[Goose]

The P12 desperately needs to address the common refrain that it is a “not to be taken seriously” conference.  The way to do this is play high profile games v. other P5 conferences.  It doesn’t get much higher profile than playing one of the opening weekend NFL venue games.  Stanford was fortunate to snag the invitation.  Now, it is incumbent upon the Cardinal to win the game regardless of the kickoff time.  


If the conference begins to show it can compete in these marquee games, the P12 will be invited to play in the even higher profile night games on the opening weekend.  You gotta crawl before you can walk.  Right now, the P12 is in its crawling stage.  Heck, if I was the commissioner I would sign as many contracts as possible to get the conference’s teams in high profile TV games regardless of the kickoff time.  If successful, I would then be in a position to dictate who, where, and game time.

If "being taken seriously" is driven by actual competence on the field, and if the selection of time slots for TV is driven by the desire to watch the best teams play, you would certainly be correct. Unfortunately, IMHO neither of the premises are correct. The "lesser" teams in the B1G, ACC, and especially SEC are presented as competent by the media and hyped by the same even when everybody knows they are average teams at best. The reason for this is that these teams have many more fans than PAC-12 schools do. You don't want to tell your market their teams aren't good, no need to watch, so you don't. You tell them the opposite, and everybody just agrees to ignore reality because it serves their adgenda to do so. The networks would rather put Alabama vs <the victim of the week> in prime time than they would a "good" PAC-12 vs some other "good" P5 school because they (unfortunately correctly) know that more people will watch the Alabama game. Secondly, right now there really aren't may reliably "good" PAC-12 teams and there is no logical equivalent of an Alabama, tOSU, or Clemson that can be hyped to the max and will reliably draw large viewing audiences. These facts create the present situation. Having really good, exciting football teams in the PAC-12 would not really move the meter much because there just aren't as many fans. It is all about the TV money.

[Goose]

The P12 desperately needs to address the common refrain that it is a “not to be taken seriously” conference.  The way to do this is play high profile games v. other P5 conferences.  It doesn’t get much higher profile than playing one of the opening weekend NFL venue games.  Stanford was fortunate to snag the invitation.  Now, it is incumbent upon the Cardinal to win the game regardless of the kickoff time.  


If the conference begins to show it can compete in these marquee games, the P12 will be invited to play in the even higher profile night games on the opening weekend.  You gotta crawl before you can walk.  Right now, the P12 is in its crawling stage.  Heck, if I was the commissioner I would sign as many contracts as possible to get the conference’s teams in high profile TV games regardless of the kickoff time.  If successful, I would then be in a position to dictate who, where, and game time.

If "being taken seriously" is driven by actual competence on the field, and if the selection of time slots for TV is driven by the desire to watch the best teams play, you would certainly be correct. Unfortunately, IMHO neither of the premises are correct. The "lesser" teams in the B1G, ACC, and especially SEC are presented as competent by the media and hyped by the same even when everybody knows they are average teams at best. The reason for this is that these teams have many more fans than PAC-12 schools do. You don't want to tell your market their teams aren't good, no need to watch, so you don't. You tell them the opposite, and everybody just agrees to ignore reality because it serves their adgenda to do so. The networks would rather put Alabama vs <the victim of the week> in prime time than they would a "good" PAC-12 vs some other "good" P5 school because they (unfortunately correctly) know that more people will watch the Alabama game. Secondly, right now there really aren't may reliably "good" PAC-12 teams and there is no logical equivalent of an Alabama, tOSU, or Clemson that can be hyped to the max and will reliably draw large viewing audiences. These facts create the present situation. Having really good, exciting football teams in the PAC-12 would not really move the meter much because there just aren't as many fans. It is all about the TV money.