Tag: Pac-12 extinction

New reporting shows Pac-12 died because CEO Group didn’t grasp the situation

New reporting from John Canzano details how the Pac-12’s death was less the cause of one person and more due to group paralysis.

If you follow the Pac-12 on a regular basis, and if you have come here to Trojans Wire for realignment content, you probably know how the conference collapsed. The Pac-12 had a media rights offer from ESPN in 2022 which would have paid out $30 million per school to the 10 schools left after USC and UCLA bolted for the Big Ten.

We have collected various other details from reportage by John Canzano and Jon Wilner, plus statements from former television executives, which explain how the Pac-12 died.

One of the juicy details involved was that one Pac-12 president reportedly pushed for a higher dollar figure for the media rights deal. Given how much Arizona State truly didn’t want to leave the Pac-12, we speculated that the “unknown president” might have been in Tempe.

That did not turn out to be the case.

What is also emerging, however, is that one school president didn’t torpedo the ESPN deal last year. It was a collective effort in which the Pac-12 CEO Group couldn’t reach agreement and put up a united front.

Fresh reporting has unearthed the fuller picture of how the Pac-12 couldn’t get its act together in a moment of crisis:

(h/t John Canzano — subscription required)

We went behind the paywall for Canzano’s article and will share some of his important findings below:

Pac-12 dominated in Week 1, but fans aren’t happy due to league’s death

It’s so #Pac12: The league looks as great as it has in a long time, but no one is happy because the Pac won’t exist in 2024.

You really can’t make this stuff up, can you? The Pac-12 Conference, on its deathbed, its membership scattered and peeled away one by one to other Power Five conferences, looks great on the football field in 2023. Washington scored 56, USC 66, Oregon 81. Colorado won as a 20-point underdog at TCU, the school which made the national championship game this past January.

Washington State won in a road blowout at Colorado State. Cal won in a big blowout at North Texas. Stanford hammered Hawaii on Friday. UCLA handled its business against Coastal Carolina. Utah beat Florida by 13 points on Thursday in a game which wasn’t that close. Arizona smashed Northern Arizona. Arizona State didn’t look great, but it did win its opener.

The Pac-12 is unbeaten heading into Oregon State’s Sunday game versus San Jose State. The league hasn’t lost a game yet. It should be a time to celebrate how much the conference has improved, and how good the conference could become this year. It’s probably the second-best conference in college football behind the SEC. People should be happy.

They’re not. It’s for a simple reason: The conference is dying.

People can’t believe this is happening, as you can see below:

Trojans Wire and Ducks Wire examine how the Pac-12 ultimately died

We examine what ultimately finished the #Pac12 with @ZacharyCNeel, the editor of @Ducks_Wire. @IanHest produced the show.

The Pac-12 as we know it is dead. Maybe the conference continues in a very technical and official way, but when a conference is reduced to four schools, and at least one of them is likely to leave, that’s no longer a conference. That is a collection of refugees looking for a home.

The past few weeks in the college sports industry have given us another realignment whirlwind. If you had asked Pac-12 observers two months ago what was going to happen this summer, you would have been told (most likely) that San Diego State was going to join the Pac-12. You also would have been told that the conference was not doing to die this ugly public death we witnessed on Friday, when five schools left the conference and essentially ended any last hopes of survival.

Yet, San Diego State was never added. Colorado got mad. The television deal fell apart. The Apple TV deal was nowhere near sufficient. RIP, Pac-12.

We invited Ducks Wire editor Zachary Neel on our podcast to review how the Pac-12 met its untimely end. Ian Hest produced the show.

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Pac-12 media rights disaster is hard to describe, but the details say it all

How can administrators and executives be so shortsighted and unprepared? #ThatsSoPac12.

We all know the Pac-12 failed on an epic scale in allowing the conference to get blown apart. We all know the pursuit of a media rights deal turned into an all-time disaster, a memorable train wreck which will be written about for decades as an example of how not to negotiate.

We all know this. We all know the Pac-12 embarrassed and humiliated itself on a national scale, committing a mistake of biblical proportions.

It’s actually somehow worse than you might think. Yes, the Pac-12 is not led by great leaders. The conference is one big clown car.

It’s worse than that.

A report from Stewart Mandel of The Athletic detailed just how bad this process was. You can read it if you’d like to, but if you don’t, we’ll share the central details of it and add some commentary to fill in some of the blanks.

Let’s go inside the final, disastrous failure which essentially ended the Pac-12 Conference as we know it:

Trojans Wire joins Big 12 analyst to discuss unfolding Pac-12 nightmare

#Big12 expert @TylerJonesLive has a great podcast. We joined the show to discuss #Pac12 stupidity and death, plus realignment.

The Pac-12 is on its deathbed. Will there be an 11th-hour cure produced by an intervention with a better media rights package, or at least a supplement to the Apple deal? Will the Pac-12 not really have any other options to offer to its remaining members? Will anyone get cold feet? Will Oregon and Washington be invited by the Big Ten? What about Stanford and Cal?

A lot of things are about to happen in college sports, but they haven’t yet happened. With a lot of events not yet finalized as of Friday morning, the situation is still fluid and things are up in the air. While the situation remains fluid, we might as well discuss some realignment scenarios and express in more concrete terms just how badly the Pac-12 messed everything up.

We joined Tyler Jones’ superb podcast to discuss these various topics. Tyler has covered the Big 12 for a long time, but he also covers the Seattle Seahawks and a few other NFL teams for Chat Sports. Tyler is excellent at what he does. Follow him and listen to his shows:

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Biggest frustration with the Pac-12? It’s hard to pick just one

No clarity. No guts. No intelligence. So much has been lacking in the #Pac12’s response. It’s not just one thing. It’s everything.

We noted earlier this week that George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12 CEO Group did not understand the stakes involved when the CEOs interviewed Kliavkoff for the Pac-12 commissioner job.

If the two parties — the interviewer and the interviewee — really grasped what was on the line, they would have created a clear understanding that Kliavkoff needed to be fully empowered to act to save the conference. The presidents and chancellors had to get out of the way and allow Kliavkoff to strike a deal.

If Kliavkoff did feel — at any point in the process — that the Pac-12 presidents were restraining him and preventing him from doing his job properly, he either should have resigned or should have threatened to resign. One way or another, the commish and the presidents were not on the same page. Whether you blame Kliavkoff or the Pac-12 CEO Group, it’s clear the two sides didn’t have a firm understanding of what needed to be done. That’s a huge frustration for Pac-12 fans with this larger process.

Ducks Wire helped us identify other specific frustrations with this very sad saga in the Pac-12:

Pac-12 merger with ACC was a good idea, but Pac-12 didn’t strike when it had a chance

The #Pac12 has been painfully slow to act on its feet. @Ducks_Wire rightly says the #ACC merger idea is a ship which has sailed.

It has been fascinating to see the realignment wheel spin in the summer of 2023 for all sorts of reasons here at Trojans Wire. One is that when we Google search certain topics such as “Pac-12 ACC merger,” we have seen our stories from July of 2022 emerge in those searches. The things we wrote 13 months ago still apply in many ways.

What has changed is the Pac-12 has run out of time and has even less leverage. On its face, a Pac-12 merger with the ACC seems like a great idea, but the Pac-12 has been so painfully slow to act that it doesn’t have the time or the leverage to create an 11th-hour rescue plan for the conference.

Ducks Wire joined us in discussing this point, as you’ll see below:

Realignment: Will the Pac-12 die?

.@Ducks_Wire joined us for a very brief conversation about the possible death of the #Pac12.

Will the Pac-12 die? Trojans Wire and Ducks Wire are discussing this and other realignment scenarios.

Don Smalley, Ducks Wire: In its current form, yes. The remaining schools (OSU, WSU) will end up in a new Pac with most of the Mountain West schools. I’m just stunned this is what it has turned into.

Matt Zemek, Trojans Wire: As of Wednesday night, yes. That said, this saga has had an absurd amount of very wild plot twists. Would anyone be that surprised if it survives?

Zachary Neel, Ducks Wire: If George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12 can find a way out of this, my hat is off to them. The death certificate has been signed and sealed as far as I’m concerned, and we’re just waiting for it to be delivered. Should be any day now.

Matt Wadleigh, Trojans and Buffaloes Wire: At this point in time, the Pac-12 Conference seems to be on its final legs. The media deal isn’t going well, and if Oregon, Washington, Cal and Stanford leave (not to mention Arizona), there isn’t much hope. A Mountain West merger might be the final outcome.

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Why George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12 should be talking to Florida State and the ACC

Florida State wants out of the ACC. This doesn’t mean the #Pac12 should invite FSU, but it could offer a last-minute rescue plan.

We are talking about college sports realignment now, much as we did throughout July of 2022 after USC and UCLA left for the Big Ten.

It has been striking to notice how many articles we wrote in July of 2022 which are still very applicable to the larger college sports scene in August of 2023. These are not settled matters. These are not resolved questions. They are still up in the air and could break in various directions.

One item still unresolved from last summer is whether the ACC’s grant of rights really is an airtight seal keeping teams from leaving the conference, or whether it can be torn up and renegotiated. It has a lot to do with Florida State and Clemson. It could also give the Pac-12 a possible avenue to a last-minute survival plan.

Let’s walk through the details here and explain them:

Trojans Wire goes on Salt Lake City radio show to discuss possible Pac-12 death

#Pac12DeathWatch is officially on. We joined @KSLUnrivaled on Wednesday afternoon to talk about it.

The Pac-12 is in critical condition. The patient has lost a lot of blood and needs to be stabilized. Will it survive? We don’t know, but it isn’t looking particularly good at the moment.

Will there be an 11th-hour intervention from ESPN or another interested media party which sees significant importance in preserving the Pac-12 to prevent Fox, the Big Ten, Oregon, Washington, Stanford, or another entity from gaining a perceived advantage in another realignment reshuffle?

Can the Pac-12 scramble to find a last-minute alternative plan? Don’t get your hopes up there, but then again, all of this is absurd. Maybe the Pac-12 saving itself at the hour of death could be the most absurd plot twist to emerge from this crazy saga.

We talked to Scott Mitchell (yes, the former Detroit Lion quarterback) on the KSL Unrivaled radio show in Salt Lake City to discuss the Pac-12’s many missteps and why the conference is in such pronounced peril:

Stay with Trojans Wire for more on the realignment circus … and Pac-12 Death Watch. It’s real.

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