels right, but I do see potential of nine with playing everyone in the conference in football plus having four nonconference football games.

 

I think at some point they are hopeful Cal comes back, after losing millions and millions more in the ACC.

 

Do you think Cal would move back without Stanford? I am also sure that the Pac 6 is besieged by schools interested in joining because they believe they are currently in a conferences who will receive lousy television contracts the next time around.

But it is unclear to me how the Pac-6 will receive a big contract given the location of their members. The biggest market is Denver but there is little interest in CSU in the metro area.

 

WSU considers Seattle its market. Thousands and thousands of Coug fans in the Puget Sound. WSU has had very strong TV ratings over the past five years.

OSU considers Portland in its market. Ditto.

The numbers I am hearing are for between $10-15 million per team, shading toward the high side. That would be an excellent G5 TV rights deal.

Now that the ACC has come to its senses and is taking active steps to remain together, Cal is probably off the table. I do think had the ACC broken apart, there was a chance they could have moved on without Stanford, kept the rivalry but on an OOC basis.

Stanford's institutional arrogance precludes it from ever joining a league that includes CSU schools. It also has the money to be independent.

OTOH, Cal's athletics are millions and millions in the red. At some point, I could see the chancellor insisting they join a more West Coast-based league, if only to save millions on travel.

According to the stats, Cal drew 35k for the SDSU game last week. That's a decent crowd for Cal; my guess is it will be far larger than what they draw for future home games against NCSU and Syracuse; maybe not in tickets sold, but certainly in butts in seats.

In my perfect world, the next four teams would be Tulane, Memphis, UNLV and Wyoming. Two outliers, two western schools who invest in athletics and have decent national recognition. I also realize I'm probably not going to get my way.

 

Cal always drew a decent crowd of visiting fans with Pac-12 alums scattered all along the west coast. Yeah, they are going to lose that - I don't even think they'll have the "novelty" thing going for them as a road trip destination for ACC fans.

 

With all respect to @goalmouth, who has fought the good fight for the Olive and Blue, I really wonder why people think Tulane will be some ratings juggernaut. They drew 30,000 for their homecoming game last year and otherwise all their home games were in the 20s. And that was an 11-3 win coming off a conference title and a Cotton Bowl win, so probably the top end of what they can expect to draw with an energized market. I doubt the TV numbers look better.