Pac-10 on ESPN (for once)

Today, a Pac-10 football game (Oregon-Arizona) will be played on ESPN for the first time since I can remember. An ESPN presence is exactly what the Pac-10 needs.

The Pac-10 has often been ignored and underrated by media and fans across the country. A big reason why is because they play on the West Coast, where most people don’t live, but another reason is because the Pac-10’s TV contracts are horrible compared to the other major conferences — almost zero presence on ESPN and most of their games on ABC are shown only to the West Coast.

I don’t blame ESPN for that, but the Pac-10 for not being creative enough to strike a major deal with ESPN for either football or basketball. Fox Sports Net threw a lot of money at them for an exclusive deal, and the Pac-10 took it.

For better or worse, ESPN is the dominant sports network in this country. ESPN is very good at hyping the sports they cover, for better or worse, and not having a presence on ESPN hurts the exposure the Pac-10 gets to fans across the country.

The Oregon-Arizona game and the USC-Arizona State game on Thanksgiving are steps in the right direction. ESPN is showing a couple of Pac-10 basketball games this year, but only a couple, which is a start. Even if it means less money, the Pac-10 needs to find away to get more of their games on ESPN in the future. The more people are familiar with the Pac-10, the more the voters will rank them higher, which could lead to BCS bowls and more March Madness bids in the future — that could lead to more money too.

Red Sox, A’s to open up in Tokyo

As a baseball fan, I’m thrilled about the Red Sox and A’s opening their seasons in Tokyo, because that means baseball season starts almost a week earlier than normal. That cuts down on the number of days until opening day (it’s now only 132 days away!).

As an Angels fan, I’m happy because a division rival and another team that could potentially be in a wild card race are starting thousands of miles away and could have massive jet lag or other problems relating to weird travel schedules.