The work-in-progress negatiations between the Big XII and the Pac X (ha!) resulted in a real event, starting with the 2007-2008 season.
Initially when they mentioned 12 games I thought that the challenge would include two other west coast teams along with the 10 from the Pac-10 to match up with the 12 teams of the Big 12. For example, they could have added Gonzaga or UNLV or San Diego State. But instead they went in a different direction.
The series is a four year contract, with 12 games, 10 of which will happen in a 4-day extravaganza, and two more games in the preseason. Arizona and Stanford will play two games in the challenge, in both the 4-day event and the bonus games. The games will repeat in 2008-2009 at the home court of the away teams.
The biggest matchups are Arizona at Kansas (no Roy Williams though), Texas at UCLA (Kevin Love but probably no Kevin Durant), Texas A&M at Arizona, and Oregon at Kansas State (Michael Beasley and Billy Walker)
Television coverage will be announced at a later date according to the press release. Perhaps they are hoping for a bidding war between CBS, ESPN and FSN :-) This explains why the games are Thursday thru Sunday, and includes the first weekend of CBS coverage in the season. Not sure if they will go for an exclusive contract with one TV partner, or sell the games one by one or as single-day package or weekend vs weekday package.
Here are some links and reaction to this:
Friday, January 12, 2007
The Big 12 vs the Pac 10 Challenge is for real!
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