How to Program the Pac-10 Network

Pity the poor Pac-10; its revenues are barely half of the SEC, Big Ten, and, shudder, the ACC.

As a result, the Pac-10 is exploring a route that has already made it rain on the SEC and the Big Ten, starting their own network. The Big Ten started their own network in conjunction with FOX and netted $66 million from the network last year. Rather than start their own network, the SEC partnered with CBS and ESPN. Beginning this year the SEC will bring in -- wait for it -- $205 million a year just from television rights. Why does that matter? The Pac-10 conference had revenues of just $88.78 million in 2007. Yep, by 2009, the SEC will triple the Pac-10 in sports revenue. That's a huge deal in the arm's race that is major collegiate sports.

Fortunately, as a lover of all things college football, I'm here to help the Pac-10 ensure their network is a hit. How do we do that? Programming, baby, it's all about the programming.

Some people think Pac-10 fans don't care about football. That's a shameful stereotype. People in the Pac-10 care an awful lot about football. If they didn't care a lot about football, would 77,715 people turn out to watch spring games? That's an average of almost 8,000 per game! And it's just 18,007 fewer people than the 95,722 who showed up to watch Ohio State's spring game. So there. Pac-10 football rules. Face. End of argument. Except, you know, at Washington State. Where just 400 people showed up. Seriously, 400? I've had more people at one of my book signings. And that's in the South, where most people can't even read.

Plainly, people aren't showing up for Pac-10 spring football because the conference isn't selling itself well enough. There needs to be more zest, more verve, more feeling ... in short, Pac-10 network, better programming.

With that in mind, I've drafted a series of can't miss shows for your network to be.

1. Pete Carroll shirtless -- Watch as Carroll tweets, adds Facebook friends, talks on the phone with recruits, and goes for jogs in Southern California. All shirtless.

2. LenDale White's Taste of the Town -- Piggybacking on the insane popularity and extreme awkwardness of Todd Blackledge's Taste of the Town segment during ESPN football telecasts, White brings the experience to the Pac-10. Opening video montage shows LenDale trying to squeeze a live, wriggling octopus between two giant Oreo cookies, explaining that the best fish tacos feature twinkies, and closing with his catchphrase, "If I won't eat it, it ain't food."

3. Washington State football highlights 2008 -- Watch as the band executes complicated turns on the field! Meet a ticket-taker who always rips perfectly along the perforated edges! Is that Ryan Leaf waving from the crowd? All of this leads up to the game of the century, Washington vs. Washington State for all the marbles.

4. USC Song Girls vs. UCLA cheerleaders-- Bikini quiz bowl. Opening question: Which of these is an oxymoron? A) A Pac-10 sellout, B) Spencer Pratt, C) Jumbo shrimp or D) everything but B?

Second question: What is the plural of boob job? Debate.

5. "ElimiPete," Pac-10 coaches discuss the biggest game from every year, the time they upset USC -- Watch as former UCLA coach Karl Dorrell, Oregon State's Mike Riley, and Stanford's Jim Harbaugh take us through upsets for the ages. Harbaugh: "I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not sure my team could have scored against air. Certainly not a strong air, like a bad wind that whipped up dust, no way."

6. How Bad USC Would Have Beaten You: Fired Pac-10 Coaches explain how bad you would have lost if you'd had to play USC -- Fired Washington State coach Bill Doba explains: "Your team would have lost 148-0. At least, maybe 248-0."

Latest College Football Images

In this Nov. 1, 2008, photo, Boston College's Mark Herzlich plays against Clemson in an NCAA college football game in Boston. Herzlich, the Atlantic Coast Conference defensive player of the year, has cancer. Herzlich said Thursday, May 14, 2009, he was diagnosed earlier this week with Ewing's Sarcoma after feeling pain in his leg and will undergo more tests in his home state of Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

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Josh Halter is swarmed by family and friends after being named the drum major for The Ohio State University Marching Band in Columbus, Ohio, Tuesday, May 5, 2009. (Jeff Hinckley/Columbus Dispatch/MCT)

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Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, speaks to the media in Arlington, Va. on Tuesday, May 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

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Penn State football coach Joe Paterno speaks to reporters in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday, May 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

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Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, speaks to the media in Arlington, Va. on Tuesday, May 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

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Taylor Stokes wears his letter jacket on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., Friday, May 1, 2009. Stokes was the first black scholarship football player at Vanderbilt, and has returned 40 years later to finish his degree. He will graduate on May 8. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

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Taylor Stokes wears his letter jacket on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., Friday, May 1, 2009, in front of a statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the founder of the university. Stokes was the first black scholarship football player at Vanderbilt, and has returned 40 years later to finish his degree. He will graduate on May 8. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

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Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner and Bowl Championship Series coordinator John Swofford, left, and West Mountain Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson, right, are sworn in before giving their testimony before the House Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing on the football Bowl Championship Series on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, May 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner and Bowl Championship Series coordinator John Swofford, left, testifies before the House Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing on the football Bowl Championship Series on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, May 1, 2009. Also testifying on the panel are, from left, West Mountain Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson, President and CEO of Valero Alamo Bowl Derrick Fox and Boise State Athletic Director Gene Bleymaier. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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Boise State Athletic Director Gene Bleymaier, right, testifies before the House Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing on the football Bowl Championship Series on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, May 1, 2009. Also testifying on the panel are, from left, Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner and Bowl Championship Series coordinator John Swofford, West Mountain Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson, and President and CEO of Valero Alamo Bowl Derrick Fox. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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7. The Sellout -- Coaches reconstruct exactly what it was like to play in front of a sell-out crowd (Stanford and Arizona State excluded). "I remember I looked into the stadium, and there were no seats empty. I couldn't see a single seat! And I thought, my God, everyone on Earth is in the stadium. Right now, the whole Earth."

8. The Civil War starring former Oregon right tackle Geoff Schwartz and Civil War Journal's Danny Glover -- A fantastical melding of football with history. For 14 minutes, Schwartz, the self-professed largest Jewish man on Earth, takes us through the annals of Oregon and Oregon State. Then, just as you realize you don't really care, bang, Glover arrives and we all go on a walk along the sunken road at Antietam.

9. Cheat Like a Pro, Starring Reggie Bush -- Bush: "Some people say cheaters never win. I say, look at me, b***h." In each episode Reggie explains how to cheat in every sport, from spitballs in baseball to lead weights in the toe of your shoe for kickball. In the end it's all about making sure your family can live a life of luxury in Southern California.

10. Arizona State explains that they are, in fact, a member of the Pac-10 Conference -- Dennis Erickson takes us on a tour of campus. Included highlights: the football stadium and a Pac-10 banner flying from the upper deck, "I'm telling you, they don't just let you fly a Pac-10 flag for fun. You've got to be in the Pac-10."

11. "Back When I was Awesome," starring Lane Kiffin -- "Okay, I want you to be still for just a second, okay? Do you even know how awesome I was? So awesome I didn't even call the plays and got all the credit, okay. So awesome that if Clay Travis was calling the plays we would have averaged 40 points a game, okay. So awesome. A, okay, W, okay, E, okay, S, okay, O, okay, M, okay, E, okay..."

12. The Mountain West Conference Owns Us: Paid Programming -- Watch as MWC teams that the Pac-10 won't allow to join their conference, explain what it was like to go undefeated against the big, bad, Pac-10. As a special bonus, BYU gives 59 reasons why UCLA is godless.

13. It's Hard Out Here For An Asian: Norm Chow hustles his way to a head coaching job -- Opening monologue features Chow talking about his strengths, "I have the greatest calves of any offensive coordinator, I wear glasses, my voice is impeccable and deep, I sound like the whitest man on Earth. I don't understand why no one will hire me to coach."

Then Chow raps:

You know it's hard out here for an Asian
When he tryin' to get that money for the head coach
For the Philip Rivers' and the Carson Palmer's
Cause a whole lot of b***hes coachin' Tennessee

14. What football seems like under the influence of weed laced with other hallucinogenic compounds, starring the students of Cal-Berkeley -- Watch as drug-addled Cal students attempt to describe the best running plays of the year featuring Jahvid Best. "Best is like the best. He takes the football, and for just a minute he stands still, and then he's like, he lifts the football to the sky and all these scorpions are coming to take the football and Best is like, 'No, scorpion, you can't have my football. I'm going to run with it and then if I get hungry I might eat it and use it to feed all the people in Africa without food. Or I'm going to take a nap and curl up in the football, and then when the ladybugs knock on my door, I'm going to let them come inside too and we're all going to roll around in the grass where everyone touches down."