Mountain West Conference Expansion Checkup: Subject of Pac-10 Expansion

Sorry this is out a day late. I thought I had published it, but apparently I didn't.

The MWC Expansion Checkup will happen every Friday and will feature topics of MWC Expansion.

Wednesday afternoon, I read an online story from the Las Vegas Sun about MWC Expansion. In the comments afterward, the subject changed to Pac-10 Expansion. I personally believe the Pac-10 will not expand, but that's just me. I have a lot of reason for it and I wil go over it. But keep in mind, if I do not mention something, please do tell me in the comments.

First off, here are the reasons the Pac-10 will not expand:

The Pac-10 has a unanimous vote rule in order to expand, that means one no vote and expansion doesn't happen. The most probable school to do this would be Stanford. Of the 10 schools in the Pac-10, only two schools are in the green, USC and Stanford. The reason that the Pac-10 is because the schools and league as a whole is gripping for cash. Adding Utah and Colorado would bring a championship game and much more cash, so for every other school except the Pac-10, that makes sense. Another reason Stanford would no-vote is because if Utah and Colorado were annexed, it would split the divisions in two. That means that they don't have a for sure yearly game against USC. Every school wants its game against USC because it always is a sellout and you have a pretty good chance of getting on TV. With the two divisions, you would no longer have that game guaranteed.

The Pac-10 also is currently looking for every other way to make cash other than expansion. The Pac-10 is attempting to change an NCAA Bylaw that states you must have 12 teams and 2 divisions in order to have a championship game. If that bylaw gets changed, than there is absolutely no reason to expand any more because it would just mean more hands in the pot. The Pac-10 has also been said to be talking about creating the Pac-10 Network. Along with that, they are currently in negotiations with the Big 12 in combining TV Deals. If the Pac-10 were to combine TV deals with the Big 12, their TV Revenue would double and kill any Pac-10 Expansion rumors.

Another Reason is that the Pac-10 doesn't have as many good expansion candidates as the Big 10 does. The Pac-10's only viable candidates are Utah and Colorado. The Big 10 has seven good candidates for expasion. Since the Pac-10 doesn't have as many good candidates, some schools might be reluctant to expand. I will go over the candidates I read about in the comments after the jump:

List of Candidates:

Utah

Colorado

Boise St.

UNR

UNLV

(do keep in mind that this is a Las Vegas newspaper that UNLV fans read)

As I said earlier, the only reason the Pac-10 will expand is for money reasons. That means, they are going to add the candidates that will bring in the most money. All revenue in the Pac-10 is shared, that means that for an expansion candidate to make money sense, they are going to have to increase the amount of money every other school makes. That includes adding your hand to the pot.

Utah - Utah is the best candidate for Pac-10 expansion if it were to happen. The main reason why is because they make sense money-wise. They are in a huge market in Salt Lake City and have mostof the city on their side. They would bring so many viewers to a possible Pac-10 Network, that they bring in more cash than they take out. Other reasons include that they do have a great football program, and that would be able to create some more marquee matchups in the Pac-10.

Colorado - The Colorado Buffaloes, although the second best candidate, do not make sense money-wise. Now, you may ask yourself "How is that possible, they have the Denver market!" but they truly don't have as many fans as people think in Denver. As far as fans go, they aren't the only college near the Denver area, they have to fend off 5 other schools to gain fans in Denver. Plus, the Buffaloes haven't done well in football in the last couple of years and that makes it even tougher to get fans to buy a potential Pac-10 network. Colorado brings less to the pot than it takes out and that might stop the Pac-10 from expanding.

Boise St. - At first glance, this may seem like a no-brainer for the Pac-10. An established, well-known and recognized football program with a national gathering, right? Wrong.  Boise St. is all of the stuff that I just listed above, but the absolute kiiller here is academics. Boise St. is not a tier-1 academic school. and the Pac-10 schools are very paranoid about keeping the academic prestige at a high level. As far as Boise St. goes, they make all the sense money-wise, they just don't measure up to the Pac-10 in academics and that is what will keep them out.

UNR/UNLV - I only put those schools up there because they were in the comments... These schools have no shot at making it in to the Pac-10, period. If you have a different opinion on this, please let me know in the comments.

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