California College Athletics Feeling Budget Crunch

Yes, nothing says big-time like the ACC championship football game, 20,000 fans at a 70,000-seat stadium.

There is absolutely zero support of Pac-10 expansion at any level, and specifically from the presidents/chancellors, who call the shots. It's sometimes hard for people outside of the region to understand this, but it is true, often to the consternation of coaches/administrators.

It's already the finest all-around athletic/academic conference in the country. Why mess with successs? Boise State? Please.

No school adds enough to the all-around Pac-10 picture to merit disrupting a league that works perfectly as far as appearances in California, scheduling, travel parters, historical rivalries, etc.

There is no need for two more teams, for the revenue pie to be split 12 ways instead of 10, and for divisional play in a league that already plays a complete round-robin in every sport and already determines a true champion in every sport.

The root cause of California's fiscal problems, which filter down to its education system, are caused by its tax structure/ineffective state legislature/huge social welfare system, and not because Jeff Tedford or Rick Neuheisel make a decent living.

 

Well, this article dealt specifically with California and there has been no other public evidence of a problem like this outside of California - which is the most poorly run state in the country.

 

I read in a recent story on outgoing Pac-10 commish Tom Hansen that the only way expansion could happen is if it brought in a big TV market. Utah, BYU, Boise, no way. Vegas, Colorado, no way.
They were in the verge of adding Texas awhile back when the Southwest Conference was on the verge of collapse. Texas A&M was going to come along. The Pac-10 wasn't thrilled with having to take the Aggies, but probably would have taken them to get the Longhorns. But then, as Hansen explained, some Congresswoman from Texas, who went to Baylor, said Texas wasn't going anywhere without Baylor. And another politician with Texas Tech ties started complaining, too, and the whole thing fell apart.

 

That was no congresswoman, that was then-Texas governor Ann Richards. I'm not doubting Hansen's story, but more people attach this anecdote to Big 12 membership than to Texas' Pac 10 flirtations in the early 90s.

But really, I don't think Richards had as much pull by herself as the Texas Legislature had. I think the overall sentiment was to try and preserve as much of the old SWC as possible at the time.

 

I don't think there are any other schools way out West worthy of Pac-10 status.

Someone floated Boise State and that's laughable. The Mountain West keeps thumbing its nose at Boise State, which has a good football program to offer and nothing else.

Utah is the only "maybe" option but it isn't going anywhere without BYU. And if you've ever dealt with some of the stodgy protozoas in the Pac-10 hierarchy (hello Oregon president and Stanford elitists) then you are very much aware no middling programs from the Mountain West are ever going to be added.

The Pac-10 will remain the Pac-10 (hey Big 10 commish, can you count to 11?) for the simple reason that there are no viable alternatives.

 

You're absolutely right on that one.
Here is the part of the Q&A with Tom Hansen that I saw:

Q. In 1990, Arkansas jumped from the Southwest Conference to the SEC. That same year the ACC expanded and the Pac-10 took a look at adding Texas and Texas A&M. How close did the Texas schools come to joining the Pac-10?

A. It's been a long time and memories do tricks to you but Texas was, in my opinion, based on communications, Texas was very interested and it thought initially might be able to come alone. Then about the time things were really getting serious it was made clear to us by Texas-Austin that it couldn't get clear of A&M. We invited A&M but before we got a clear signal from A&M, Ann Richards, who was then the governor, said Baylor's my alma mater and they're going wherever Texas and Texas A&M go, and then in a less clear message, but still pretty well defined, we were told the legislators who control the oil money that goes to the Texas universities was controlled either by alumni of or representatives of the area of Texas Tech, and now there was a group of four and we were not interested in going from 10 to 14 so we said 'thank you anyway.' But Texas alone was very favorably inclined to consider our offer.

Q. Do you see any chance of the league expanding in the future?

A. I don't think so at this particular time because the reason you expand in college is to expand your football television footprint, and so none of the colleges within our footprint helps and the only ones fairly close by that would extend it at all would be Brigham Young and Utah. And they only have about 0.8 percent of the nation's TV homes.

Since you divide out our 18 plus percent by 10, you'd want some institution worth 1.8 percent or more. That would not be of interest. We'd be feeding more mouths with less money.

So the only institution that's ever much made sense from that standpoint is Texas because back then they had 7 percent of the TV market.

 

Tom Hansen takes a lot of grief for his time as Pac-10 commissioner, some of it well-deserved. However, his reluctance to join the rush to mass expansion that infected the ACC, SEC, Big Ten and Big East (in hoops), and resulted in the demise of the Big 8 and SWC in favor of the Big 12, is to be commended.

The Pac-10 remains the best conference in the country; ten teams is near-perfection in a 12-game college football world, and everybody plays everybody else so true champions are determined, and natural rivalries are protected and prolonged.

 

Well-said, Micro. Dead-on nails.

What school(s) are you going to add? UNLV? Not hardly; for the reasons spelled out above by Gutenberg. And there are no other schools in large enough TV markets on the West Coast worthy of entry.

 

The only school out west that makes any sense for the Pac 10 at all in terms of geography, academics and market-share is Colorado. And Boulder is Berkeley Lite.

But there is no point in going to 11 teams.