The Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences have agreed to a scheduling arrangement that would create 12 annual inter-conference football games, starting in the 2017 season.
Every season, each school will play a nonconference game against an opponent from the other conference. Basketball and “Olympic sports” also are included.
“There’s a common DNA between the two conferences,” Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a national conference call Wednesday. “This provides a greater reach, as we in the Pac-12 have been thinking the last 18 months to reposition ourselves on a bigger national platform on the heels of expanding from 10 to 12 and this fall reaffirming 12 is the right number for us.”
The agreement creates possible additional national TV opportunities with Fox and ESPN, the conference’s TV partners, looking to beef up what has become weak nonconference programming.
Other TV possibilities could include Ryder Cup-type golf competitions and track-and-field meets. A Pac-12-Big Ten Challenge in basketball has been discussed, but the Big Ten’s agreement with the ACC lasts five more years.
“Any network, whether it’s CBS or ESPN or BTN (Big Ten Network) or Pac-12, it’s about distributing content,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said. “Through this collaboration we’ve created a dozen intersectional football games that help our partners at ESPN and Fox and ultimately will flow to the networks.”
However, it will make it more challenging for coaches already under heavy pressure to win. Athletic directors must schedule a Big Ten opponent instead of a “directional” school.
“It does make it tougher to make a bowl game,” Scott said. “It makes it tougher to go undefeated and get to the national championship. But in a time when there’s pressure to dumb down the nonconference schedule, here we are reinvesting in the regular season. It’s a broader, more holistic view about the benefits of a high-quality regular-season schedule.”
The agreement will not supplant nonconference games schools have already scheduled. Colorado’s only nonleague games scheduled besides Colorado State over the next two years are against Fresno State in 2012 and 2013.
The conferences also are keeping open the possibility of playing at neutral sites. Delany mentioned the Rose Bowl, Soldier Field and Yankee Stadium.
