Only in the Pac-12, example No. 374 …

Arizona State visits Utah on Oct. 19 in what should be a matchup of one-loss, ranked teams with division title implications.

The duel could have been placed on the ESPN family of networks but instead will be shown on the Pac-12 Networks — a move that highlights the fascinating internal dynamic for a conference that owns its television network.

What’s best for the Pac-12 football (and its fans) doesn’t always appear to align with what’s best for the Pac-12 Networks.

In fact, they occasionally seem to be in conflict.

To find the point of convergence, you have to drill down several layers.

As the Oct. 19 broadcast schedule is concerned, here are the specifics:

ESPN had the first selection of games and, naturally, chose Oregon-Washington for an ABC broadcast at 12:30 p.m.

The Pac-12 Networks owned the No. 2 selection, followed by ESPN with the third pick (for an ESPN2 or ESPNU broadcast).

There were four options once Oregon-UW was off the table:

Arizona State-Utah

Oregon State-Cal

Arizona-USC

Colorado-Washington State

On Monday, when the selections were made, ASU-Utah was clearly the top game:

Both teams are ranked, and both are favorites this weekend — they should be ranked next week, as well.

One might conclude that the Pac-12 football product, the participating teams and their fans would be best served by having ASU-Utah on either ESPN2 or ESPNU.

The former is in 80+ million households nationally, the latter in 65 million homes.

By this logic, the Pac-12 Networks should have passed on ASU-Utah with the No. 2 pick and selected another game.

It should have done what was best for Pac-12 football and Pac-12 football fans and left the Sun Devils and the Utes for ESPN with the third pick.

Instead, the Pac-12 Networks grabbed ASU-Utah for its audience of about 17 million homes.

So yes, a mid-October matchup of one-loss ranked teams was purposely placed on the network with one-fifth the audience of ESPN2 (and one-fourth the audience of ESPNU).

In marketing 101, that would appear to be an epic fail.

Except things aren’t so simple in the Pac-12, where the schools own 100 percent of the television network.

The Pac-12 Networks selected ASU-Utah because it was “a rare opportunity for us to have two ranked teams,” president Mark Shuken told the Hotline on Tuesday.

“It wasn’t only a clear-cut choice,” he added, “but I view it as us having an obligation to our owners.”

Those owners, of course, are the schools.

Like ESPN and Fox, the Pac-12 Networks want the best context in order to boost ratings.

The better the ratings, the better for sponsorship and advertising sales.

The better the sponsorship and advertising sales, the more revenue.

And the more revenue for the networks, the more cash for the schools.

(The networks send approximately $2.75 million to each campus annually.)

Shuken said he spoke to Utah athletic director Mark Harlan before and after the selection.

Harlan told the Hotline that he was supportive of the decision because “we had no route to main ESPN, ABC or FOX.”

(Neither FOX or FS1 has a broadcast window available for the Pac-12 on Oct. 19.)

But Harlan added:

“I also expressed that after the ASU game, we will have been on the Pac-12 Networks four times in (our) first seven games, and we are looking forward to having other opportunities going forward.”

From Shuken’s perspective, grabbing ASU-Utah makes perfect sense, even if the decision means millions of college football fans won’t have access to the game.

“Imagine if we hadn’t selected that game,” he said, “all the scrutiny we’d get from our constituents — and the precedent it would set.”

Could the conference side of the operation intervene and insist that the Pac-12 Networks leave ASU-Utah for ESPN?

The conference could — commissioner Larry Scott is also the chief executive of the networks — but the conference doesn’t.

Because the conference is the schools and the schools are the networks and the networks are the conference.

Hence that unusual internal dynamic we mentioned:

What’s best for the Pac-12 Networks isn’t always what’s best for Pac-12 football … unless, perhaps, it is.

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