In their haste to maximize future broadcast revenue by adding four West Coast teams, the conference has wreaked chaos on all the sports the member universities play that are not named football. Non-revenue and lower revenue teams face an uncertain future of airplane rides, hotel stays during the school week and jet lag.
To me, it makes sense to view football as a primarily full continent league, and all the other sports as regional.
The straightforward way to do this would be to add 3 West Coast teams and structure divisions as follows:
For football, have 3 national divisions that get reshuffled periodically (every four years or so) for parity. The top 3 teams over the prior 4 years would be placed in different divisions, next 3 the same down the line so each division is basically balanced. Within division, play the six other teams and structure the remaining conference games to preserve rivalries as needed.
For all other sports make 3 regional divisions, reducing travel time and costs.
I would suggest adding Stanford Cal and SDSU, which would have the added benefit of reaching 2 of the largest media markets, satisfying the network revenue requirements.
The stress expansion is going to put on non-football sports is considerable. I hope the conference is up to the challenge.
To me, it makes sense to view football as a primarily full continent league, and all the other sports as regional.
The straightforward way to do this would be to add 3 West Coast teams and structure divisions as follows:
For football, have 3 national divisions that get reshuffled periodically (every four years or so) for parity. The top 3 teams over the prior 4 years would be placed in different divisions, next 3 the same down the line so each division is basically balanced. Within division, play the six other teams and structure the remaining conference games to preserve rivalries as needed.
For all other sports make 3 regional divisions, reducing travel time and costs.
I would suggest adding Stanford Cal and SDSU, which would have the added benefit of reaching 2 of the largest media markets, satisfying the network revenue requirements.
The stress expansion is going to put on non-football sports is considerable. I hope the conference is up to the challenge.