[NU Sports] Fwd: From my UT Insider Newsletter

[AJWDBW at aol.com]

>From UT Insider Newsletter



 
UT Wants to Go to Pac 10,  But Legislature Wants to Hold Hearings On Move 
The Texas Board of Regents  meets at 11 a.m. Tuesday and was expected to 
put its stamp of approval on the  Longhorns move to the Pac 10, but the Texas 
Legislature is threatening the  move. 
Texas was ready to lead  Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and maybe 
Texas A&M into the  Pac 10, and still might do it, but the Legislature  wants 
to hold a  hearing on it Wednesday. 
Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas,  who chairs the House Higher Education 
Comnmittee, said he has talked to the  presidents of Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech, 
and is  confident they won't take action until the legislative  hearing. 
It would be nice if the  Legislature would let the schools' governing 
bodies do what is best for the  schools, but Branch doesn't feel that way. 
Texas A&M is  considering going to the SEC instead of the Pac 10, and if 
the Aggies keep  considering that option, someone like Kansas might get their 
spot in the Pac  10. 
The new schools, plus  Colorado, which joined the Pac 10 last week,  will 
join Arizona and Arizona State to make up a new eight-team  division. 
The Pac 10 voted to expand  because the league wanted a lucrative 
championship game and also wanted a  better television contract. 
The Big 10 and SEC have  much better TV contracts than the Pac 10 and Big 
12, but putting California and Texas, the two most populous states in the  
country, together in one conference will command big-time TV  bucks. 
California has about 37 million  people and Texas has about 25 million 
people. That is  62 million folks in just two states, and is about 20% of the 
total  U.  S. population. 
Washington is No. 13 with slightly  more than 6.6 million, Arizona is No. 
14 in  total population with 6.6 million, Colorado  is No. 22 with 5 million, 
Oregon is No. 28  with 3.8 million  and Oklahoma is No. 29 with 3.7  
million. 
Add all those states'  population and you will have 87.7 million people, or 
about 14% of the total  United  States' population in the new Pac  10. 
The SEC states add up to  54 million, and the Big 10 states have about 67.5 
million, and both those  leagues have television contracts that pay their 
teams a lot more than the Big  12 teams or Pac 10 teams get. 
But 2011 is the year the  Pac 10 renegotiates its television contract, and 
it will have much more to  sell with all those new people and new TV sets. 
For those who go to the  games, the distances to the new schools will be 
greater, but almost all of the  Pac 10 schools are either in big cities that 
have airports or they are very  close to big cities that have airports. 
That is not the case in  the Big 12. It is a conference where fans have to 
fly to a big city and then  drive for one to three hours to get to the  
school. 
Austin is by far the biggest  city in the Big 12, although Colorado is in  
Boulder, which is only 20 miles from Denver. 
But Missouri, Iowa State,  Oklahoma State, Kansas and Kansas State are all 
more than an hour away  from a major city with an airport. 
The move won't affect the  2010 schedules and it probably won't affect the 
2011 schedules, but it  oculd. 
The great thing about all  this is that Nebraska started it by jumping to 
the Big 10, and Texas just  reacted by going to the Pac 10. 
The new Big 10, which is  really 12 because Penn State was the 11th member 
and Nebraska is the 12th  member, will have more people in its states with 
Nebraska coming aboard, but  it still won't be able to match the new Pac 10. 
Another great thing about  all this is that the Big 10 and SEC are going to 
have a very hard time coming  up with enough expansion teams in surrounding 
states to come close to the new  Pac 10 in population. 
The guys who run the TV  networks and negotiate the TV contracts are good 
at counting, and those nearly  90 million people in the states of the new Pac 
10 are impressive and will be  just as impressive at contract time. 
With the two eight-team  divisions in the Pacific Conference, the schools 
in each division will play  seven games against each other and probably two 
games against the teams in the  other division, one at home and one on the 
road. 
Then, the next year, the  two teams on the road will complete the 
home-and-home series, and the third  year will have two other teams in the other 
league coming aboard for a  home-and-home series. 
That will mean Texas will play all  eight of trhe teams in the other 
division twice in an eight-year  span. 
Paul E.  Szurek 
Chief Financial  Officer 
Biltmore Farms,  LLC 
One Town  Square  Boulevard 
Suite  330 
Asheville,  NC  28803 
828-209-2000 
828-209-2150  fax 
_pszurek at biltmorefarms.com_ (mailto:pszurek at biltmorefarms.com)