Tag: Pac-12 ESPN

Pac-12 died because its presidents refused to help USC or acknowledge Trojans’ real value

#Pac12 presidents wouldn’t give #USC an extra revenue share. Then they overestimated the league’s value without USC. Amateur hour.

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:

George Kliavkoff’s biggest mistake as Pac-12 commissioner is beyond dispute

The debate is over: Kliavkoff made one fatal error, now that we know the #Pac12 presidents rejected a conference-saving ESPN deal.

The news on Friday was infuriating and depressing to anyone who cares about the Pac-12 and wanted the conference to survive. The Pac-12 presidents reportedly rejected an ESPN deal which would have paid each member school $30 million per year. That figure would have kept the conference together and alive. The number would have been very competitive with the number the Big 12 eventually arrived at, which was $31.7 million per year.

The Pac-12 getting $30 million per year for every remaining school without USC and UCLA would have been roughly as impressive as the Big 12 fetching $31.7 million per year for every member school with Texas and Oklahoma out the door.

There’s a lot to process here, but we begin with the simple truth that the Pac-12 presidents are more responsible for the destruction of the conference as we knew it (maybe it will survive as the Pac-4 plus some Mountain West members; we will see) than George Kliavkoff is. The deal was there and the presidents shot it down.

However, this doesn’t let Kliavkoff off the hook. In fact, it exposes his biggest and most obvious mistake as Pac-12 commissioner.

It’s actually not that hard to pin down.

Kliavkoff, with that 2022 ESPN deal in hand, needed to tell the Pac-12 presidents, “You must take this deal. It is as good as you can reasonably expect. You wanted me to deliver a media rights deal. This is it, take it or leave it. If you reject it, I will resign my position immediately.”

Leaders need to lead. They sometimes need to speak tough truths and tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. George Kliavkoff was unwilling or unable to tell Pac-12 presidents the truth. He was unable to put his foot down in a moment of great consequence.

Let’s continue to process this story by gathering reactions from across the Pac-12 and the nation, as everyone continues to wonder how Pac-12 presidents could be so shortsighted and out of touch with reality: