dfwabel

That question was one of the first two or three that I listened to. Larry Scott said that they wanted to ensure a sellout at the venue, a "collegiate atmosphere", admitted trade-offs (such as logistics for visiting fans), but will not rule anything out long term.

The divisions for the Pac-10 have been announced. They are going North/South, with Cal and Stanford going with the Oregon and Washington schools. 9 game schedule, with 4 cross-divisional games each year so that the NoCal will play SoCal each year, while Oregon will play the SoCal schools every other year. The title game for 2012 will be hosted the team with the best conference record, but no tie-breaking system has been set. The ASU President in his opening comments did say, "soon to be the Pac-12". Larry Scott also said, Pac-12. They are changing their name next season. They will have equal revenue sharing for media revenues. If it is less than $170MM in a given year, UCLA and USC would get an additional $2MM

I can see why the California Quartet of USC, UCLA, Stanford and Cal would rather not be split up. I think the Pac 10 needs to look at the BigTen and consider a model that tries to maintain rivalries. IMO, the zipper format is probably best. Onto the ACC. If/When the day of the super-conference comes, do you see the ACC surviving? I think if the SEC expanded to 16 teams, they would easily take Florida State and Miami, and probably Clemson and Georgia Tech, too. By doing that, every team in the league would be guaranteed at least one in-state rival. On the northern side, I could then see the BigTen making a play for Virginia Tech and maybe Boston College, but who else? Maryland, Virginia? I think if that day comes, Duke and North Carolina might join the BigEast to even FURTHER push that league's basketball dominance. Some decisions should announced at 2:30 Eastern/11:30 Pacific today. In terms of revenue sharing, it seems as if USC and UCLA will get $2MM more every year until there is a certain amount of total revenue met, then it will be shared equally by all teams. The announcement will stream live at the conference website. The ACC can still survive by taking some of the larger (or leftovers) from the Big East if another change occurs. VT and UVa would have to be paired as the Virginia legislature did with the ACC expansion. If there was a football playoff, it would generate so much money for everyone that conference raiding would not be necessary.

SJ Mercury- News Previews the Pac-10 President's Meeting This Week

In the end, the Pac 12 went with the most obvious option. Now on to site selection for their championship game. The divisional format and site for the title game are items two and three in terms of importance. when the school presidents/chancellors meet next week the biggest issue they have to discuss and agree to is about how revenues are going to be shared. Voting to switch from an appearance-based model that favors USC and UCLA to an equal-distribution model is more important. Keep in mind yesterday, the City of Pasadena approved $152M renovation of the Rose Bowl. It will expand club seats from 550 to 2,500. It would also widen up to 12 access tunnels at the end zones, double the number of concession stands and increase restrooms. Plans for Rose Bowl Renovations Very true about the Rose Bowl, but I would think they avoid that as a host site, due to the fact that a Pac 12 champion would likely return to the Rose Bowl for the actual Tournament of Roses in the same stadium about a month later. That and the fact that it's already a current Pac 12 team's home site. While the Pac-10's headquarters are in Walnut Creek (East Bay), I do not think that Candlestick is an viable option compared to the newer facilities.

In the end, the Pac 12 went with the most obvious option. Now on to site selection for their championship game. The divisional format and site for the title game are items two and three in terms of importance. when the school presidents/chancellors meet next week the biggest issue they have to discuss and agree to is about how revenues are going to be shared. Voting to switch from an appearance-based model that favors USC and UCLA to an equal-distribution model is more important. Keep in mind yesterday, the City of Pasadena approved $152M renovation of the Rose Bowl. It will expand club seats from 550 to 2,500. It would also widen up to 12 access tunnels at the end zones, double the number of concession stands and increase restrooms. Plans for Rose Bowl Renovations

I know the Big East is desperate for attention in Football, but I suggest you guys should just stick with trying to bring Villanova up, OK? Where would a DI FBS 'nova play at? Are they going to share Lincoln Financial Field with Temple? I'm a student at Villanova. Word is we aren't going share the Linc with Temple and the most likely candidate would be PPL Park where the Union play. That is correct, if your school decides to fund the additional scholarships and upgrade the salaries for the coaching staff. Good luck in not seeing your student fees rise. PPL Park needs the revenue and they know that they can sell beer to make money on an additional 4-5 home dates. That place needs revenue. Haha yeah, we pay a lot already. The general sentiment on campus is in favor of moving up to the Big East. Football has gotten a lot more popular here over the past few seasons... and coincidentally the team is very, very good lol. Sorry, but you pay a lot to attend a private school. There will still need to be a way for the school to generate another $2M/year for football just to honor the 85 scholarships which the FBS has. 22 scholarships is a lot pf money for 'nova and the Montana schools. Plus, the coaching staff must be paid at the higher level as well. That is more money. These teams will not immediately receive new conference dollars too, so every institution have to realize what their eventual financial gain will be. Villanova does not receive Big East football money, so they know on how to deal without.

I know the Big East is desperate for attention in Football, but I suggest you guys should just stick with trying to bring Villanova up, OK? Where would a DI FBS 'nova play at? Are they going to share Lincoln Financial Field with Temple? I'm a student at Villanova. Word is we aren't going share the Linc with Temple and the most likely candidate would be PPL Park where the Union play. That is correct, if your school decides to fund the additional scholarships and upgrade the salaries for the coaching staff. Good luck in not seeing your student fees rise. PPL Park needs the revenue and they know that they can sell beer to make money on an additional 4-5 home dates. That place needs revenue.

The Big XII nine game, round robin schedule was released today. Those with neutral-site conference games will have a 4-4-1 breakdown. Texas lucked out in that they avoid any return trip in 2011 to a team it played on the road this year. The same can't be said for Oklahoma State (return to UT), Oklahoma (return to Oklahoma State) and Texas Tech (return to Oklahoma). Here is what Texas will have: 2011 and Odd Years Oct. 1 @ Iowa State Oc. 8 vs Oklahoma Oct. 15 OKLAHOMA STATE Oct. 22 @ Baylor Oct. 29 KANSAS Nov. 5 TEXAS TECH Nov. 12 @ Missouri Nov. 19 KANSAS STATE Nov. 26 @ Texas A&M 2012 and Even Years Week #1 IOWA STATE Week #2 vs Oklahoma Week #3 @ Oklahoma State Week #4 BAYLOR Week #5 @ Kansas Week #6 @ Texas Tech Week #7 MISSOURI Week #8 @ Kansas State Week #9 TEXAS A&M

Lastest rumor: The Big East Seriously Looking at TCU

Texas A&M AD Bill Byrne finally gave two reasons why he opposed them joining the SEC in a recent appearance. 1- Competition: "I was concerned with changing conferences that we may not be ready for the level of competition if we decided to leave. I was very concerned about trying to take things slowly, and not rush." 2- Budget (as they already owe the university some $16MM): "If we looked at where we stacked up financially in the Pac 10 conference, we were about third. If we looked at where we stacked up in the Southeastern Conference, we were eighth out of 12. We didn't rank very well."

Except the Mountain West has done even better bid-wise historically. +1. This had all to do with football TV money and the fact that any new version of the MWC was not going to give them as much money as what the Utes will soon receive as being part of the Pac-10. They knew that, so I give them credit for leaving and at least trying something new. Now, will the University of Denver leave the Sun Belt to become BYU's travel partner?

So I guess they will have to modify the "E" in this logo to start?

Apparently how BYU/WAC pact failed From the SL Tribune story: Utah State University president Stan Albrecht gleefully wrote in an Aug. 17 e-mail that Boise State University president Bob Kustra?s ?world is crumbling around him and he is desperate.? ?All signatures are in place. I don?t think either John or Milt has $5 million to buy their way out,? said Albrecht, referring to Fresno State president John Welty and University of Nevada president Milt Glick, whose schools faced a $5 million penalty for agreeing to relocate to the Mountain West Conference from the Western Athletic Conference. But a day later, Albrecht?s world ? and perhaps the WAC as a whole ? had disintegrated. In the span of roughly 24 hours last week, WAC officials and presidents soared and sank from glee to despair, watching their plan to add all of MWC member Brigham Young University?s sports teams except football fall apart. Known as ?The Project,? the plan that Albrecht masterminded with WAC commissioner Karl Benson, BYU president Cecil Samuelson and Welty would also have guaranteed football games against BYU ? always a big draw ? for the WAC?s top teams. But it came crashing down on Aug. 18, leaving Benson to lament in an e-mail to remaining WAC presidents, ?this has been a very emotional day for me ? both on the professional and personal side.? Documents and e-mail correspondence between the parties, obtained by The Tribune from USU through an open records request, show how close the plan came to being finalized; how MWC commissioner Craig Thompson?s last-minute wheeling and dealing scuttled it; how television sports giant ESPN was involved from the beginning; and how desperately USU wanted instate rival BYU to declare its independence in football and join its conference in everything else. The e-mails also show that WAC and USU officials believe Thompson hastily invited Nevada and Fresno State as a preemptive strike to weaken the WAC within days of learning BYU was planning to leave. Thompson said in a teleconference the night of Aug. 18 that the reason the MWC invited the two WAC schools that day was to strengthen the league?s negotiating position with television partner Comcast.

I can see Louisiana Tech returning to the Sun Belt myself. On the FCS level though, I can see Portland State, Sacramento State, and Montana wanting to jump to FBS, but there's no way Idaho can support 3 FBS teams. That said though, you do make a fair point with Montana State. TS-San Marcos and UT-San Antonio do make a lot of sense though. Didn't know about Texas State's intentions to move up though. Texas State has had a Campaign to FBS since before the moratorium. Texas State needs to add two more sports as they only offer 14. It is the intention for UTSA to be FBS by 2014, the earliest they can be. Solely by inviting "the better performing" FCS schools, the WAC does little to address their issues they currently have and the lack of TV revenue (and other issues) which caused three schools to leave.

No FCS school can apply to reclassify themselves into a FBS school until August 2011. The additional cost of scholarships and related travel are factors which schools will have to weigh. The WAC may go after a Sun Belt school like North Texas.

As long as the BCS encourages these meaningless games and gives little credence to SoS then why should any team schedule anything OOC that isn't a directional school. BYU could get nice paydays and TV money, but it does not equate to a Notre Dame-like slot in the BCS. Voters look at the "loss column" more than the SOS. It is the computers which look at SOS with more weight. While Bob Stoops and Oklahoma benefited from SOS in 2004(#6 overall) and 2008 (#1), he does not believe that it still is the case today. In addition, if BYU does not have a bowl tie-in like ND has with the Big East or a specific bowl, that revenue is lost unless they try to work with ESPN to develop another bowl game or move a poorly attended existing game. Stoops Talks OOC schedule "I don?t think in today?s world you?re rewarded for it. Look at the AP poll last year. We beat Oklahoma State at the end of the year, 27-0, and beat another ranked team in Stanford. Well, Oklahoma State?s ranked ahead of us. Why? Look at how it?s ranked every year. AP as well as the coaches all look at the loss column and if one team has one less loss than you they?re ranked ahead of you.?

A MWC without BYU and Utah is what? TCU and Boise St.? Losing those two schools is a drop in revenue as well. I also wonder if Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed would prefer to have his three schools: Fresno St., SJSU, and SDSU all in the same conference?

Colorado State was a MWC founding school. Nevada and Fresno State can be happy in that they save travel dollars in not having to travel to either Honolulu or Reston, LA. However, I am not sure where Fresno State will come up with the $5MM exit fee if it is does exist. The budget crisis for the Cal State system is immense. Nevada says they never signed such an agreement and Fresno has no comment before their presser later tonight. These moves still mean little with no BCS bid, in fact it may still hurt the MWC as BYU was a better team than the new two added. The current WAC/ESPN deal which was made with Boise, Nevada, and Fresno St. was for $4MM/year for all sports televised, it going to go down significantly now. As for BYU-TV, I wonder how they are going to attempt to effectively use it for football.

BYU is nationally known, but they are not Notre Dame. I do not think they are worthy of a BCS guarantee. No BCS gaurantee = Bad Decision.

Precisely why the name change is so dumb. It's not like Anaheim/Orange County is a "small" market! Orange County is home to 3,000,000+ residents (as of 2008), and surrounding Riverside and San Bernadino Counties (which are primarily Angels fans - especially in Riverside), are home to 2,073,571 and 2,060,950 citizens, respectively. So you imagine 3,000,000 OC fans, 2.1 million Riverside fans, and HALF of San Bernadino rooting for them (the other half swearing allegiance to Los Doyers), that's OVER 6,000,000 people right there! It was absolutely ludicrous to change the name! (Even if he did it to appeal more to an international [see: Mexican] audience, and the rest of the US) It's not like Anaheim has had more televised games because of it, or sold more merch. All they need to do is continue to keep winning the AL West and remaining competitive (and hey, maybe beat those damn Sawx for once in the postseason), and they'll have plenty of fans! I mean, look at Manchester United! One of the most RECOGNIZABLE sports brands on Earth, and it's because they're successful, NOT because they're from a big city like London (home of powerhouses like Chelski and Arsenal, but also lesser-known clubs in the U.S. like Tottenham, Fulham and West Ham United. Manchester has a population of 394,269, which is good for SEVENTH in England (and slightly larger than Anaheim), however, Greater Manchester has a population of 2,240,230, which is nearly a MILLION less than Orange County, yet look how famous MANU are world wide!!! ARE YOU TAKING NOTES, MR. MORENO!?? Terrible analogy. ManU has been successful for more than 50 years. The Angels have not been in business half as long that Man U has been. Plus, while the population of Manchester has gone down, they are still a draw on TV. Meanwhile, the Angels ca get good attendance, they are bottom 3 in local TV ratings. Nice job with 6 million "fans".

I'm pretty sure NCAA Division exemption waivers (or whatever the term they use to explain such things as Johns Hopkins' Division I lacrosse teams) are not intended to encompass revenue sports. Currently, there is a moratorium on teams moving to FBS football. It was set in 2007 and will last until August 9, 2011. The NCAA has guidelines set for 2011 that if a team decides to move to FBS football, the school must move all other sports up to the Division I-A level. It also prohibits teams from moving from Division III up to Division II in a single sport. All of those processes had to have been filed with the NCAA prior to August 9, 2007. Case in point, UTSA will start FCS football in late August 2011, weeks after the moratorium is listed. This was the earliest that they could begin to play. NCAA Division 1 Moratorium

Obstacles in starting the Longhorn Network Credit: Austin American-Statesman The timetable is uncertain, startup costs are significant, and only one other school in the nation has launched a similar enterprise with any degree of success. The business model under consideration suggests that UT could find an investor or investors, line up media partners and offset some of the startup costs by converting existing space inside Royal-Memorial Stadium, rather than creating production facilities from scratch. UT athletics has a small footprint in cable now. Time Warner Cable carries BEVOD ? a video-on-demand service dedicated to Longhorn sports ? for $3.99 a month. The service, available to Time Warner customers in Dallas, San Antonio, Waco and Austin, has roughly 6,000 subscribers, Plonsky said. The cost of starting a Longhorn network with original programming and live sporting events could run between $15 million and $30 million. The university would need a studio with a set or sets, floor cameras and stage lighting, editing equipment, an audio board and computers. The larger expense is personnel. To run a basic studio-based system, UT would need a production staff, engineers, producers, on-air talent and a sales team.

"Anyway, expansion is pointless because Texas will be pulling the rug out from under this Conference in 2-3 years anyway." Beebe continued. Here is why this thing is so done.