Utah To Join Pac 10

The Pac 10 officially extended an invitation to the University of Utah to join the conference Wednesday afternoon, ending weeks, if not months of speculation about whether the Utes would join the prestigious, history-steeped league.

Utah's Board of Trustees announced it will hold a public meeting Thursday at 12:30 p.m. on the 6th floor of the Rice-Eccles Stadium press box to vote on the invitation -- which is expected to be a formality. A press conference will follow 1 p.m.

With board approval, Utah will become the 12th member of the Pac 10, which gives the conference enough teams to hold a league championship game in football.

Colorado joined the conference on June 10, becoming the first member since 1978.

By joining the Pac-10, the Utes would compete in a league that has claimed 166 NCAA team titles in the last 19 years in 26 different men's and women's sports.

The conference has led the nation in NCAA Championships in 43 of the last 49 years and finished second five times.

Most importantly, Utah's football team would be in a conference with an automatic qualifying berth into the BCS.

Off the field, the Utes would profit from increased exposure by being in a BCS conference and will earn a considerable raise in TV revenue.

As an MWC member, the Utes earned just $1.2 million in TV revenue. Teams in the Pac-10 receive between $8-10 million. However, Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott's next task is
to renegotiate a new TV deal that should make the payout even richer and more comparable to the other BCS conferences.

The Big Ten and SEC conferences guarantee their schools about $20 million in TV revenue and the ACC recently brokered a deal worth about $13 million to each school.

For now, the Utes aren't worrying about the details and are instead celebrating the move to the prestigious conference.

The Utah Utes have long been rumored a logical expansion team for the Pac-10, but the move didn't become a reality until Monday when the Big 12 announced it was staying alive as a league.

Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were all projected to go to the Big 12 while Texas A &M was considering a leap to the SEC.

However, Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe is brokering a new TV package that could be worth $17 to $20 million to each school, a sum that coaxed the teams to remain.

Their decision left the Utes as the Pac-10's best option.

As the 31st TV market, Salt Lake City doesn't offer the Pac-10 as many households as the Big 12 teams would have. However, it does give the league a school known for its solid academics and research facilities and one that is gaining respect for its athletic endeavors.

The Utes have been to the BCS twice, winning the 2005 Fiesta Bowl and the 2009 Sugar Bowl and have the longest current bowl win streak in the nation at nine games.

While football has become the face of the Utes' athletic program, Utah is solid in other sports as well, meaning a transition to the Pac-10 should be made fairly easily.

Utah's gymnastics team, which has won 10 national titles, stands to gain the most out of the so-called Olympic sports because it has competed as an independent since the MWC doesn't sponsor the sport.

Now not only will its rivalries against UCLA and other Pac-10 schools be heightened by conference alignment, but it will have a league championship meet in which to compete.

http://www.sltrib.com/utahutes/ci_15310029