This is a very long article but well worth the read if you have the time. It contains the words of the decision makers at the time it all took place. While reading it I was struck by how much it "seems to me" that UH has some of the same points of interest that attracted the Pac 12 as Utah did. Here are a few things that I picked up.
1. The Pac 12 did not get their 1st choice......the P5 schools like UT and OU. But they liked the upside potential of Utah from what is now a G5 conference, the MWC.
2. They wanted a research university. Utah fit that bill and so does UH which is a Tier One Research University.
3. The upcoming tv contract negotiations in 2011 for the Pac 12 played a big part in their expansion plans of 2010 and the new tv markets that would come with them.
4. Utah already excelled vs the P5 and so does UH.
5. Utah needed a partner to go with them and so will UH.
6. Scott had to sell the conference presidents on the idea that expansion would help the Pac 12 "achieve our broader objectives – staying competitive, closing some of the gaps that existed financially and otherwise between us and other conferences, and would help us with important strategic initiatives like creating our own TV network."
7. " First and foremost, it would be the schools that would be a good fit and secondly add value. Adding value had a lot to do with the markets that the schools would come from and their positioning in the marketplace and their history in terms of athletic achievement and the fan base."
8. "The focus was very much on academic profile and trajectory and Utah at the time was ascendant academically. Their rankings were improving, the growth areas of the university seemed to be increasing the amount of research dollars they were attracting every year. They were really considered a preeminent research institution in the West."
9. "They were a school that had a history of being very successful despite having less resources than traditional big conference schools. And we became excited about the possibility of being a good fit early on,"
10. "Our conference was also very interested in promoting Olympic sports and having a platform to tell the stories of the amazing athletes at our schools and we were attracted by the idea of a TV network. For both of those reasons, we felt like it would be accretive to add more schools, which would add to the inventory that we have in terms of football games, basketball games, and others and also if we were going to have a TV network, to have a broader fan base in more markets that would be interested in following a conference media platform. So those strategic business imperatives is what drove us to consider expanding."
I chose these 10 topics because I could easily see on most of the 10 that if you subbed in the name UH for Utah that it still would be a good fit. In my opinion UH is as ready or even more so in some areas as Utah was for being invited into the Pac 12.
https://247sports.com/college/utah/...ditional-quotes-on-Pac-12-expansion-119725885
1. The Pac 12 did not get their 1st choice......the P5 schools like UT and OU. But they liked the upside potential of Utah from what is now a G5 conference, the MWC.
2. They wanted a research university. Utah fit that bill and so does UH which is a Tier One Research University.
3. The upcoming tv contract negotiations in 2011 for the Pac 12 played a big part in their expansion plans of 2010 and the new tv markets that would come with them.
4. Utah already excelled vs the P5 and so does UH.
5. Utah needed a partner to go with them and so will UH.
6. Scott had to sell the conference presidents on the idea that expansion would help the Pac 12 "achieve our broader objectives – staying competitive, closing some of the gaps that existed financially and otherwise between us and other conferences, and would help us with important strategic initiatives like creating our own TV network."
7. " First and foremost, it would be the schools that would be a good fit and secondly add value. Adding value had a lot to do with the markets that the schools would come from and their positioning in the marketplace and their history in terms of athletic achievement and the fan base."
8. "The focus was very much on academic profile and trajectory and Utah at the time was ascendant academically. Their rankings were improving, the growth areas of the university seemed to be increasing the amount of research dollars they were attracting every year. They were really considered a preeminent research institution in the West."
9. "They were a school that had a history of being very successful despite having less resources than traditional big conference schools. And we became excited about the possibility of being a good fit early on,"
10. "Our conference was also very interested in promoting Olympic sports and having a platform to tell the stories of the amazing athletes at our schools and we were attracted by the idea of a TV network. For both of those reasons, we felt like it would be accretive to add more schools, which would add to the inventory that we have in terms of football games, basketball games, and others and also if we were going to have a TV network, to have a broader fan base in more markets that would be interested in following a conference media platform. So those strategic business imperatives is what drove us to consider expanding."
I chose these 10 topics because I could easily see on most of the 10 that if you subbed in the name UH for Utah that it still would be a good fit. In my opinion UH is as ready or even more so in some areas as Utah was for being invited into the Pac 12.
https://247sports.com/college/utah/...ditional-quotes-on-Pac-12-expansion-119725885
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