The Pac-12 presidents, as you know by now, rejected a 2022 ESPN offer that would have paid out $30 million per year to each member school.
That deal would have saved the conference. It would have represented a highly competitive price point when measured against the $31.7 million figure the Big 12 gained for its member schools.
Remember: The Big 12 lost Texas and Oklahoma. Coming in at $31.7 million without those two huge brand names was a legitimate achievement for Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark. Everyone in college sports was impressed Yormark got that much money for his conference with Texas and Oklahoma out of the picture.
The Pac-12 presidents obviously believed that with USC gone, the conference was still worth a lot more than ESPN or the market indicated. The presidents didn’t seem to factor the absence of USC into their calculations. They disregarded the importance of the USC football brand and how much that meant to the conference.
Keep in mind: This was not the first time Pac-12 presidents fatally underappreciated USC’s value to the conference.
During Larry Scott’s tenure — when the seeds of the Pac-12’s destruction were planted — the conference refused to give the Trojans an extra revenue share that would have kept them happy as a conference member. This was a known issue. The conference refused to do anything about it. When George Kliavkoff took over from Larry Scott in 2021, he did not have enough time to mend this fractured situation. USC left one year after Kliavkoff took over.
Now we can see Pac-12 presidents continued to dismiss USC’s real value to the conference. Here we are, with the Pac-12 lying in ruins.
USC fans and other national observers were quick to notice how losing the Los Angeles TV market seemed to have no effect on the Pac-12’s calculations, leading to the disastrous decision to reject ESPN’s 2022 media deal: