How about a "game-changer" proposal if we go to a 16 team conference?
Two Divisions of 8 teams. East/West alignment (original Pac-8 in one division, "newbies" in the other).
Round-robin games against your division = 7 games each.
One game each season against one of the two "pairs" in the other division, alternate home-and-home for 2 years then face the other half of the "pair" in a home-and-home for 2 years.
Example (Using Kansas-Missouri as 15th/16th teams):
Sample | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 |
Week 1 | CSU | @ CSU | CSU | @ CSU |
Week 2 | @ UCLA | UCLA | @ USC | USC |
Week 3 | Stanford | @ Stanford | Cal-Berkeley | @ Cal-Berkeley |
Week 4 | @ Oregon State | Oregon State | @ Oregon State | Oregon State |
Week 5 | Washington | @ Washington | Washington State | @ Washington State |
Week 6 | @ Oklahoma State | Oklahoma State | @ Oklahoma State | Oklahoma State |
Week 7 | @ Missouri | Missouri | @ Missouri | Missouri |
Week 8 | Oklahoma | @ Oklahoma | Oklahoma | @ Oklahoma |
Week 9 | @ Arizona State | Arizona State | @ Arizona State | Arizona State |
Week 10 | Kansas | @ Kansas | Kansas | @ Kansas |
Week 11 | Arizona | @ Arizona | Arizona | @ Arizona |
Week 12 | @ Utah | Utah | @ Utah | Utah |
That would make for 11 conference games of course, but think about what that would do for the TV package. Currently a 12 team conference with 9 game schedules means that there are 54 conference games to broadcast, throw in 18 out-of-conference home games that Pac-12 members have a right to broadcast and you get a total of 72 marketable games.
A 16 team conference, playing 11 conference games would mean an increase to 88 in-conference games to broadcast, in addition to 8 or more OOC home games for a total of 96 marketable games.
But the current OOC setup means that there are payouts going outside the conference in order to entice them to travle to Pac-12 stadiums. These fees are somewhere in the neighborhood of between $350k and up towards a $1 million pricetag. Saving the cost of these body-bag games will certainly help the ADs at each school to balance the budget.
Why not just have the Pac members play only each other, aside from one OOC game a year designed to play another rival. This would drive up the TV rights even moreso and add to the conference cohesion and recruiting benefits for all members. Competitively it would be better to play each other than risk losing to WAC and MWC schools.