Pac-10 Expansion
Today Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott announced that the Pac-10 is considering expansion with the conference's television contract set to expire in 2012. Some might wonder why the Pac-10 would be interested in expanding, especially since the conference seems so perfectly set up right now.
The Pac-10 has a television contract that works its way through the 2011-2012 school year, meaning that no changes can be made to the conference before that date. The choice can be made before then though, and the wheels can be set in motion to bring on one or two more schools to the Pac-10 while the current contracts run out. So the next question quickly becomes which teams (schools) would want to join the Pac-10, and how would that affect the conference schedule. Right now the Pac-10 is one of the only major conferences where every team plays every other team during the season. Increasing the number of teams could change a lot.
A couple of the rumors out there have Utah jumping over to the Pac-10 because they are unhappy with the Mountain West Conference. Another rumor has Colorado coming over as the Big-12 talks with BYU about bringing them in their fold. The final rumor has Boise State finally leaving their conference and coming to play with the big boys. With this all taking place in the college off-season, make sure to take all Pac-10 expansion with a grain of salt until we have real quotes from University Presidents or movement from the Pac-10 commissioner. A Pac-10 expansion could lead to a conference championship game though, and that might excite a lot of fans.
Scott said he will not establish a committee to explore expansion, leaving the chore to the league's presidents.
"With an issue as important to the future of the conference as its makeup," he saidin a teleconference, "it's going to be dealt with directly by them."
Speculation has swirled about Pac-10 expansion since the 1990s, when the SEC started a football championship game and eventually a more lucrative TV contract as a 12-team league. Reported candidates for expansion range from Hawaii to Texas, Boise State to UNLV.
In other Pac-10 news, new deputy commissioner Kevin Weiberg will help Scott manage expansion issues and determine whether the conference creates a network. Weiberg, a former commissioner of the Big 12 and deputy commissioner in the Big Ten, helped the Big Ten add Penn State and helped create the Big Ten Network, which launched in 2006.
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