Amen to keeping the California rivalries! This was absolutely a requirement if we were to grant equal revenue sharing.
David K.
Look, i’m happy that the California schools get to keep their games, I think its great for them, no problem with that. My problem si that Scott talks about how everyone can be happy with this. Bullshit everyone can be happy. When 1 out of 3 schools in your conference just got screwed, everyone is NOT happy.
Brendan Loy
According to Scott, the vote was unanimous. And even if that’s b.s. (maybe they dissenters went along because they knew they couldn’t win, and wanted to present a united front officially), at a minimum 1 of the 4 Northwest schools had to be genuinely OK with this. Had they voted as a bloc to stop it, it wouldn’t have happened. So apparently not every interested party on your side of things agrees that “1 out of 3 schools in [the] conference just got screwed.”
David K.
All the CEO’s may be ok with it, but that doesn’t mean the fans are. I pointed out in my other comment how dissapointed I am in the CEO’s selling out the NW schools. I can see nothing wrong with the other 8 CEO’s agreeing to this its great for them. So no, not everyone is happy with this by a long shot. Just check out some fo the regular blogs for the NW schools (or don’t if you’d, you know, like to enjoy your day).
David K.
Also, happy for you that Colorado and USC are in the same division.
Brendan Loy
Thanks. 🙂 I understand your frustration with the setup, and sympathize. I was just pointing out that “your” people could have stopped it if they felt it was important enough to do so. But that’s a bit like telling a hard-core Tea Partier the Republicans have been fiscally irresponsible too. Just like they’re pissed at the old guard GOP, you’re pissed at the CEOs for “selling out.” I get it.
Can’t wait to see the schedules!
David K.
We should have skipped over Colorado and Utah and gone with San Deigo State and Fresno State. More California teams = More trips to California for everyone!
You really want to go to Fresno? What is wrong with you, David?
Also, I had to smirk at the likening of David K to a Tea Partier.
David K.
No i don’t really want to go to Fresno, although I have been there once or twice. Also, i’m different from a Tea Partier, I don’t wear funny hats to political rallies. And I don’t own a gun.
Jay Barasch
here’s how i figure it…
The Pac Ten will continue to use 9 interconference games.
USC and UCLA each have annual games against 7 teams:
1)Each other
2)Cal
3)Stanford
4)ASU
5)Arizona
6)Utah
7)Colorado
Therefore, USC and UCLA will each play 2 games each year against a team in the northwest region. there are 4 teams in the northwest region. So Northwestern teams will, on average, play a team from Los Angeles every year. They will also, on average, get a trip to Los Angeles every other year.
Isn’t that exactly what northwest fans wanted?
Brendan Loy
No, because — to give you the Reader’s Digest version of the debate that’s been raging on this blog for several weeks, if not months — the Northwest schools would have had more access to L.A. under a Zipper model (either 4 times every 5 years or 3 times every 4 years, depending on the exact setup) or under this North/South model but without the double California crossovers (twice every 3 years with no crossovers, 3 times every 5 years with only 1 crossover). Put another way, under those alternative scheduling models, the Northwest schools would play in L.A. 80%, 75%, 67% or 60% of the time, respectively, whereas in this model, they only play there 50% of the time.
(Note, incidentally, that under the 75% model — actually the two 75% models, the “Cooler” and the “California Zipper” with double crossover games — the California games would also be preserved. But the “zippered” divisions would be non-geographic and thus confusingly ACC-esque, which Larry Scott was clearly very opposed to.)
Moreover, David thinks it’s an unfair competitive disadvantage that every other team in the conference has annual access to L.A. — the AZ & Mountain schools because they’re in the South, the Bay Area schools because of the California crossover games — while the Northwest schools are the ONLY ones with half the amount of access to L.A. that everyone else has. This is why David was so fond of the Zipper model, because not only did it give the Northwest schools more L.A. access in absolute terms (80% or 75%), but it also gave them equal access as compared to the Arizona and Mountain schools. (Of course, under the current setup, the Northwest, Arizona, and Mountain schools all have equal access to California, but two-thirds of the Northwest schools’ California games are in NorCal, whereas two-thirds of the Mountain/Arizona schools’ California games are in SoCal, so David regards this as cold comfort.)
Basically, David’s position is that the Northwest schools are sacrificing too much here, the California schools too little, and the Mountain/Arizona schools nothing. AMLTrojan has responded that, actually, the L.A. schools are sacrificing revenue, which needs to be considered as part of the compromise equation. Also the California schools are all sacrificing the concept of being in the same division, though honestly, with full crossover games, I don’t know that this really matters (even if “Pac-12 splits California schools” was, strangely, the headline I saw on most articles about this today — people, the lede is that the Weekender was preserved in the split, not that the split happened, which had been a foregone conclusion for some time).
The conventional wisdom is the old Pac-8 made sacrifices to create the new Pac-12.
… Ah, but the conventional wisdom isn’t always correct. And unintended consequences often produce more powerful ramifications.
For one, there might be a benefit to not playing USC and UCLA every year, just as it was a benefit before the nine-game, round-robin conference schedule was adopted to miss USC during the early Pete Carroll era.
Do some shuffling in your head. What happens if Jim Harbaugh leaves Stanford? And Rick Neuheisel leads the Bruins back to national relevance? And Utah remains good? A deeper South Division could benefit North Division powers.
How? At present, the conference championship game is going to be played in the home stadium of the No. 1 seed in December. A conference championship game in the Northwest in December — due to the elements — is a significant home-field advantage (and this is more likely to occur if the South is deeper than the North — ed.).
And keep in mind: The North teams will still get a Southern California trip every other year. It’s possible a feared recruiting advantage won’t actually be that significant: If a kid was willing to even entertain the idea of leaving home to go to Oregon State or Washington State in the first place, why would losing a couple of games near his home town drive his ultimate decision?
That last point to me is the key. I agree with David in concept that the NW schools are sacrificing more than the other schools in the chosen arrangement, however, where we differ is on what we consider the scale of that sacrifice to be. I’m with Ted Miller — I see the recruiting disadvantage of not playing a game in LA every year as being very minute, and there’s little chance it drives more than one or two recruits a year to shy away from signing with one of the NW schools.
PS — I would also add, if David or any other defender of the CW wants to disagree with me and thinks the impact on recruiting in So Cal will be much larger than I am alleging, I believe the burden on proof is on them to come up with data and statistics to make their case.
Annual interdivisional games between California schools. The Weekender lives! @krizoitz‘s head just exploded
Amen to keeping the California rivalries! This was absolutely a requirement if we were to grant equal revenue sharing.
Look, i’m happy that the California schools get to keep their games, I think its great for them, no problem with that. My problem si that Scott talks about how everyone can be happy with this. Bullshit everyone can be happy. When 1 out of 3 schools in your conference just got screwed, everyone is NOT happy.
According to Scott, the vote was unanimous. And even if that’s b.s. (maybe they dissenters went along because they knew they couldn’t win, and wanted to present a united front officially), at a minimum 1 of the 4 Northwest schools had to be genuinely OK with this. Had they voted as a bloc to stop it, it wouldn’t have happened. So apparently not every interested party on your side of things agrees that “1 out of 3 schools in [the] conference just got screwed.”
All the CEO’s may be ok with it, but that doesn’t mean the fans are. I pointed out in my other comment how dissapointed I am in the CEO’s selling out the NW schools. I can see nothing wrong with the other 8 CEO’s agreeing to this its great for them. So no, not everyone is happy with this by a long shot. Just check out some fo the regular blogs for the NW schools (or don’t if you’d, you know, like to enjoy your day).
Also, happy for you that Colorado and USC are in the same division.
Thanks. 🙂 I understand your frustration with the setup, and sympathize. I was just pointing out that “your” people could have stopped it if they felt it was important enough to do so. But that’s a bit like telling a hard-core Tea Partier the Republicans have been fiscally irresponsible too. Just like they’re pissed at the old guard GOP, you’re pissed at the CEOs for “selling out.” I get it.
Can’t wait to see the schedules!
We should have skipped over Colorado and Utah and gone with San Deigo State and Fresno State. More California teams = More trips to California for everyone!
LOL
You really want to go to Fresno? What is wrong with you, David?
Also, I had to smirk at the likening of David K to a Tea Partier.
No i don’t really want to go to Fresno, although I have been there once or twice. Also, i’m different from a Tea Partier, I don’t wear funny hats to political rallies. And I don’t own a gun.
here’s how i figure it…
The Pac Ten will continue to use 9 interconference games.
USC and UCLA each have annual games against 7 teams:
1)Each other
2)Cal
3)Stanford
4)ASU
5)Arizona
6)Utah
7)Colorado
Therefore, USC and UCLA will each play 2 games each year against a team in the northwest region. there are 4 teams in the northwest region. So Northwestern teams will, on average, play a team from Los Angeles every year. They will also, on average, get a trip to Los Angeles every other year.
Isn’t that exactly what northwest fans wanted?
No, because — to give you the Reader’s Digest version of the debate that’s been raging on this blog for several weeks, if not months — the Northwest schools would have had more access to L.A. under a Zipper model (either 4 times every 5 years or 3 times every 4 years, depending on the exact setup) or under this North/South model but without the double California crossovers (twice every 3 years with no crossovers, 3 times every 5 years with only 1 crossover). Put another way, under those alternative scheduling models, the Northwest schools would play in L.A. 80%, 75%, 67% or 60% of the time, respectively, whereas in this model, they only play there 50% of the time.
(Note, incidentally, that under the 75% model — actually the two 75% models, the “Cooler” and the “California Zipper” with double crossover games — the California games would also be preserved. But the “zippered” divisions would be non-geographic and thus confusingly ACC-esque, which Larry Scott was clearly very opposed to.)
Moreover, David thinks it’s an unfair competitive disadvantage that every other team in the conference has annual access to L.A. — the AZ & Mountain schools because they’re in the South, the Bay Area schools because of the California crossover games — while the Northwest schools are the ONLY ones with half the amount of access to L.A. that everyone else has. This is why David was so fond of the Zipper model, because not only did it give the Northwest schools more L.A. access in absolute terms (80% or 75%), but it also gave them equal access as compared to the Arizona and Mountain schools. (Of course, under the current setup, the Northwest, Arizona, and Mountain schools all have equal access to California, but two-thirds of the Northwest schools’ California games are in NorCal, whereas two-thirds of the Mountain/Arizona schools’ California games are in SoCal, so David regards this as cold comfort.)
Basically, David’s position is that the Northwest schools are sacrificing too much here, the California schools too little, and the Mountain/Arizona schools nothing. AMLTrojan has responded that, actually, the L.A. schools are sacrificing revenue, which needs to be considered as part of the compromise equation. Also the California schools are all sacrificing the concept of being in the same division, though honestly, with full crossover games, I don’t know that this really matters (even if “Pac-12 splits California schools” was, strangely, the headline I saw on most articles about this today — people, the lede is that the Weekender was preserved in the split, not that the split happened, which had been a foregone conclusion for some time).
I think Ted Miller has a good take:
That last point to me is the key. I agree with David in concept that the NW schools are sacrificing more than the other schools in the chosen arrangement, however, where we differ is on what we consider the scale of that sacrifice to be. I’m with Ted Miller — I see the recruiting disadvantage of not playing a game in LA every year as being very minute, and there’s little chance it drives more than one or two recruits a year to shy away from signing with one of the NW schools.
PS — I would also add, if David or any other defender of the CW wants to disagree with me and thinks the impact on recruiting in So Cal will be much larger than I am alleging, I believe the burden on proof is on them to come up with data and statistics to make their case.