Thursday night, the Big 12 voted to approve the inclusion of the University of Arizona to the conference. The Arizona Board of Regents still has to approve the move, which it hasn’t yet done. Arizona State University President Michael Crow, a longtime defender of Larry Scott and someone clearly vested in the preservation of the Pac-12, doesn’t want to leave. Yet, he can see the conference crumbling around him. He knows this media deal isn’t generating sufficient revenue. He knows the ASU community wants to get out of the Pac-12 and leave this sinking ship before it descends to the bottom of the Pacific (12) Ocean.
The writing is on the wall.
Crow wants to delay this move as long as possible, partly to see if George Kliavkoff can come up with an alternative rescue plan, but mostly due to optics. He wants to be seen as a guy who defended the Pac-12 to the very end and didn’t relish moving to the Big 12 at all (which would be true enough).
Crow’s move reeks of desperation, but it does buy Kliavkoff at least a little time to come up with a Plan B. However, are there any signs of that alternative plan? Is there any indication Kliavkoff or the Pac-12 are doing anything to stave off extinction? Our friends at Ducks Wire are just as bewildered as we are.
Let’s look at the details of this unfolding media rights catastrophe in the Pac-12, which is now on its deathbed for reasons which were entirely preventable: