Atxwave

Atxwave here....I posted the almost exact same suggestion on one of our boards on Saturday morning except I included Memphis instead of UNLV: PAC was earning about $33 million per school but obviously loses the LA market (USC and UCLA) We'll keep it close to what it was and make the payment amount a 2 year commitment based on football and basketball ranking (a formula whereby each school will be re-evaluated every 2 years and can move up or down a tier). This gives the schools incentive to stay competitive. It's like a promotion/relegation system. New 16 school conference - a cost of $405 million/year with an 8 year commitment (8 years is not a long commitment for the schools being looked at by BIG and Big12 so this buys those schools some time to see how those other conferences shake out as well as the overall landscape). If you can't find more than $250 million/year (which is the rumor) sell the naming rights of the conference to NIKE for $155 million/year and make all the schools NIKE schools. The Pac 16 presented by NIKE or The NIKE 16. This will be amazing branding for them and a completely new way to brand the product. This keeps all the current schools, adds San Diego (27) market, Fresno (55) market...2 solid football schools in California. It also adds the Dallas market, Houston (8) or San Antonio (31) market, Memphis (51) market, and New Orleans (50) market. This also adds 4 schools in the central time zone to expand the Pac16 audience as well as makes it easier for non-football teams to have travel partners. You've added 2 strong academic schools in SMU and Tulane...possibly 3 if you take Rice over San Antonio (personally I take San Antonio as UTSA has tremendous growth potential and it's a good tv market). All of the 6 additions have had respectable football and basketball programs off and on within the last 6 years. Tier 1 - $35 million Washington Oregon Utah Tier 2 - $30 million Washington State Oregon State Colorado Stanford Cal Arizona Arizona State Tier 3 - $15 million San Diego State Fresno State SMU Memphis Tulane Rice or UTSA