Pac-12 Zipper Alignment – No Problems, Just Opportunities

Where all blog posts should orginate

Sure, I’m at the end of a Maui honeymoon, but that wouldn’t stop me from spending significant time reading up on the subject of Pac-12 alignment strategies (WOTB says…divorce please!).

When I saw this morning on Jon Wilner’s blog that the Pac-12 may be leaning toward a North-South split, I screamed “Nooooo!” Well, I wanted to, but the people staying next to us might have found that weird.

Now, I know Larry Scott has a team of financially inclined people doing intense research into what makes the most sense for revenue projections, but I can’t find a better alignment than what has been proposed at Pac12Cooler.com for over a month now. You can argue some semantics such as competitive balance, but it’s the right concept. As an Oregon fan, I obviously want to play USC every year, but it’s not realistic. Some concessions have to be made and when 11 other teams think they have a rivalry with USC, it’s just not going to happen for everyone.

Most people seem to agree that a “zipper” split of teams makes the most sense competitively and I’m not going to rehash an argument that’s been well-made over the summer. Instead, I want to dive in to two issues that are potential problems with this alignment.

Maximizing Southern California Exposure For Those Getting Left Out
Each year, there are eight home conference games played in LA (excluding UCLA vs. USC). That leaves a total of three teams each year that won’t be playing in southern California. If this is the sticking point for so many schools, it makes sense to have the Pac-12 facilitate a neutral site kickoff game in LA against a team from another BCS conference for teams that otherwise would be skipping that region for the year.

Maybe you do it for one team, perhaps a double-header can be arranged. I wouldn’t think all three teams could get a game played but if this helps fill the “LA” gap for teams more often than not, it’s a worthy idea to explore (not to mention, it gives the Pac-12 an early “hype” game for TV purposes…unless, of course, we’re talking WSU).

There are plenty of logistics I’m ignoring (ticket sales and scheduling chief among them). I’d also imagine that USC, UCLA, Cal and Stanford would want in on that national exposure kickoff game for themselves on occasion (perhaps they can play one in Seattle and get that coveted Northwest exposure).

I’m just an idea guy, though, so I leave the logistics to the comments (and admittedly, I’m a guy that got his idea from an overlooked comment at Pac 12 Cooler).

Solving Rivalry Game Problems in the Zipper Split
The primary issue around the zipper split of schools is that rivalry games need to be played earlier in the season since they are cross-divisional. The tradition of playing this game last is important to some people as it adds significance.

Okay, so maybe we ask ESPN to come up with the slogan, but you get the idea.

But this isn’t a problem. It’s actually a marketing opportunity for the conference. Take the first weekend of every November and make it rivalry weekend. Give it a snazzy name like Showdown Saturday (just consult ESPN, they’re great with alliteration). All 12 teams would play that day and all against their primary conference rival.

From there, each team could have 2-3 more games left and all could be against teams within their division. This would create more drama and hype as we come down the stretch. Rivalry weekend would kick off the race to the conference crown. All of November would have a pennant chase feel to it culminating in a championship game between two teams that haven’t played each other since October at the earliest (if it all).

Again, logistics will be a problem. Not every rivalry game is going to get national exposure with six games on the schedule, but they can be split across various ESPN outlets, a second partner (i.e. FSN, Versus, Comcast) and perhaps even the much discussed Pac-12 network.

I won’t touch the scheduling nightmare that may be created, but if the idea’s good enough, it seems workable.