Pac-10 swells to Pac-16!
April 1, 2010
Complete Release in PDF Format
WALNUT CREEK, Calif.
The "Conference of Champions" has suddenly
taken on a far more distinctive "Bay Area" flavor.
In surprising news
that sent shock waves throughout American intercollegiate college athletics, the
Pac-10 Conference has voted to increase its membership from 10 to 16
schools. In a Tuesday evening media conference, Pac-10 Commissioner
Larry Scott announced that the new "Pac-16 Conference" members will
include Sacramento State, San Jose State, Saint Mary's, Pacific (UOP), Santa
Clara and San Francisco (USF). Three of the new additions, Saint Mary's College,
Santa Clara, and USF are private, religiously-affiliated universities
and each of the three previously had been part of the West Coast
Conference.
The bold expansion move, originally expected to add just two
additional schools (in recent months, Utah and Colorado were rumored to be
leading candidates), received strong support from prominent Pac-10
corporate sponsors including Gatorade, Nike, KFC, Pacific Life, Dr. Pepper,
State Farm, Wahoo's Fish Tacos, Verizon Wireless and
freecreditreport.com. Certain financial guarantees were negotiated to allow
several of the incoming programs to have adequate resources to be able to
initiate the challenging process of returning to FBS competition.
After 26 years under the pioneering leadership of former
league head Tom Hanson, Pac-10 Commissioner Larry
Scott, previously Chairman and CEO of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA)
,was brought in last July to increase the conference's revenue and
"improve" its existing television contract with Fox Sports Net (FSN).
The newly-formed Pac-16 will have its football, men's and women's basketball,
soccer, rugby and field hockey games broadcasted on the USA
Network during the 2010-2011 season. According to disarmingly
telegenic "Special Counsel to the Pac-16", Jed E. Salmon, the expanded league is
expected to launch its own network, the Learfield Directors' Cup Sports
Network [LDCSN] aka "The Cup Leader" with a targeted debut in the
spring of 2011.
Bob Bowlsby, the "Jaquish & Kenninger Director
of Athletics" at Stanford University and Co-Chairman of the Conference Expansion
Committee, said there was little argument among the members with
regard to the need for an independent network. "We saw the success of
the MountainWest Network [aka "The Mnt."], took a careful look at their combined
record against Pac-10 teams in recent years, and made the call. It was an
absolute no-brainer."
According to Tuesday night's press
release from the Pac-10 office headquarters in Walnut Creek
(Calif.), the conference will be split into two separate divisions, whose
respective annual champions will play in a "Pac-16 Conference Championship
Game", the creation of which will be required under the new
television agreement.
The "Bay Division"
will include Stanford, Cal, Pacific, Sac State, San Jose State, Santa Clara, and
Saint Mary's. The "Oceanic Division" will include
the eight remaining programs: USC, UCLA, Arizona, ASU, Oregon, OSU,
Washington, and WSU. Each conference team will play all five teams within its
own division, play four of the eight teams in the other division on a
rotating basis, and still have three spots remaining for non-conference play.
Last time we checked, several of those schools are located a bit inland
from the "ocean", but whatever! Pacific representatives had lobbied hard
for a "Delta Division", but conference officials were understandably concerned
about having to display pledge pins on team uniforms and decided instead to
place themselves on double-secret probation.
Traditionalist may have a
difficult time adjusting to the new split-conference format. The motivation for
dividing the 16 teams into two separate divisions was both geographic
and economic.
"In addition to the obvious opportunity represented
by the conference championship game, by playing more proximate intra-divisional
games our cash-strapped programs can generate substantial savings by
taking environmentally-efficient hybrid buses instead of fuel-guzzling
planes" said newly appointed Pac-16 Associate Green Travel Coordinator
John Eschleman. "We hope some of these exciting Bay Division match-ups will lead
to the establishment of resurrected rivalries rich in tradition, while at the
same time allowing us to be fiscally- and environmentally-responsible
during these uncertain economic times."
Back from visiting
U.S. troops in Iraq, President Barack Obama released a statement praising
the league's aggressive expansion plans which "should mean more jobs for
American bureaucrats" and stating that he was pleased that
western colleges would be "doing their share by redistributing
conference revenue to some of the less financially stable and
deserving athletic programs in the country." President Obama also
stated that Pac-10 conference expansion had long been "a critical element of my
long-term vision for a 'transformational presidency' ." He said he was going to
see the Pac-10 expansion plan pass whether the members actually wanted it or
not.
In selecting the six new schools and to satisfy expansion
requirements, careful consideration was given to the caliber of each
university's academic reputation, the broad-based nature of their
gender-equitable athletic programs, and the untapped potential of their
respective cable and satellite television markets. Essentially, any new
additions would have to bring enough television money to overcome the
obvious economic disadvantage of having to slice up the conference revenue
pie into 16 pieces.
"Stockton and Moraga are Top-50,000
television markets in the United States - the Pac-16 would be remiss if they
failed to avail themselves of such a unique opportunity for new market
penetration." said senior analyst Danny Noonan of Bushwood Media in New
York.
According to Angus Strom of Dublin-based Draper Sports
Marketing, "There is a tremendous amount of pent-up demand for USF, UOP, Saint
Mary's and Santa Clara football-related merchandise, which should add
substantially to the conference coffers in the coming years. Sales of "Dick
Bass Ale", Brent Jones and Eddie LeBaron bobbleheads, and Ollie Matson and
Dan Pastorini throw-back jerseys should go though the roof!" added J.
Walter Subchak, Founder of Dude Collectibles in Lafayette
(Calif.).
"USF, Saint Mary's and Santa Clara historically have been local
sports rivals and that friendly competition should be fairly easy to rekindle"
added longtime Bay Area sportswriter and Cal alumnus Glenn Dickey. "For Kapp's
sake, Cal can't seem to get to a freakin' Rose Bowl, so we might as well
give some other schools a shot!"
Pacific, which dropped football in 1995,
was reportedly a last-minute substitution for UC-Irvine, which easily had
beaten out Cal State University - Monterey and Cal State University - Channel
Islands for the final spot on the conference slate. The Stockton-based school
wasn't sure it could get approval from the university's board of trustees in
time for the conference vote in mid-March, but Dr. Ted Leland, Vice President,
External Relations at Pacific reportedly pulled a few strings. Seattle Seahawks
head coach Pete Carroll, former Raiders coach Tom Flores and former Stanford
coach Walt Harris are all graduates of UOP and have been mentioned as
possible Pacific coaching candidates that could lead the Tigers back to
intercollegiate competition in football.
Sacramento State is already
on Stanford Football's 2010 schedule, but the Hornets' inclusion is
thought to be closely related to the recent appointment of Danette Leighton
as the conference's first ever Chief Marketing
Officer. Leighton, an Arizona Wildcat, was previously the Vice
President of Marketing and Brand Development for Maloof Sports &
Entertainment, owner of the NBA's Sacramento Kings and ARCO Arena, site of the
recent Women's Basketball West Regional.
The addition of USF
helps explain why Stanford has scheduled its annual spring scrimmage, known as
the "Red & White" game, on April 17 at 2:00PM at historic
Kezar Stadium, the venue at which the USF Dons played their home games
until dropping football, largely for financial
reasons, after a spectacular undefeated 9-0-0 season in 1951.
Stanford can already boast a proud tradition of sacrificing its own best
interest in order to subsidize and otherwise assist fledgling programs like
San Jose State and of offering to play teams it gets no credit for
beating, like San Jose State, and gets demonized for losing to - like
UC-Davis.
KNBR 680 sports radio personality Ralph "The Razor"
Barbieri, a proud graduate of USF, claims he applauds the inclusion of his alma
mater, but that he was vociferously copasetic and perennially dyspeptic" "It was
reprehensible that USF football got crap-canned. Our tremendous '51 team
produced three NFL Hall of Famers and the penny-pinching school
administrators shut it all down because there weren't any corporate
sponsors back in those days."
One significant hurdle was a
long-running football feud between Stanford and Saint Mary's. After Saint
Mary's defeated Stanford in 1927 in a brutally violent game in which the
"Saints" players were accused of deliberately and successfully attempting to
injure Stanford line-smasher Dick Hyland, Stanford athletic department officials
refused to schedule "Slip" Madigan's sinister Saints again. The
two schools have never met on the gridiron since, even though Saint Mary's did
not discontinue its football program until 2003.
Thanks in no
small part to the skillful mediation efforts of Saint Mary's alumnus and former
Stanford Athletics staff member Scott Leykam, the schools agreed to resume
gridiron competition, agreeing that after 83 years, the schools could let
"bygones be bygones".
West Coast Conference
Commissioner Jamie Zaninovich says he is not too concerned about the defection
of Saint Mary's, USF and Santa Clara, the first schools to leave the WCC in
more than 30 years, "After all, the WCC does not field football teams.
They want to try this, they can do what they have got to do." Zaninovich
said that he wasn't surprised that the new "Pac-16", ravenous for
additional NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament revenue, would want to expand
and have more than one representative in the Men's Sweet Sixteen.
One of the attractive reasons for adding the new schools was
the growing economic viability of some of the minor women's sports. "Women's
Lightweight Crew, for example. has seen a substantial surge in recent years
out here on the Delta and ticket sales are growing 22%
year-to-year. Women's Heavyweight Crew-related annual giving is
up 45%. Just think what we can do as part of the Pac-16!" stated Pacific's
enthusiastic Associate Athletics Director for Development, Jim Dugoni.
According to sources within the
commissioner's office, other colleges considered for Pac-10 conference expansion
included Boise State, Colorado, Faber, Fresno State, Nevada, Pace, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah and Western Kentucky.
The new conference has
tentatively branded itself as the "SIXT-PAC" and fittingly the
promotional posters making their debut at yesterday's media conference showed
USC head coach Lane Kiffin brandishing his washboard abs while wearing nothing
but Nike short-shorts, Jimmy Choos, and a sideline headset
visor.
The Bootleg will report back as developments unfold and
further details are released.
From the Official Pac-16 Site: The Pacific-16
Conference continues to uphold its tradition as the "Conference of Champions" ®,
claiming an incredible 166 NCAA team titles over the past 19 years, including 11
in 2008-09, averaging nearly nine championships per academic year. Even more
impressive has been the breadth of the Pac-16's success, with championships
coming in 26 different men's and women's sports. The Pac-16 has led the nation
in NCAA Championships in 43 of the last 49 years and finished second five times.
Spanning nearly a century of outstanding athletics achievements, the Pac-16 has
captured 380 NCAA titles (261 men's, 119 women's), far outdistancing the
runner-up Big Ten Conference's 222 titles.
Since the NCAA began
conducting women's championships 27 years ago, Pac-16 schools have claimed at
least four national titles in a single season on 19 separate occasions. Overall,
the Pac-16 has captured 113 NCAA women's crowns, 30 more than any other
conference.
The Conference's reputation is further proven in the annual
Learfield Sports Directors' Cup competition, the prestigious award that honors
the best overall collegiate athletics programs in the country. STANFORD won its
15th-consecutive Directors' Cup in 2008-09, continuing its remarkable run. Eight
of the top 25 Division I programs were Pac-16 member institutions: No. 1
STANFORD, No. 4 USC, No. 7 CALIFORNIA, No. 11 WASHINGTON, No. 12 ARIZONA STATE,
No. 16 UCLA, No. 22 OREGON and No. 24 ARIZONA. The Pac-16 landed three programs
in the top-10, one more than the second-place ACC, Big Ten and SEC (2).
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