If the following teams were together, it would make a pretty good conference in many sports, but it could calm Stanford down with the addition of Tulane, SMU & Rice, all of which have academic street cred! Tulane & SMU are now playing good football and Rice has always had a good baseball program, even if having Rice in a Bowl is rare. There would be ~35M potential TV's. Modifications could remove Wyoming or Air Force in favor of San Jose State. 

 

Add North Dakota State, but with this reach, the market value has to exceed the current MWC $4M, but less than the Pac-12. It seems like somewhere between $15-20M is possible and maybe even $25 with an added streaming add-on. The problem is Stanford and Cal need to get over themselves. Hopefully, something like this in some way shape or form can happen for OSU & WSU to keep them viable.

 

School                        Metro/State Population

 

OSU                           2.2M Portland

WSU                          460K Spokane

CAL                            3.3M

STANFORD               3.3M

Boise State                1.9M State

Utah State                 1.2M

 

Nevada                      530K

UNLV                         2.9M

Fresno State             800K

SDSU                       3.3M

Wyoming                  500K State

Colorado State         2.9M

 

SMU                         6.5M

UT San Antonio        2.5M

Air Force                  2.9M

New Mexico             1.0M

Rice                          6.7M

Tulane                      1.0M

New Mexico? Air Force? Wyoming?

Together with Stanford? Or Cal?

 

Sorry, not seeing it.

 

It does make some sense, but too much pride to make it work.

New Mexico plays high school football, they don’t count. They are at Rio Rancho High’s level. Tried to keep it geographic.

 

Oliver Luck reportedly determining expansion candidates for the Pac-12

Pac-12 expansion appears to be a legitimate possibility for the Pac-12 again

 

Williams explained that Luck will compile a list of around 12 programs who will be considered. He also divulged that just because expansion discussions are happening again, doesn't mean that the conference won't end up merging with the American or Mountain West. 

 

If Luck is somehow able to pull off expansion for the Pac-12 in about a week and possibly track down a media rights deal in the process, it certainly feels fair to question George Kliavkoff's efforts over the past year.

 

 

https://www.si.com/college/stanford/football/oliver-luck-reportedly-determining-expansion-candidates-for-the-pac-12