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The SoCal BMW Crosstown Cup is a year-long all-sports competition between UCLA and USC. While UCLA and USC have had a sports rivalry since the 1920s, the official yearly head-to-head all-sports competition began with the 2001-2002 season as the Lexus Gauntlet. After the 2008-2009 season, Lexus' sponsorship ended. For the next five seasons USC and UCLA continued to keep track of the scores and yearly winners. Without an official sponsor, the competition was referred to as the Crosstown Gauntlet from fall 2009 to spring 2014. Starting with the 2014-2015 season, the series was sponsored by The Southern California BMW Centers and renamed the SoCal BMW Crosstown Cup.
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During the original Lexus sponsorship, a Northern California version of the Gauntlet was held between Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley for three seasons.
Scoring Structure
Points are awarded for each NCAA-sanctioned sport that the two schools compete face each other in. Each of the 19 varsity sports that the two schools compete against each other in are worth 10 points in total. All regular season and postseason head-to-head competition in a single sport counts as a series, and all of the points for that sport are awarded to the winner of the series. Points are split in the event of a series tie. For sports without head-to-head competition, such as both men's and women's golf, all of the points for that sport are awarded based on which school finishes higher in the conference tournament. In sports with both head-to-head and multi-competitor events, such as swimming and track and field, only the head-to-head results are counted. For example, as there is only one match played, a single football victory is worth 10 points, while all head-to-head Men's water polo victories count as a series worth 10 total points. Currently, with 19 active sports in which UCLA and USC compete against each other, there are 190 points available in a season, with 100 needed to clinch an overall win. In the event of a tie after all points have been settled, there are three tiebreakers. The first tiebreaker is regular season head-to-head wins. If a tie remains, next is postseason head-to-head wins. Finally, the third tiebreaker is whichever school won the most conference championships in head-to-head sports.
Under the original Lexus sponsorship and the unsponsored period from 2009-2014, the scoring structure was slightly different. Instead of each sport being worth 10 points, only football, men's basketball, women's basketball, and women's volleyball were worth 10 points. All other sports were worth 5 points. As a result, there were originally 110 points available with 57.5 points needed to win. After the two schools began competing in women's sand volleyball for the 2012-2013, this changed to 115 points available and 60 needed to win.
UCLA-USC
The Southern version covers Los Angeles rivals, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. It began with the 2001 fall season.
Stanford-Berkeley
The Northern version matched Bay Area rivals Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. It began with the 2004 fall season and ended after the 2007 spring season.