Mirrored: 28th of December 2011, 21:16 Original: www.nytimes.com Views: 66 Settings: Loading the mirror...
Link: canonical * Log In * Register Now * Help * Home Page * Today's Paper * Video * Most Popular * Times Topics Search All NYTimes.com _____________________ [ Search ] New York Times College Football * World * U.S. * N.Y. / Region * Business * Technology * Science * Health * Sports * Baseball * N.F.L. * College Football * N.B.A. * College Basketball * Hockey * Soccer * Golf * Tennis * Global Sports * Buy Tickets * Opinion * Arts * Style * Travel * Jobs * Real Estate * Autos Click Here Pac-12 and Big Ten Announce Scheduling Partnership By PETE THAMEL Published: December 28, 2011 * Sign In to E-Mail * Print * Reprints [IMG] In a time of instability and uncertainty on the college sports landscape, the Pac-12 and the Big Ten announced an innovative scheduling agreement Wednesday that links the two conferences and shows they have no imminent plans for change. The Quad The Quad Blog Logo Interviews, insight and analysis from The Times on the competition and culture of college football. Go to The Quad Blog Division I-A * This Week's Games * A.P. and Coaches' Polls * Scores: Top 25 | All Div. I-A * Conference Standings * All Div. I-A Teams Division I-AA * Scores | Teams | Polls Starting in 2017, each team from the Pac-12 and the Big Ten will play a team from the other league in football each season, and the conferences will also begin to play each other extensively in other sports starting as soon as next season. The Big Ten commissioner, Jim Delany, said the essential idea was to create some of the benefits of conference expansion - greater reach, increased brand recognition and more quality games - without actually expanding. Delany called Larry Scott, the Pac-12 commissioner, about the idea in the summer and the plan crystallized through a series of meetings between athletic directors and university presidents, the last of which was in New York in December. The two leagues have their own television networks and share more than a century of history tied to the Rose Bowl. "To me this is a creative and inventive approach through collaboration to achieve some of the same objectives that expansion can help you with," Scott said. "It gives our conference more of a national platform, more play on the Big Ten Network and higher quality programming on our network without having to expand." Scott and Delany said they would continue to monitor the landscape in regard to expansion. But they said the agreement was a sign they wanted to identify growth possibilities and value through ways that did not entail adding more teams. The football possibilities of the agreement are tantalizing in an era in which early-season nonconference schedules often feature traditional powers playing inferior opponents. The Pac-12-Big Ten games will be created to match up programs of similar strength, meaning that marquee games like Ohio State versus Southern California, Wisconsin versus Stanford and Michigan versus Oregon could soon be seen early in the season. Delany said the games would most likely be played in the second, third and fourth weeks of the season. Scott said they could be incorporated into events like season kickoff games. Delany said the idea stemmed from a discussion he had with the former Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther during the realignment chaos last summer. The agreement will also help fortify quality programming for the Big Ten Network and the Pac-12 Network, which is scheduled to debut in the summer. "How can we think about this in a way that allows us to continue to create interesting and compelling games and enhance the fans' experience and athletes' experience and help our television partners and build our networks?" Delany said. The scheduling agreement will transcend football, with the conferences' men's and women's basketball teams playing one another regularly starting next year. Other sports are beginning to evaluate how the agreement can be used to benefit them. In Olympic sports, for instance, Delany said that universities like Michigan or U.S.C. could host a showcase track meet that would feature aspiring Olympians from both leagues. Delany also said the partnership in basketball could help the sport open its season more definitively, the way Major League Baseball does with its opening day. He suggested that the scheduling collaboration could give the leagues a chance to have a strong start to the season, be it through an exempted event or by playing a marquee game in an N.B.A. arena. One significant adjustment the Big Ten will make is that it will not be going to a nine-game league schedule, as it had planned to do in 2017. Delany said the eight-game schedule works because it is balanced and each team has four games at home and four on the road. The Pac-12 will most likely stick with its nine-game schedule, but it will discuss it further. The collaboration could lead to the leagues creating bowl partnerships and postseason games that would be shown on their networks. Delany pointed out that ESPN and the NFL Network both run bowl games. While Delany and Scott said the idea of starting a bowl game shown on their networks had not been formally discussed, both said they were open to the idea. "I think it's a conversation that anyone would see, and could see us having, and it wouldn't be from out of left field," Delany said. * Sign In to E-Mail * Print * Reprints Connect with The New York Times on Facebook. 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