Pac-10 announces split into North-South divisions for new 12-school alignment

[JonLP24]

The conference, which has had 10 schools since Arizona and Arizona State joined in 1978, will split into North and South divisions for football beginning next season.

The South will feature USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State and the two newcomers -- Colorado and Utah.

The North division will be Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State.

The league also announced it will stage a conference title game in December of 2011 at the home field of the highest-ranked team.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2010/10/pac-10-announces-split-into-north-south-divisions-for-new-12-school-alignment.html

Pac-10 announces plan for new divisions, revenue sharing

<snip>

Stanford and California will play USC and UCLA each season, which means each of the four Northwest schools will play USC every other year and UCLA every other year. The Northwest teams would each make a trip to play in Los Angeles every other year.

<snip>

A football conference championship game will be played in December 2011 at the home field of the team with the best record in its nine conference games. If teams are tied, Scott said there will be a tiebreaker model in place that will begin with head-to-head meetings.

Football is the only sport that will be split into divisions, Scott said.

<snip>

Scott announced that media revenue will be shared equally beginning with the next contract, which will be in effect starting with the 2012-13 school year. If media revenue does not reach $170 million annually, USC and UCLA will each receive an extra $2 million. Once the $170 million threshold is reached on an annual basis, the revenue will be shared equally among the 12 schools.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/huskies/2013221073_pacnews22.html

On edit-I should point out it looks like they are still going to keep playing 9 conference games like they do today.

[Awsi Dooger]

1. As long as the Bay Area Weekender is intact, I can tolerate this

Key segment from the first link, "USC and UCLA fought, and won, to keep Cal and Stanford on their annual schedule."

Absolutely vital. I mentioned it in the previous thread. There's too much tradition and revenue involved in the annual trip to the Bay Area for USC and UCLA. Plus it aids in recruiting. The same holds up for the northern California schools visiting LA once per year.

[HuckleB]

2. It's all right, for the most part.

The California schools got the better of the bargain, and that's something that the other eight should push to change.

[JonLP24]

3. I'm glad

they kept the rivalries intact, including the smaller ones between Washington and Oregon as well as the NorCal/SoCal ones.

Also they most likely renewed the old Utah/Colorado rivalry.

[HuckleB]

4. To me, if you go to divisions, you go to divisions.

And you don't make odd exceptions to the schedule. The rivalries are what they are. As it stands, the northwest schools are probably not very happy, and they shouldn't be.

[JonLP24]

5. You're probably right

I guess we'll have to see how this plays out, though without the bay area ones intact there could of been 4 schools unhappy there. Well maybe just the LA ones because the USC AD was the one protesting the loudest.