A very interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal talks about how NBC Universal is trying to move into more sports broadcasting and compete with ESPN/ABC. They just tied up the rights for the next 10 years of NHL games, and are vying for the PAC-12 TV rights. Are you prepared to watch PAC-12 football on Versus (or whatever the new name is)?

In Sports Push, NBCU Signs NHL Deal

I'm hoping for a bidding war between NBCU, ESPN/ABC, Time-Warner, and Fox, but I certainly wasn't impressed with the games I saw this past year on Versus. They'll have to upgrade their announcers when they re-brand the station.

I recently received my season ticket renewal form in the mail, and find myself getting angrier and angrier with the athletic department at my alma mater. First, as discussed elsewhere, I get to pay extra for parking this year rather than have it included as a perk for being a Tyee. Ok, I'm over that and it's still cheaper than paying on game day, and it allows me to to write off more of my tyee donation on my taxes.

But now, has anyone seen the seating chart for the Apple Cup this year? There is no seating for season ticket holders on the first level between the 20 yard lines, and none on the second level between the 30s. The Hawks Nest is not available for season ticket holders either. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I called the Husky Ticket Office and was told that those seats were reserved for students, faculty, player guests, university staff, and Qwest field staff. Really?

Can someone who is familiar with Qwest estimate how many seats this actually represents. My estimate is ~12-15000 prime seats have been blocked from season ticket holders.

I'd love to say I'm going to boycott, but I won't. I'm a sucker for Husky Football. It still pisses me off though.

It's really becoming a money grab for the UW athletic department. Just got my "parking renewal" in the mail. No longer is parking including as a thank you for all the money I donate to the Tyees. Now I'm being charged $120 to park in E-1. I'm such a sucker for Husky football that I'm sure I'll pony up and pay, but it doesn't make me happy. The new stadium better be very damn nice, with individual seats, to reward us all for putting up with this extortion.

Every year the Times Higher Education publishes their list of the the top universities in the World. This year the University of Washington is #23.

What is interesting to note is that 4 of the top 25 schools are from the PAC-10 (4. Stanford, 8. Cal-Berkeley, 11. UCLA, 23. Washington).

If you look at the top 100, then there are 8 PAC-12 Schools:

4. Stanford
8. Cal-Berkeley
11. UCLA
23. Washington
67. Colorado
73. USC
83.Utah
95. Arizona

And Arizona State is #161, placing 2/3 of the PAC-12 in the top 200 universities in the WORLD.

And BYU fans wonder why they weren't invited to join the PAC? I think this clearly identifies the academic excellence the PAC is trying to uphold, and why Colorado and Utah were chosen.

Graham Watson blogs in the ESPN College Football Nation Blog about a comment made by PAC-10 Commissioner Larry Scott to the New York Times. The New York Times reports that Scott was "adamant" that BSU's Byron Hout should face punishment for his taunting of LaGarrette Blount. In fact, when he heard that Peterson would sanction Hout internally, he called the WAC commissioner to ask him to get involved.

I am not writing this to rehash the arguments for and against the punishment of Blount our Hout. What I am wondering is if Larry Scott is trying to send a message to the schools of the PAC-10, or if he really was just expressing his personal opinion about this one situation.

In Larry Scott we have a man who, by his own admission, hadn't attended a college football game in over a decade prior to attending the BSU-Oregon game this past Thursday night, and it was Harvard-Yale to boot. For the past six years he was the chairman and CEO of the Women's Tennis Association. His biggest player behavior issue while there? Grunting.

So now he is having to deal with the behavior of testosterone laden college football players, who grunt a lot. And who grunt various barbs, taunts, profanities, and vulgarities at their opponents on a regular basis.

“It takes two to tango,” Scott is reported to have said. “I was concerned about what I heard the Boise State coach say about how it was going to be handled. I’ll just leave it at that. I’m not going to second-guess anything that that conference decides to do.”

Does Scott intend to bring the power of the PAC-10 conference to bear in limiting taunting in college football? Will he be accepting reports and videotape of taunting incidents before, during, and after the game and punishing the offenders and their programs? Will he tack on punishment from the conference if he feels that internal punishment isn't sufficient?

I'll admit that I really don't know what his comments mean for the PAC-10. Time will tell. I did find it interesting that he was willing to state a position regarding the actions within another conference, and wonder how that will reflect in his governance of ours.

Danielle Lawrie showed why she was voted USA softball player of the year this evening, while the huskies chased Stacey Nelson (who many thought should have been named player of the year) off the field after five innings. Lawrie dominated Florida with what was her best performance of the series, recording 12 13 strike-outs, two hits, only thee walks, and allowing four base-runners, only one of whom got further than first base. The win snapped the Gators 29-game win streak; only their fourth loss of the season,

 

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