Tag: George Kliavkoff Pac-12

You’ll never guess where George Kliavkoff was during Oregon State-Washington State Pac-12 legal hearing

Washington State and Oregon State want control of #Pac12 assets. George Kliavkoff was in an unexpected place. The judge shared the information.

First things first: If a legal proceeding is occurring over Zoom, it doesn’t make a big difference where the various parties are located. What matters is that the participants attend the hearing, state their case, and abide by the instructions of the court.

With that having been said, the Pac-12 Conference — which has been dismantled piece by piece due to a series of terrible decisions made by people who have been largely out of touch with reality — does not need yet another instance of bad optics. You would think the conference, in the middle of this miserable and unwanted situation (of its own making), might finally realize the value of good optics and creating the right appearance, especially as it gets taken to court by Washington State and Oregon State.

We noted that Wazzu and OSU are taking the Pac-12 to court, intent on controlling league assets due to the 10 other schools leaving the conference. WSU and OSU feel that they should be allowed to make the decisions governing what is left of the conference, with the other 10 schools having no say since they’re already out the door.

In the pursuit of their shared goal, Washington State and Oregon State were part of a legal hearing on Monday. They were seeking a restraining order blocking the Pac-12 and commissioner George Kliavkoff from convening a board meeting later this week.

The judge at the hearing divulged a piece of information which — while not damning — is certainly not a good look for the Pac-12. The conference is winning a lot of football games, but it is losing a lot of battles with optics.

Here’s the big revelation about George Kliavkoff, followed by more details plus reactions from fans and commentators:

Pac-12, George Kliavkoff allowed themselves to be strong-armed by a professor

An @LATimesSports report details how one school president and professor derailed the deal which would have saved the #Pac12.

If you have lived long enough, you have probably met at least one person who has crazy, outside-the-box ideas. Whether it’s an inventor with all sorts of concepts for new products, or a consultant who insists on being unconventional at every turn, or an ideological true believer with novel theories of politics, there’s at least one person we come across who is out in left field and has a drastically different take on a lot of topics.

If that person is a close friend or relative, we will listen to that person so as to not alienate him or her, but there’s a huge difference between listening and — on the other hand — taking that kind of person’s ideas seriously.

Guess what? The Pac-12 took that person’s ideas seriously … and the conference is on its deathbed as a result.

Brady McCollough of the Los Angeles Times came out with a well-reported, highly-sourced examination of the collapse of the Pac-12 on Wednesday. There are several stories we need to share with you from that report, but the biggest one is that the Pac-12 listened to a wacky fringe professor with a crazy idea. George Kliavkoff, instead of asserting himself as a leader who told the Pac-12 CEO Group what had to be done in a time of crisis, allowed one university president and professor to derail the deal which would have saved the conference.

Plenty of people within the Pac-12 Conference have their suspicions about the identity of the professor (and school) involved, but it will be interesting to see if today’s inclinations and thoughts are confirmed — or refuted — in subsequent days and weeks.

You can’t make this stuff up. Let’s dive into the details:

Pac-12 presidents, George Kliavkoff ignored widely available industry expertise

In July of 2022, after USC left for the #B1G, a consultant estimated a #Pac12 media deal could get $30M per school. He was ignored.

You know by now that the Pac-12 presidents rejected a 2022 offer by ESPN which, if accepted, would have paid out $30 million per school and likely saved the conference. That’s really bad. It’s yet another embarrassment for a conference which is on its last legs and has been reduced to just four schools.

Yet, it gets worse. It always gets worse in the Pac-12. This is how the conference operates. There are always a few more details which make a bad situation even more embarrassing than we all appreciated 24 or 48 hours earlier.

The latest damning details come from Pac-12 insider John Canzano. In his report about longtime sports executive and administrator Oliver Luck being brought in as a consultant to the remaining Pac-4 schools, Canzano also included some notes on a media industry expert the Pac-12 presidents very clearly ignored over the past 13 months.

We have details on that and a lot more below. It’s going to be even more of a headache, but you have to read these details to get an even fuller picture of how badly the Pac-12 presidents messed up: