If I was the emperor of the PAC 10.

If you follow sports at all you are aware of three seismic events either underway or about to rattle the universe: the NBA Finals, the World Cup and the possible expansion of the PAC 10 conference coupled with the implosion of the Big 12.

Here's what, from what I've read, is on the table in the PAC 10/Big 12 situation. The PAC 10 wants to grab half of the Big 12 schools -- Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and either Baylor or Colorado. It would place those six schools in a division with Arizona and Arizona State and then in football  have a post-season conference championship game that would feature the winner of that division against the winner of the division that was comprised of Southern California, UCLA, Stanford, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State. The idea here is that such a makeup would create so much fan appeal that the PAC 10 could create its own television channel, similar to the one started by the Big 10, which would enable it to distribute more than double the television revenues each of those schools earn now.

Personally, I like this idea, but why not take it one step further. Instead of expanding to 16 teams, I would go to 18. I would try to grab both Baylor and Colorado and then add TCU to the mix. For one thing, TCU has a stronger football program than Baylor, Colorado, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State right now, but, of course, that's always cyclical. The real reason is if you have two nine-team leagues it makes the conference championship game even more appealing. In a nine-team division, each team plays the other eight and then rounds out its 11- or 12-game regular season schedule with non-conference games, thus insuring that the conference championship game is never between two teams who already played each other during the regular season. Of course, you could do the same thing with eight-team divisions, but asking schools to schedule four or possibly even possibly five non-conference games each year might be a little daunting. I mean, there are just so many patsies to go around.

I would have the football championship game played in the Rose Bowl in odd-numbered years and Cowboys Stadium in even-numbered years.

I would place Colorado in, presumably, what would be dubbed the Western Division and the rest of the schools in the division with Arizona and Arizona State. Wow, what a lineup! My local cable provider currently carries the Big 10 Channel and I will admit I've never watched it. However, a PAC-18 -- or whatever this new conference would be called -- Channel would be quickly placed in My Favorites category.