Pac-12 announcement tomorrow

Tomorrow is the culmination of a lot of hard work. Tomorrow, the announcement of division alignment, revenue sharing, championship site hosting and other issues will put in motion the end game of the conference switch.

It'll be interesting to see what CU ends up getting in the Pac-12 alignment deal. We had a gentleman's agreement with Larry Scott that CU would be in the same division as the L.A. schools, and that sounds like it will be the case. We also wanted equal revenue sharing, but it sounds like that will have to wait. CU also desperately wants a 5th conference game next year, otherwise it could find itself in a tough spot with the suite renters; it remains to be seen, but I imagine Bohn will make that happen.
(Pac-12 commish Larry Scott, CU AD Mike Bohn, and Big Alfred Williams from the day of CU's move to the Pac-12. From: The BDC)

Other items, like the location of the conference title game are theoretically inconsequential. The game will never be held in Denver anyway, and, unless a massive turnaround in in the works, a home site game in Boulder next year is highly unlikely. Whatever CU's position was on this issue, I would gladly sacrifice it for another area of concern.

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Buried in Ringo's column today on the pending Pac-12 division alignment announcement was this nugget: "If the Buffs don`t get five conference home games in 2011, Bohn might be forced to ask Colorado State to come to Boulder for one season to help the transition in league affiliation before returning the in-state series back to Denver in 2012"

LOL

I'll tell you what, I applaud Mike Bohn for almost everything he does, but when he throws up a stinker, it smells for years. It hilarious to me that an agreement in which we bowed to political pressure (from Denver and the state legislature) will come back to bite us in the ass and create more political pressure (from Boulder business leaders and the people in the suites). Even as far back as last August when the CSU agreement was being negotiated, there were rumblings, albeit quiet ones, that a conference shift might be in the works. Yet here we are, depending on the flip of a coin between 5 and 4 home conference games to meet our 6 total home game contractual agreements. I imagine Bohn will make 5 home conference games happen, but there should've been more leeway in the RMS deal to accommodate conference realignment messing with future schedules.

Can you imagine the howls of outrage from Ram fans if Bohn has to ask for the game in Boulder next year? They'd probably leverage the move to Boulder for a game in Hughes or another "home" television cut (i.e. the game on the mtn; blech). Either way we'd lose money and booster support. As Lando Calrissian once said "This deal is getting worse all the time."