What might the future of the Pac-12 be with all the departures?

[LadyStanley]

Oregon State AD 'furious' as Pac-12 was 'literally hours' away from staying intact

Oregon and Washington left for the Big Ten on Friday while Arizona, Arizona State and Utah are headed to the Big 12.

sports.yahoo.com

Sounds like a very recent development

Click to read more...

 

[BKarchitect]

The Mountain West plus Cal, OSU, WSU. I’d try to flip SMU and call it good with a fun and sensible 16-team western G5 league with markets in the Bay Area, Dallas, San Diego, Las Vegas etc. Football could still be good and as of today there is still a route for the G5 standouts to make the new playoff system. They’d probably keep the PAC branding and history.

Stanford would rather kill their football program than join the MW schools.

 

[HisIceness]

It's dead and so is college sports. Such a joke that we are about to have cross-country conference members.

 

[joelef]

It's dead and so is college sports. Such a joke that we are about to have cross-country conference members.

You go relize fcs d2 d3 naia exist right?

 

[HisIceness]

You go relize fcs d2 d3 naia exist right?

In English please?

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Cal will get poached, as will Stanford or it goes independent, and the OSU/WSU duo merge with the MWC and modify the Pac-# moniker while falling out of the power conference conversation.

There’s fundamentally no surviving this as a major institution:

 

[GKJ]

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

From being in serious discussions to acquire Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech 12 years ago to its imminent demise today.

What an utter fiasco and failure of leadership.

 

[joelef]

The elephant in the room is that nobody wants to acknowledge is that college football just isn’t that popular in “pac 12” country like it is Midwest and south.

 

[GKJ]

From being in serious discussions to acquire Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech 12 years ago to its imminent demise today.

What an utter fiasco and failure of leadership.

Said this a few times, but Larry Scott will go down as perhaps the worst sports executive in history.

 

[Spydey629]

It's dead and so is college sports. Such a joke that we are about to have cross-country conference members.

This is the first time it’s the major conferences.

The WAC stretched from California to (at least) Louisiana; NJIT played in a basketball conference with schools in Utah. The Atlantic Sun’s lacrosse membership is coast to coast.

Does what happen suck? Absolutely. But it is not unprecedented.

 

[StreetHawk]

The elephant in the room is that nobody wants to acknowledge is that college football just isn’t that popular in “pac 12” country like it is Midwest and south.

Most of the Pac12 bigger programs are located close to pro sports markets, or are right in it, like UW, USC, UCLA. Also, being on the west coast, fewer people watch as they've spent most of their day following other schools and are just tired. So, barring a compelling matchup, not likely to stay awake for a Pac12 matchup. Thus, fewer eyeballs, means less money in tv rights.

It might have been fair to divide the pie evenly among the 12 programs, but when it's being pulled by a couple of schools, you have to cater to them.

I am curious to see how the Big10 prepares their schedules with the 4 new Pac12 additions. They paid money to see good matchups.

 

[aqib]

They really should have just had different conferences for football and all the other sports. Sure having USC and UCLA in the Big 10 for football is fine but you're really going to make USC volleyball travel to Columbus?

 

[KevFu]

Future wise, a merger with the MWC makes the most sense.

"Normally" a raided conference would rebuild from lesser conferences, who'd jump at the chance to "move up" to a league with a bigger TV deal.

But a) it hasn't happened like this were 60% of a conference left IN A WEEK.

When the Big East got raided, they lost West Virginia, and added Memphis. They lost Pitt, Syracuse, Notre Dame... added SMU, Houston and UCF. They lost Louisville, they added Tulane. It was incremental, but every team that joined knew that 6-8 others were in the league and when they lost someone, they had replacements at the ready.

How do you commit to join the Pac-4 FIRST without knowing who the other seven-plus members are going to be?


AND b) The Pac-12 has no baseline for a TV deal to do the math on. You have no idea if it makes financial sense to leave your conference, pay an exit fee and join the Pac-4.

Is THAT conference gonna get more than the $8m the American has locked down right now? Not worth the risk for anyone in the AAC.

For the MWC, it would make sense to "Trade" the bottom of the conference for the Pac-4 and the brand name... but there's gotta be a bidder for TV rights. ESPN ain't coming back to the table, and Fox/CBS SPLIT the MWC deal ($4.5m per school). AND The MWC has a $32m exit fee.


So the Pac-4 saying "Come join us, MWC school" is gonna get back "Uh, YOU join US. We have a TV deal and you have no exit fees.

Merging the two conferences then going to Fox/CBS and saying "We'd like more money because we ADDED four P5 schools and now we're called the Pac-14 which has more brand equity."

 

[GKJ]

Would the MWC even bother merging? Merge with what? To get the branding of the Pac 12, which very obviously isn’t worth jack shit? For 4 schools? If that?

They may not be a power conference, but, while it wasn’t a goal, they successfully outlasted them. Do everything on your terms.

 

[Spydey629]

Would the MWC even bother merging? Merge with what? To get the branding of the Pac 12, which very obviously isn’t worth jack shit? For 4 schools? If that?

They may not be a power conference, but, while it wasn’t a goal, they successfully outlasted them. Do everything on your terms.

It makes a ton of sense. The Power-5 still have that autonomy thing outside of the NCAA (at least as far as I know). It makes more sense for the MW to “join” the Pac-4 than the other way around, at least on paper.

If they get the autonomy status and a slightly higher payout from CBS and Fox, it is well worth the branding change.

 

[KevFu]

Would the MWC even bother merging? Merge with what? To get the branding of the Pac 12, which very obviously isn’t worth jack shit? For 4 schools? If that?

They may not be a power conference, but, while it wasn’t a goal, they successfully outlasted them. Do everything on your terms.

The MWC would totally merge. They'd INVITE those four in a heartbeat, but you need the business merger for... the NCAA units, the Pac-12 brand and trademarks (Conference of Champions!); AND most importantly, the Pac-12 still has P5 status (for now).

You say "do everything on your terms" but those are the best terms. It also protects you from the Pac-4 somehow figuring out a way to pilfer your members.

If the Pac-12 signed the Apple deal for $20m per season, THEN everyone left... the Pac-4 would have no problem raiding the MWC/AAC, and the MWC knows it.

But renegotiating the TV deal with the current partners, but now with four P5 schools and a P5 brand name, much better than the Pac-4 starting from zero. Not to mention the Pac-4 would be highly willing to fire the Pac-12 commissioner and staff and use the MWC leadership instead.

It makes too much sense. Which is probably why it won't happen! haha.

 

[Seattle King]

The soon to be unemployed Pac-4 Commissioner is the proverbial one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. He wont be sitting down for a year.
This was all inevitable once USC and UCLA split. Losing the LA market guts the revenue package vis a vis the Bigs. Two of the four top athletic programs and the largest market by far is not an amputation its evisceration.

 

[KevFu]

The soon to be unemployed Pac-4 Commissioner is the proverbial one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. He wont be sitting down for a year.
This was all inevitable once USC and UCLA split. Losing the LA market guts the revenue package vis a vis the Bigs. Two of the four top athletic programs and the largest market by far is not an amputation its evisceration.

Obviously, losing LA was killer, but all of this is because ESPN decided to only pay four of the five power conferences; ESPN WAS going to break-up the Big 12, but the Big 12 called them out on it... so ESPN bought their silence with a TV deal.

ESPN didn't offer much to the Pac-12 WITH USC/UCLA, because they knew that the dollar amount would change once they destroyed the Big 12.... and the low-ball offer was why they turned to the Big Ten.

 

[BKarchitect]

The soon to be unemployed Pac-4 Commissioner is the proverbial one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. He wont be sitting down for a year.
This was all inevitable once USC and UCLA split. Losing the LA market guts the revenue package vis a vis the Bigs. Two of the four top athletic programs and the largest market by far is not an amputation its evisceration.

Well the Big 12 has been amputated in huge ways twice and survived. Including losing its very top two athletic programs just a few years ago. With no Oregon or Washington left like the PAC had after the LA schools announced.

I don’t think it was inevitable - at least not like it’s happening now. The PAC had plenty of opportunities to be proactive.

- Ok State, Texas Tech, Baylor and TCU were ready to jump ship after UT and OU announced by the PAC-12 presidents voted expansion down.

- They had an offer from Yormark to merge just last year in the “best interests” of survival of the two leagues.

- They had schools with lots of potential like San Diego State, Boise State and SMU begging to join. Maybe G5 - but worked like a charm for the Big 12. Take markets and brands you can grow, increase inventory. But the PAC presidents would have none of it.

- Kliavkoff could’ve gotten a linear guaranteed deal done with maximum exposure before the Big 12 did. Instead he was asleep at the wheel and let Yormark and the Big 12 eat up all the money.

People can blame the networks all they want - and it’s true they are the power that is reorganizing everything right now. But the PAC did not have to be the conference that got nuked. Scott, Kliavkoff and the university presidents dug the hole and then put the conference directly in it. The networks just shoveled the last few piles of dirt on. They could have been leaders of action - instead they sat around pretending to be too above others in collegiate athletics, saying stupid things like “the longer we wait the better the deal” and “we aren’t worried about our teams leaving the conference” and agreeing to absurd “gentlemanly alliances” with the B1G and ACC all while the B1G is getting the carving knives out in plain view.

It’s not just the PAC failing that is going to make a great 30 for 30…it’s how stunningly inept the process was and how astoundingly arrogant and clueless their leaders continued to sound right up until doomsday.

 

[GKJ]

Wonder if things would be different if there was an LA-area MWC team they could’ve turned to. Fresno doesn’t count.

 

[Spydey629]

Obviously, losing LA was killer, but all of this is because ESPN decided to only pay four of the five power conferences; ESPN WAS going to break-up the Big 12, but the Big 12 called them out on it... so ESPN bought their silence with a TV deal.

ESPN didn't offer much to the Pac-12 WITH USC/UCLA, because they knew that the dollar amount would change once they destroyed the Big 12.... and the low-ball offer was why they turned to the Big Ten.

One problem with your logic here - with the B1G’s new deal(s), Disney was already down to four power conferences to bid on. They apparently decided only three were worth it.

All those years of hyping the “PAC-12 After Dark”, must have been for naught. As Pat Forde put it last week, ‘the PAC-12 was the first NCAA conference to get cancelled because of its TV ratings’.

 

[KevFu]

One problem with your logic here - with the B1G’s new deal(s), Disney was already down to four power conferences to bid on. They apparently decided only three were worth it.

All those years of hyping the “PAC-12 After Dark”, must have been for naught. As Pat Forde put it last week, ‘the PAC-12 was the first NCAA conference to get cancelled because of its TV ratings’.

Remembering all the TV deal details is difficult the older I get. The overall point is that ESPN was cutting costs. You see articles all over the place of ESPN cutting costs left and right. Well, all their personnel they keep laying off... that doesn't add up to the $380m the Big 12 got from ESPN, and a "matching" contract to the Pac-12 wasn't happening.

But again, the ORIGINAL ESPN plan was to break up the Big 12. They already moved Texas/Oklahoma to the SEC. They wanted to divide the rest of the Big 12 to the Pac-12 (top four schools) and AAC (bottom four schools) and give that contract to the Pac-12.

The Pac-12 had lower ratings because of time zones; but adding Central teams helps that immensely, and the the Big 12 has the "secondary schools" of Texas and then REALLY SMALL STATES compared to the Pac-12, which had major cities like Bay Area, SEA, PHX, DEN, Portland.


When the Big 12 called ESPN out and issued a Cease & Desist letter... ESPN turned around and guided them on adding BYU, Cincy, UCF and Houston (from ESPN conferences) and then broke off talks with the Pac-12.


It's no different that a salary cap crunch where the top two players get raises and there's no room to afford middle-six guys, so they get traded for draft picks. And ESPN has a HISTORY of ignoring/screwing over the middle-tier:

Drastic reduction in what they were paying the old Big East ($18m) vs new Big East ($0) and American ($7m). They completely ditched the Mountain West, WAC, Atlantic 10 and Conference USA over the years.

Being next to the cut-line between "big time conference" and "mid-major" is a very dangerous place to be when you're with ESPN. And it's not that different from when ESPN ditched the NHL in favor of NBA and soccer.

 

[BattleBorn]

As a long time west coaster that understands only passively caring about college football is almost a definitive part of west coast culture, it does feel a little shitty that there isn't a west coast conference. Though, maybe the west coast teams will get more press now that there are conferences spanning all continental American time zones will force the east coast people to watch out of market sports that start a little late in their time zone.

 

[mouser]

Obviously, losing LA was killer, but all of this is because ESPN decided to only pay four of the five power conferences; ESPN WAS going to break-up the Big 12, but the Big 12 called them out on it... so ESPN bought their silence with a TV deal.

ESPN didn't offer much to the Pac-12 WITH USC/UCLA, because they knew that the dollar amount would change once they destroyed the Big 12.... and the low-ball offer was why they turned to the Big Ten.

I’d be interested to know the financial details of the rumored proposal in ~2018 from ESPN to Larry Scott. In which ESPN would take over delivery of the PAC12 Network and extend their existing media deal with the PAC12 at “tier 1“ rates.

Hard to say without knowing the numbers, but that may have been a missed opportunity to avoid the USC/UCLA departure and keep the PAC intact.