Quote:
Originally Posted by MacroGuru
Yeah the no Sunday play is what has them not thinking BYU for the PAC 10
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It's more than just that. Nobody in positions of authority will say it directly, but the political stances of the LDS do not jibe well with the leadership of the Pac-10 Universities. In addition, the Pac-10 is very snobby about their status as a collection of upper-tier research institutions, and Utah fits that criteria much better than BYU.
There are a lot of hurdles to clear for the Pac-10 to expand:
- By expanding, can they add enough in terms of TV markets to increase the revenue to each school?
- Can they provide enough incentive to Colorado to leave the Big-12?
- Will the State of Utah allow Utah to join the Pac-10 if they don't also take BYU?
- How would the conference divide itself? Would the NW schools be OK with the likelihood that their annual visits to LA would probably become every other year at most, and the potential impact that could have on recruiting?
- Can the Pac-10 get over their happiness with having longtime rivals as natural pairs? Colorado & Utah do have a history together, but it's been decades since they used to play regularly.
- Can the Pac-10 get over losing their perfect round-robin scheduling for basketball and their current full 9 game in-conference slate in football?
Of course, the Pac-10 also has to ask themselves if they're prepared for the consequences of not doing anything - can they stay relevant as a top-end BCS conference without expanding? The $1B TV deal the SEC signed ups the stakes, and the Pac-10 is falling way behind in revenue to not just the SEC but the Big-12 and Big-10. There's already a national perception problem for the Pac-10, and that could get even worse if revenues continue to trail the rest of the country and the probable result that the conference would start slipping from battling the Big-12 for position as the 2nd best football conference to fighting to stay ahead of the ACC & Big-East.
Like it or not (and the Pac-10 does
not like it), the college sports landscape continues to change. With their TV deal up in 2012, now is the time to start deciding if they're going to keep up or get left behind...