Utah Heads to the Pac 10 Conference

<p>I should have originally said BYU, but BYU is a private institution and I was trying to compare the Pac 10 situation to the circumstances of the ‘second’ ACC expansion a few years ago. Yes, the circumstances and opportunities have to be aligned, but people forget there was quite a bit of pressure coming at the ACC and at UNC-DUKE-Virginia from various corners. I already mentioned political influence in Virginia politics. Also at that time Florida State U was making strong hints about its unhappiness with the then current state of ACC football and FSU intimated that if the conference didn’t expand FSU would bolt. Even Coach K at Duke remarked in an interview that while he wasn’t crazy about expansion, he understood that football rules the roost in college athletics [finances], so he would support expansion as long as Duke continued to play UNC round-robin every year. The irony is, rumors persist that Boston College has lingering buyer’s remose about joining the ACC and the ACC football championship game is an afterthought. No one pays attention to it. The ACC is simply splitting a small $$ pie in additional shares.</p>

<p>Published: Sept. 1, 2010 5:22 p.m. </p>

<p>USC an independent? Haden says he’d consider it</p>

<p>By MICHAEL LEV
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER</p>

<p>Athletic director Pat Haden told the Register on Wednesday that he would consider the idea of USC becoming an independent in football as BYU just did but that there are no imminent plans to do so.</p>

<p>BYU announced it was breaking off from the Mountain West Conference in football and signed an eight-year agreement with ESPN. USC football is considered an even bigger brand and ratings draw.</p>

<p>“I think you always have to look at every opportunity,” Haden, who’s starting his second month on the job, said from the football team’s hotel in Hawaii.
“We’re a happy member of the Pac-10. I don’t have any ulterior motives or plans to advance the ball on this. I think the Pac-10 with a new commissioner and new opportunities has some growth built in already.
“But would we every consider it? I think you have to. As an athletic director in today’s environment, you have to consider every alternative.”</p>

<p>Source: [USC</a> an independent? Haden says he’d consider it | usc, football, haden - Sports - The Orange County Register](<a href=“USC an independent? Haden says he’d consider it – Orange County Register”>USC an independent? Haden says he’d consider it – Orange County Register)</p>

<p>Report: USC Considers Leaving Pac-10, Becoming An Independent Nation</p>

<p>By Matt Miselis (Featured Columnist) on September 2, 2010</p>

<p>This is all speculation and rumor at this time, but another surprise may drop upon the college football world this season.</p>

<p>The college football world has gone through plenty of change in the 2010 offseason.</p>

<p>College powerhouses such as Nebraska made the move to the Big 12, while mid majors Boise St. and Utah went to different conferences as well.</p>

<p>But the question still remains, can arguably the biggest power house of the last decade in college football be ready to make a drastic move as well?</p>

<p>According to former full time BleacherReport writer, and current FoxSports.com reporter, Lisa Horne, USC is considering leaving the Pac 10 to become an independent program.</p>

<p>Horne via twitter: “A reliable source just told me USC AD Pat Haden is considering pulling USC out of Pac-10,going independent b/c SC doesn’t want to share $$”.</p>

<p>What a developing story this could become within the next few days. To be honest, can anyone be surprised anymore?</p>

<p>After the realignment we saw in college football this year, the landscape is bound to change in the future.</p>

<p>From USC’s standpoint, it could be more money for a program that earns quite a bit of revenue with their football program.</p>

<p>I give my credit to Lisa, a longtime Bleacher Reporter who is now finding success on a bigger stage, and could be on the verge of reporting a story that would shake up the college football world.</p>

<p>Matt Miselis is an NFL Featured Columnist for BleacherReport.com.</p>

<p>Source: [Report:</a> USC Considers Leaving Pac-10, Becoming An Independent Nation | Bleacher Report](<a href=“Report: USC Considers Leaving Pac-10, Becoming An Independent Nation | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors | Bleacher Report”>Report: USC Considers Leaving Pac-10, Becoming An Independent Nation | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors | Bleacher Report)</p>

<hr>

<p>USC, Notre Dame of the West?? @_@"</p>

<p>I wonder if Texas would still consider the Pac-16 deal if USC decided to go independent?!</p>

<p>If SC leaves, Pac-10 should add UNLV and get all the $$$ from Vegas!!! ;p</p>

<p>Seriously though, I think UCDavis could be an option for the future!! hmm…</p>

<p>UCD’s new stadium:</p>

<p><a href=“News”>News;

<p>USC is not Notre Dame. People outside the west coast really aren’t that much interested in the program. It’s all about TV revenues and I don’t think SC is that great of a draw nationally that most viewers would join in every week.</p>

<p>Yeah, BYU has Mormons, ND has Catholics…USC has band wagon fans, a pompous ass of a coach and a team facing sanctions…great negotiating power…:rolleyes:</p>

<p>Did you watch the USC-Hawaii game last night? That was a lot offense. I’m sure Kiffin fils is having some serious discussions with Kiffin pere. </p>

<p>While necessary, this is the downside of not having contact experience prior to the first game.</p>

<p>^ I watched the end of the 2nd quarter. Sure was a lot of offense…so much for the former vaunted Trojan defense. Need to plug some holes.</p>

<p>Utah upsets Pitt in overtime. Heh, if USC becomes independent, Utah could be the Pac’s new football powerhouse.</p>

<p>The fans at usc.rivals.com are not thrilled.</p>

<p>^^ “Did you watch the USC-Hawaii game last night?”</p>

<p>[YouTube</a> - Lane Kiffin UH Halftime Interview](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>

<p>[Lane</a> Kiffin refuses to take no for an answer - ESPN Los Angeles](<a href=“Ohtani throws 1st MLB shutout, hits 2 HRs as Angels sweep Tigers in DH team says he's staying - ESPN”>Lane Kiffin refuses to take no for an answer - ESPN)</p>

<p>Firstly, talk of USC ‘going rogue’ has been around since I was a teenager, LOL. Coach John McKay used to complain about having to travel to Pullman to play Washington State University, and he wasn’t crazy about Eugene or Corvallis, Oregon either. But McKay and his succesors realized that as the non-revenue sports became an expensive operation, you needed a conference. Going it alone could REDUCE your revenue, particularly after the bowl system expanded and became lucrative in the 1980s. All conference member teams share in bowl revenue (and basketball tournamen revenue, if I am not mistaken).</p>

<p>In this day and age, USC would have to be quite unique to be successful as an independent. Even Notre Dame remains in a conference for every sport except football. And given the current animosity towards USC, I’m not confident that the school could get away with being a part-time member of a conference. My guess is, USC will be traveling to Pullman for many years to come.</p>

<p>^ I think they’re just talking about being independent for football. If they can get in a BCS bowl game as an independent, they keep that revenue and not have to share it with the conference. </p>

<p>I don’t think the conference will be too happy about school’s picking and choosing what sports are involved in the revenue sharing. Football is the revenue king. If a signature program leaves, the entire conference is hurt…including the school’s other sports that may remain in the conference.</p>

<p>But then again, I don’t think the Pac-10 - USC will lose its current bowl affiliations…so the revenue from the bowls could still be there.</p>

<p>

True, but conference expansion makes biennial trips to Pullman even less frequent.</p>

<p>By “Going Rogue,” do you mean quitting the game after two and a half quarters?</p>

<p>CBSSports | August 31, 2010 </p>

<p>What is in store for the Pac-10 after a busy summer of realignment? Commissioner Larry Scott joins Tony Barnhart and Brian Jones to explain.</p>

<p>Larry Scott Interview </p>

<p>[YouTube</a> - Larry Scott Interview](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>

<p>LOL Greybeard. It might also mean kneecapping your opponents during the pre-game warm ups and then claiming what a great competitor you are.</p>

<p>[USC</a>, UCLA score big in Pac-12 alignment - latimes.com](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-1022-pac-10-20101022,0,7478672.column]USC”>USC, UCLA score big in Pac-12 alignment)</p>

<p>Pac-12 gets richest TV deal</p>

<p>Tom FitzGerald, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle May 3, 2011 12:41 PM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</p>

<p>Tuesday, May 3, 2011</p>

<p>(05-03) 12:41 PDT – The Pac-12 will receive about $3 billion over 12 years by selling most of its top football and basketball games to Fox and ESPN - the richest deal ever for a college conference - sources confirmed Tuesday.</p>

<p>Meanwhile the conference will organize its own cable-TV network to begin in 2012.</p>

<p>Cal, Stanford and the other 10 conference schools stand to make about $21 million a year from the new deal, which was first reported by the New York Times. It is worth about $250 million per year, more than quadrupling the current deal with ESPN and Fox.</p>

<p>Under the Pac-10’s current $60 million deal, each school received only about $6 million, and the number varied greatly depending on how many of its football games were shown.</p>

<p>Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott, whose conference becomes the Pac-12 with the addition of Colorado and Utah on July 1, will announce the agreements Wednesday at the conference meetings in Phoenix.</p>

<p>In starting its own network, the Pac-12 will follow the lead of the Big Ten, which created its own network in 2007 and also negotiated a 10-year, $1 billion deal with ESPN.</p>

<p>Unlike the Big Ten Network, of which Fox has a 49 percent stake, the Pac-12 Network will be owned solely by the conference.</p>

<p>“We didn’t feel we had to give equity to get the broadcast and cable packages we got,” Scott told the Times.</p>

<p>The new deal is a major coup for Scott, the former pro tennis player and former head of the Women’s Tennis Association whom the Pac-10 hired in 2009 to succeed the retiring Tom Hansen.</p>

<p>The Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and the ACC all have landed TV contracts in recent years. The numbers were impressive. For instance, the Big 12’s new deal with Fox is worth $1.2 billion. But the Pac-12 deal has trumped them all.</p>

<p>Being last put the Pac-12 in the driver’s seat in a bidding contest among ESPN, Fox and Comcast/NBC, which was hoping to raise the profile of its Versus channel.</p>

<p>Under the new deal, as outlined by the Times and confirmed by other sources, the conference’s football games will be shown on ABC (like ESPN, a Disney property) and Fox - five of them in prime time each season - as well as on ESPN’s various networks and FX. Basketball will be shown on the ESPN networks and Fox Sports Net. A package of the conference’s so-called Olympic sports will be shown on ESPN.</p>

<p>In recent years, Comcast Sports Net has contracted with Fox to show football and basketball in the Bay Area on CSNBA and CSNCA. That relationship presumably will continue in the new deal.</p>

<p>ESPN and Fox will rotate the newly created Pac-12 football championship game, and the basketball tournament will alternated between the ESPN networks and Fox and FX.</p>

<p>The vast majority of the conference’s sports programming, except for football and men’s basketball, will wind up on the new Pac-12 Network as well as a digital outlet to be created, according to reports. The Pac-12 Network will have to work out deals with existing cable and satellite distributors, but Scott told the Times his conference could follow the template of the successful Big Ten Network.</p>

<p>“They did a lot of things wonderfully and successfully,” he said. “They were pioneers. They were forthcoming with us. But when you’re the second to do it, you get to draft behind the first one.”</p>

<p>Officials at Cal and Stanford declined to discuss the new TV deal until it was officially announced.</p>

<p>Source: [Pac-12</a> gets richest TV deal](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/03/SPR91JB9EI.DTL]Pac-12”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/03/SPR91JB9EI.DTL)</p>

<p>^ Oh yeah! </p>

<p>Good work by Scott. Utah and Colorado must be very happy.<br>
Cal has since reinstated all previously cut sports…this news surely helped that decision.</p>

<p>Get ready for a barage of late night games UCB. That’s the only way the networks are going to be able to recoup their investment.</p>