This is a topic of endless speculation at this point, but (surprise, surprise!) I'll offer an opinion. Take it for what it is worth.
- No PAC teams are likely to bolt anywhere. Not impossible, but highly unlikely, and too many reasons to list here. That could be a separate thread, if you like. For the sake of this thread, I'm assuming all PAC schools remain.
- The choices seem to be a complete, "throw the cards in the air and reshuffle the divisions" approach, or just leave the leagues separate and do some interleague games with a playoff of some sort at the end.
- I can't look 10 years into the future, but for the immediate planning, it would clearly be easiest to simply keep both leagues, traditions, etc., intact and do the interleague + playoff approach. Plus dimwit Bowlsby will be trying to keep his job for a few more years, as well as wanting to not leave a totally bad legacy, so we are unlikely to merge the conference offices any time soon.
- If you are going to do some interleague games you pretty much have to do 2 (one home, one away) each season. More would not permit any OOC games to speak of in the PAC, and even with only 2, we may have to re-jigger how we approach quantity of games within the PAC. One interleague game is probably meaningless, and the idea of a home & away pair would seem to make sense.
- Since we have 12 teams and B12 has 10, they would have more OOC opportunities. Do we move Colorado back into the B12 schedule to put both at 11 and end up with the same OOC opportunities? A question to be sorted.
- The playoff would seem easy. One more game at the end of the season between PAC and B12 champs.
There are a couple of what would appear to be significant benefits. One, TV interest in both leagues would inevitably spread into the other league's footprint. I see that as win/win. Two, which ever network or platform ends up with our contract (Fox/Amazon? CBS/Apple? Or maybe one group takes the whole thing?), they will essentially lock up 2 leagues for the price of 1. Kliavkoff comes in at the right time and the right negotiating situation. Everybody except ESPN has been almost shut out of college football; now due to ESPN's semi-illegal brokering of TX/OU into the SEC, there are suddenly 2 leagues up for grabs from a media perspective, covering over half of the country, and where one deal will get both leagues. A true deal maker would be salivating. Our new commissioner will have some fun with this.
Thoughts?
- No PAC teams are likely to bolt anywhere. Not impossible, but highly unlikely, and too many reasons to list here. That could be a separate thread, if you like. For the sake of this thread, I'm assuming all PAC schools remain.
- The choices seem to be a complete, "throw the cards in the air and reshuffle the divisions" approach, or just leave the leagues separate and do some interleague games with a playoff of some sort at the end.
- I can't look 10 years into the future, but for the immediate planning, it would clearly be easiest to simply keep both leagues, traditions, etc., intact and do the interleague + playoff approach. Plus dimwit Bowlsby will be trying to keep his job for a few more years, as well as wanting to not leave a totally bad legacy, so we are unlikely to merge the conference offices any time soon.
- If you are going to do some interleague games you pretty much have to do 2 (one home, one away) each season. More would not permit any OOC games to speak of in the PAC, and even with only 2, we may have to re-jigger how we approach quantity of games within the PAC. One interleague game is probably meaningless, and the idea of a home & away pair would seem to make sense.
- Since we have 12 teams and B12 has 10, they would have more OOC opportunities. Do we move Colorado back into the B12 schedule to put both at 11 and end up with the same OOC opportunities? A question to be sorted.
- The playoff would seem easy. One more game at the end of the season between PAC and B12 champs.
There are a couple of what would appear to be significant benefits. One, TV interest in both leagues would inevitably spread into the other league's footprint. I see that as win/win. Two, which ever network or platform ends up with our contract (Fox/Amazon? CBS/Apple? Or maybe one group takes the whole thing?), they will essentially lock up 2 leagues for the price of 1. Kliavkoff comes in at the right time and the right negotiating situation. Everybody except ESPN has been almost shut out of college football; now due to ESPN's semi-illegal brokering of TX/OU into the SEC, there are suddenly 2 leagues up for grabs from a media perspective, covering over half of the country, and where one deal will get both leagues. A true deal maker would be salivating. Our new commissioner will have some fun with this.
Thoughts?
