SAN FRANCISCO -- The new Pac-12 conference approved football divisions that will split the California schools and adopted an equal revenue-sharing plan Thursday as the league presidents and chancellors hashed out the important issues that arose because of recent expansion.

Colorado and Utah recently accepted invitations to join the Pac-10 in the conference's first expansion since 1978, necessitating many changes for when the league becomes a 12-team conference next July 1.

"There was robust, spirited dialogue about all of these things," commissioner Larry Scott said. "These are very important matters that we were dealing with. I'm just really pleased with the way everyone came together and realized we're building an enterprise that's about to scale in a way these schools have never been part of. It wasn't hard to get people to agree. The fact they agreed unanimously was a very strong statement."

The most anticipated decision was the division alignment. The league decided to split the California schools, with Stanford and Cal playing in the North Division with Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State. UCLA and Southern California will be in the South with Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado.

"If you were just looking at a map, you'd look at something that makes complete sense," Arizona State athletic director Lisa Love said. "You have a group of schools that fit naturally into a southern section and schools that fit naturally into a northern section. If you were watching the divisions from, say, New York City, you'd have an idea of what that southern division looks like, so it's as it should be and an excellent split for the league."

The conference did vote to keep the historic California rivalries. The Bay Area schools have played the Los Angeles schools every year since 1946 in rivalries that started long before that. Cal and Stanford will each play UCLA and USC every year in football.

"It was something all four of the California schools from minute one stated as essential to us," Cal athletic director Sandy Barbour said. "We would not have been in favor of any deal or ultimate resolution that did not provide that as an opportunity."

USC athletic director Pat Haden had been vocal in advocating that the Los Angeles schools still play the other California rivals.

"When you think about the history of the games, we've played Cal for nearly 100 years, Stanford for 80-some. They've been historic games, great memories, memorable moments in those games," Haden said. "At the end of the day, the presidents did a great job because they were able to preserve the rivalries -- not only from USC's perspective, as I understand it, but Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State and all those schools."

The other cross-divisional games in the nine-game conference schedule will rotate, with the Oregon and Washington schools playing in Los Angeles every other year as opposed to the current annual trips. The Northwest schools would either play both Los Angeles schools every other year or one LA school each year.

Washington athletic director Scott Woodward said he talked with coach Steve Sarkisian about losing the annual trip to Los Angeles.