Is Boise State, Fresno State, UNLV or SMU the best expansion partner for San Diego State? Or is it a Jesuit school that doesn't play football?
But let’s leave that aside for the moment and assume Pac-12 presidents want strength in numbers. SDSU’s biggest problem in that scenario might not be its own shortcomings but those of any expansion partner.History says so, at least. All the power conferences operate in neat, even numbers and typically have expanded in multiples of twos. The SEC is adding Texas and Oklahoma to get to 16. The Big 12, after dropping to eight, will add four: BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston.
clumps it with other national universities ranked between 299 and 391, and it has a 77-percent acceptance rate. .The Bulldogs have tried to position themselves as a viable partner to their CSU brethren, claiming the Central Valley from Sacramento to Bakersfield would be a top 15 TV market . But the athletic infrastructure is crumbling and ranks near the bottom of the Mountain West, and the academics lag behind SDSU — 213The sleeper.
Beyond that, Las Vegas is suddenly America’s hottest sports destination, with NFL and NHL teams already there and talk of NBA, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer. Boosters have the kind of juice to keep pace with the NIL arms race. And with attitudes softening toward sports gambling, it is viewed as a lucrative future revenue stream for athletic departments.
A law school and medical school help boost the academic reputation , but the oversaturation of the nation’s 40TV market may be too large of a hurdle. The Pac-12 already has a Las Vegas presence with its football championship game and conference basketball tournaments, so why add a member school?The private university in Dallas clears the academic bar, but it is a non-factor in the Dallas market and would bring a church-linked school to a conference of large, mostly public institutions.
It’s a Jesuit university in Spokane, Wash., that doesn’t play football, and basketball is a relatively modest piece of the media rights puzzle. But Gonzaga brings a national profile from its basketball success, has strong academics and would create the perception that the Pac-12 is being proactive and progressive amid the shifting sands of conference realignment — that it’s at least trying to do.
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