Pac 12 Cooler

The press conference that just ended announced the new divisions. Here’s a look:

It was also announced that California schools will have a protected rivalry. This DOES ensure that all schools will have three games against a school from each region every year, but it is not truly equal in that regard being that the Northwest schools only get one game against an LA school each year. Still, I applaud the essence of getting the 3/3/3 geography and maintaining rivalries. Here’s a look at the new Pac-12 map:

For those of you that watched the press conference, you will notice that my map differs from Larry’s in that the Mountain schools are still north of the bay area schools (Although my map is curved with the earth). 

I would first like to say thanks to Larry Scott and the ADs, CEOs, and Presidents for looking at the Cooler plan (which he even mentioned with a smile during the post-conference questions). We had great fan support all around, and I’m really grateful for every comment in a John Wilner post defending the plan even though he wouldn’t mention it. This truly was the plan from the fans, for the fans, supported by the fans. Next I would like to say that I think that Larry Scott did a great job in the process of deciding, even if the Cooler was not selected. He had research firms look at what was best for the conference, which wasn’t what I found, but I assume that they were paid more to figure this stuff out, so I defer my opinion to their’s. It seems as though Larry had it all figured out way back when he told Colorado that they would be with the LA schools and when Larry gets a plan he seems to be determined to see it in action. That is the type of leadership that you want to see at the top of the conference.

As for the schools in particular, they will still play all their old friends, minus a couple schools on a nine game schedule. Even the Northwest schools, the ones being most excluded from Southern California, will still play 6 of their 7 former Pac-8 (the eighth is their own school), so there is something to be said for that. The Arizona schools, #9 and #10 into the conference will likely not care about losing two old foes because Utah and Colorado are closer to Arizona than the North division schools are. Here is a look at the important schedule information:

This is based on a small assumption, that being that the Northwest schools will not miss both Southern California schools in any given year, so the Southern California schools will miss one school from each of Oregon and Washington. The other results follow from that. The championship game will be played at the top seed’s home field and revenue sharing will move to equal share, decisions for which I am in favor. I will hold off on any judgements of who got hosed, but I will point out that the Northern California schools seemed to come out the most ahead, as they will continue to play all of their old Pac-8 rivals every year and they don’t have to be atop USC in the standings at the end of the season to make it to the championship game. Although equality is great for building a strong product, if any schools deserve a little bit extra it is probably the NorCal schools, the braintrust of the entire country, not just the Pac-12. Those and Harvard, which taught Larry how to correctly conjugate “Stadium” plurally to “Stadia” in Latin. 

As far as the marketing of the divisions goes, I have a few thoughts. The North division is equally West as compared to East, so the divisions could have been named as East and West. The North division is also culturally similar, probably drawing at least a little bit from the (non-WSU) schools all being in the rain shadow west of the Cascades/Sierras producing a very forested land. The Southern schools are all technically in a desert of some kind, although the Arizona schools are the ones that really feel the desert heat. The NorCal schools have to play in the potentially wet and cold environments at 4 Northwest schools late in the year, and the 4 SoCal schools have to play in 2 hot environments and 2 potentially snowy environments. The North aligns Seattle’s Microsoft and Amazon and RealNetworks and Nintendo through the Silicon Forest down to Silicon Valley and Google and HP and Apple and IBM (among others). The South aligns skate boarders with snow boarders and Westwood with Park City and Beaver Creek. On the whole, the divisions seem to fit nicely with themselves, all football aside. 

A note on bias for those interested. I am from Oregon, have lived in Washington and New Mexico, currently attend Arizona for my Master’s in Optics, have family in California and good friends at each and every Pac-12 school (except UCLA for some reason), and there is a reasonable chance that come January, I will be working at a job in California, Utah, or Colorado, but certainly will try to stay out in Pac-12 country. Hopefully that comes off as being a good representative of the interests from all regions. And as a side note, all graphics were created with Paint.net, which is freely available and wonderful. 

Here’s to hoping that the Pac-12 continues to be the Conference of Champions and that the new TV deal will make us all rich. If I was a North school, I would try to insert a clause into the TV deals about internet (or game console) broadcasting, which I’m thinking some forward-looking bidders in Seattle or Mountain View will be interested in pursuing. I imagine part of the TV deal will include trying to bring the North schools into the Asian market and the South schools into the Latin American market. The future looks bright. 

If I have any more big ideas for the future of the Pac-12 (and I have at least one), I will post them here on Pac12Cooler.com in the future, but I will hold off for now. Thanks again for the support everybody!