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Posts posted by bullet

  1. 1 hour ago, camel at sea said:

    SMU donors are willing to pay for facilities upgrades as well as foot the bill for an AD that won't get media revenue for as long as seven years?  On top of that, they'll fund an NIL operation competitive enough to win games in a power conference?  I guess you do what you gotta do to get your foot in the door but that's an enormous buy-in.  

    Assuming they do get in, though, the ACC will have three outliers in Big 12 territory (SMU, Stanford, Cal), and vice versa (WVU, Cincy, UCF.)  Maybe at some point the two conferences swap.   

    ACC makes more in non-TV revenue per school than AAC makes for all revenue.  So it will still be more money for SMU.

  2. 3 hours ago, notre dame joe said:

    I am a bit behind on my SMU traditions.  Did they once play the same as the Dallas Cowboys?

     

     

    There was a time when they were called the best professional football team in Dallas (yes the Cowboys had a streak where they were pretty bad).

  3. 6 hours ago, LTtxfan said:

    32,000 capacity at Ford Stadium

    So would ponies in ACC start playing more games at the Cotton Bowl ??  

    ACC will feel right at home.  Just like Wake Forest and Duke.  And empty like BC.  SMU will not trail the league in attendance.

  4. 1 hour ago, USC Traveler said:

     

    Great to see the Chair of the BOT of a state flagship university who understands the CFB fan experience, the SEC and actually knows what the Grove is.

    Contrast that with the UC Regents last year talking about impact of USC and UCLA to the BIG on Cal.

    It was a complete clown show, where they all exposed their ignorance.  It was so clear none of them had any clue.

    He's 100% correct that Horns Down penalties are stupid and that it's a compliment to UT.

    When you're hated, you're relevant.  No one does anti-Rutgers signs because no one cares.

    if the opposing players are doing it  to other players, it is taunting.  We need to treat all taunting the same.  So its not stupid.

  5. 1 hour ago, 'stache said:

    I think it's legit if its the model someone posted a few pages back, that the "western wing" (either Stanford and Cal and maybe also SMU) would get a small portion of the media contract (SMU possibly none for several years) but they'll be allowed to enter into an agreement with Apple to generate additional revenue. I would assume that if it's wildly successful, any amount that would exceed everyone else's payout would be readjusted for equal payment to all in that scenario. I have an SMU graduate degree and would love to see them as an ACC member, even if the boosters cover them for 5-7 years (not my money, don't really care). 

    Nobody, even Baylor, deserves relegation more than SMU.  Maybe they will get another death penalty and Rice will get their slot!

  6. 5 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

    I’d also like to know the ISU body count? How many starters? Two deep? Scholarship count?

    I’m not trying to kick them while they’re down or throw stones, but I’d like to gauge the difficulty of the game in Ames. Off the top of my head, losing your starting QB and RB isn’t good. 
     

     

    I think Iowa has quite a few also.  The state has a gambling problem.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  7. 13 hours ago, Al_4_ISU said:

    Exactly.  What do those paychecks and conference affiliations do for fans?  

    Even those second tier Big 10 and SEC schools are going to have to adjust their fan expectations.  I know a lot of Iowa fans that are not happy about the Big 10 West going away.  They always had a chance to play for a conference title in that set up, and after this year, unless some lopsided divisions return to the league (or they keep getting schedules that dodge all the good teams in the league), they will probably never play for another conference title.

    Schools like Iowa and Auburn might be at risk with more powers in the conference.

  8. 3 hours ago, John80 said:

    The Ivy League schools chose to leave big time athletics a long time ago and this decision hasn't hurt them at all. Same with The University of Chicago. They aren't going to compromise their admission standards and add easy classes to keep people eligible. Some years ago a journalism group called California Watch found a list of easy classes that Stanford athletes are given so everyone at this level compromises. The University of Michigan has a "General Studies" major that is a joke to keep people eligible. 

    I remember reading one time DKR was trying to get UT to copy Michigan and couldn't get the administration to do that.

    2 hours ago, Zhorn96 said:

    Rugby is self funded and actually makes a small profit.  But its a big Title IX issue.  Would think track, baseball, gymnastics (M&W), lacrosse and field hockey are the most likely candidates 

    Track helps with football.  Many athletes are dual sport.

  9. 1 hour ago, Zhorn96 said:

    dunno if this is the deal structure (could be?) but the Cal side is feeling pretty optimistic that a move to the ACC is happening with 'Furd and while they wont get a full share, its more than 50% and would eventually scale to full partnership.  Would be for most sports but Cal would also be looking to axe a number of programs, mostly men's in all likelihood.  30 sports currently so 6-ish getting chopped would be logical.  We'll see, negotiations are ongoing but UNC/NCState sound like they are close to flipping their vote.

    Cal has 14 men's and 15 women's sports, well over the 16 minimum for FBS.
    cross country
    track indoor
    track outdoor
    basketball
    baseball/softball
    golf
    tennis
    swimming & diving
    soccer
    rowing
    water polo
    gymnastics
    men's football
    men's rugby
    women's lacrosse
    women's field hockey
    women's volleyball

    Rugby would clearly be on the chopping block.  Maybe women's lacrosse.  Not sure what else.  They have had some success in one or the other sex in water polo, gymnastics and rowing.

  10. 3 hours ago, HookEm said:

    I just don't think it has dawned on the alumni of any of these schools in a coordinated sense yet.  The game has changed and there is very little stopping a Stanford from competing with an Alabama if the alumni are mobilized.  

    I think you can look at the endowment of a school as a measure of the collective resources of their alumni.  I understand that the endowment itself can't be used for sports... but is a relative show of what the alumni are capable of if they make sports a priority.

    Harvard has an endowment of $49B.  Stanford $36B.  Rice $7.8B.  USC $7.3B.  These schools have ass-loads of rich alumni.  Compare these numbers to TCU with $2.4B. Or Penn State with $4.6B.

    They still have to keep the kids eligible.  That will always give Alabama an advantage over Yale, Harvard and Stanford.

  11. 42 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

    Enough with the Texas being down killed the Big 12/USC being down killed the PAC bullshit. 
     

    Texas should have left for the SEC in 1990, but aggy told the legislature on us. 
     

    USC really didn’t have many options until the Big Ten money overcame travel costs/concerns. 
     

    If Texas or USC were say Clemson in the ACC, sure it makes the decision more difficult, but Clemson President would push his mother into traffic right now to get into the SEC. 

    In 1990, Stanford vetoed us.  aggy wanted to go to the SEC.  They were going to the SEC.  Texas to the Pac.  But then Stanford vetoed after UT president Cunningham had already briefed our board.  If you want a reference, its in "The Texas Way" by William Cunningham, pages 230-231.

    There were long rumors of Stanford vetoing us, but I didn't really believe it until Cunningham wrote about it in detail in his book.  He has a chapter about the breakup of the SWC and how we eventually ended up in the Big 12.

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  12. On 8/19/2023 at 2:14 AM, Hagbard Celine said:

    the LA Times is a paper of record

    there is no doubt that there is lots of truth in this article

    but.......

    there are number of key events the article skips over.....

    san diego state gave notice that it was giving notice on 16 june

    that did not happen in a vacuum

    While I think there is a lot of truth, it is clearly written from Kliavcoff's office point of view.  And the LA Times is a bit of a joke.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  13. On 8/19/2023 at 8:15 PM, Hurtlocker said:

    They could be on Prime, they couldn't be on ABC counter CBS's afternoon slot.  The new deal for the SEC the mouse is allowed to put the biggest game in any slot and any channel, as long as they pay, they're not bound to the afternoon.

    They should be counting ESPN though, its basically a T1 channel at this point.  ESPN2/U is even to FS1, those are clearly T2.

    This graph is also a good indicator of how many games have hit conference networks and who doesn't play on them.  But, at the end of the day, win and you get on the good channels.

     

    ESPNU is WAY behind FS1.  FS2, ESPNU, ESPNNews are all real low.  ESPN2 is comparable to FS1.

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  14. 6 hours ago, camel at sea said:

    I think if they can rebuild the PAC, the politics will favor them keeping the "power" designation b/c ultimately it won't matter much.  The "Top 6 conference champions" format for the CFP doesn't directly specify anything re: Power vs. G5.  Hypothetically, you could get a Sun Belt and American champion in over the PAC champion anyway.  Continuing to allow them to insist that they're a "power" conference won't make their media deal competitive.  The designation is ultimately pretty meaningless.  

    It will matter because the A5 are getting about 80% of the money and G5 15%.

  15. 9 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

    Disagree. If the SEC turned their CCG into a 4 team playoff they would get 100% of that revenue. Currently the 4 team playoff shares that money with EVERY FBS conference. The Sun Belt and CUSA, having never participated any the playoff or NY6 bowls, pull in $24 million a year from the CFP. The PAC/B12/ACC pull much more than that but I’m not going to bother to go find the exact number.

    You take all of that interest and condense it down to just the SEC and they will rake in the cash for just their 4 team playoff.

    The additional money for the championship games, and the normal bowl games will also still be there.

    While the total payout will be less than the joint CFP, the SEC’s portion of that would absolutely be worth more than they are currently receiving. Bad for college football in general does not mean bad for the SEC.

    We all saw #1 UGA play #14 LSU in the CCG in Atlanta. With 11 million viewers it was the most watched CCG. Now imagine after it, you had a rematch of #5 Alabama play #6 Tennessee in Miami or Houston. Then you have UGA play that winner in the Sugar Bowl on NYD. Then they play the B1G’s 4 team playoff winner (Michigan/Penn St vs Ohio St/USC) mid January…the networks would piss themselves for that guaranteed content.

    Sure, no K State/TCU/Utah/Clemson would hurt the overall $ some, but condensing the revenue into just the two conferences would most likely increase the amount each of their schools get to take home.

    I know the idea is not popular here, but my main point is that this is not a “hollow threat”.

    Remember the Alabama-LSU rematch?  One of the worst watched BCS title games ever?  After a couple of Alabama-Georgia games, even the SEC knew the playoff needed to be expanded so it wasn't an SEC invitational.  The rest of the country was tuning out.

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  16. 12 minutes ago, USC Traveler said:

    That's true of every conference, though.  Teams will drop out, and others will cycle up into the top 25.  But the drops and rises aren't equal.

    We already see how SEC teams (and some BIG teams) are treated differently: they drop less after a loss or rise more after a win than other conferences.

    That's going to become even more pronounced in 2024.  What determines rankings ?  Perception.

    And the perception from 2024 on is going to be that most of the strength in CFB will be concentrated in the BIG/SEC.

    And once the ACC gets carved up, it will get even worse, with 20 of the top 25 every year being in the BIG/SEC.  

    So I agree with Tk that SOS is going to be a much bigger factor in the 12 team model than it has up till now because of the concentration of brands.

    //

    The playoff is a tv product, and the networks that land the playoffs are going to be the same networks hyping their respective conferences all year, reinforcing the idea that these two conferences are on a different level in terms of SOS.  And while the networks will want a couple of cinderella teams in the playoff field, they'll mostly want to include the big brands that will bring in the highest ratings, which are the BIG/SEC brands, where the networks have invested the most money.

    The networks, via the BIG/SEC, will make it clear to the CFP how they want to see SOS factored in.  And the BIG/SEC hold all the power from 2026 on.

    Their ultimate leverage is the threat to "Go back to the old days, with the bowl system.  They can each have a four team internal playoff to determine their conference champs, with the SEC CCG in the Sugar and BIG CCG in the Rose- both on NYD.  They'll meet in the "Super College Bowl" two weeks later.  They'll say they're not excluding anyone, because they will no longer be positioning it as a playoff, and that the other conferences can set up their own bowl arrangements.  BIG/SEC will say it's a return to the old way of doing things, with poll voters deciding the best team.  

    But everyone knows that in reality, that would mean the winner of the BIG-SEC bowl would be voted #1 every year.  

    That threat is going to scare the living shit out of every other conference, so BIG/SEC will get what they want on the 2026 and beyond format.

    I hope it's 5 champs until the ACC gets carved up, and then top 4 champs afterwards.

    Assuming it becomes 5 champ format, from 2024 until ACC breakup:

    BIG: 3-4

    SEC: 3-4

    ACC: 1-2

    B12: 1-2

    G5: 1

     

    If we have a 4 champ format after the ACC gets carved up by the BIG, SEC and B12:

    BIG: 4-5

    SEC: 4-5

    B12: 1-2

    G5: 1

    Its a hollow threat.  it would cost the SEC and Big 10 massive dollars.  Probably more than it would cost the rest (just not on a % basis).

  17. 4 hours ago, Hurtlocker said:

    That's sort of an every year thing though.   How many times has A&M started in the top ten only to struggle to get 7 or 8 wins?   It won't look like this in October once loses start showing up.

    Name schools get ranked in the preseason polls.  Hate to say it, but how many times has Texas been ranked in preseason polls since 2010 and finished unranked?

  18. 6 hours ago, statsman said:

    I don’t get all the ACC bashing. The ACC has terrific football and basketball teams. It has two weaknesses-a below market media contract-That is finite- and a few teams that aspire to the SP2. 
     
    The B12 has two advantages-a favorable media contract (for eight years more) and no teams desired by other conferences. 
     
    The B12 has more stability. That doesn’t make the football and basketball better, nor does it put 65,000 fans in the seats. 

    Except the football and basketball overall ARE better.  And have been for the last decade.

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  19. 37 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

    If Cal and Stanford were smart (what a weird world we live in when I can honestly start a sentence that way) they should have been secretly negotiating with the Big 12 behind under a NDA.

    Once Oregon and Washington left, they could have pulled the trigger and leap frogged over ASU/Utah, both schools that clearly don’t want to be in the B12 and schools in duplicate markets/states that are already in (or invited) the conference.

    I get that many in here oppose them for political reasons, but two schools in SFO including an every other year ND game (and I assume USC too at some point) would be far more valuable for the conference in the long term.

    Conference politics.  They are toxic. 

  20. 38 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

    You’re arguing both sides here.

    Basketball teams with good records miss the NCAA tournament all the time. You say that’s what you want but you’re actually arguing the opposite. Iowa State made the NCAA men’s basketball tournament as a 6 seed with a record of 19-13, meanwhile North Texas missed the tournament with a record of 26-7.

    The SEC and Big Ten will have a far more difficult strength of schedule (like Big 12 basketball did last year) and will be rewarded for it. I doubt you’ll see a 1 loss Big12/ACC team passed over for a 3 loss SEC/B1G team but I damn sure hope a 2 loss non conference champion for the B12/ACC doesn’t get in over a 3 loss SEC/B1G team. That is more in line with how the basketball tournament operates and is likely how this will shake out unless you are trying to get the SEC/B1G to breakaway.

    Well I hope that isn't how it is determined.  It should be based on the team, not their conference.  Sometimes there just isn't a strong schedule in a tough conference.  For example, there are a lot of teams that could start 10-0 on Georgia's schedule next year.

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  21. 19 minutes ago, BachelorTrek said:
      Reveal hidden contents

    Inside the Pac-12 collapse: Four surprising moments that crushed the conference
     
    USC, Oregon and UCLA are among the eight schools leaving the Pac-12 after the 2023-24 season, decimating the conference.

     
    BY J. BRADY MCCOLLOUGH
    STAFF WRITER
    AUG. 16, 2023 UPDATED 12:57 PM PT

    As the calendar turned to December 2022, the Pac-12 Conference was in a precarious position.
    Six months after USC and UCLA announced they were joining the Big Ten and the Pac-12 began its media rights negotiations early in response, the 10 remaining schools did not have a new TV deal in place. Worse than that, the Big 12 jumped the Pac-12 in line with ESPN and Fox, agreeing in October 2022 to extend its current deal through 2030-31.
    But Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff was working on another way to save the 108-year-old conference. Multiple sources not authorized to speak publicly about negotiations shared the following outline of the plan and Pac-12 leaders’ response with The Times.
     


    Publicly, the University of California Board of Regents’ threats to force UCLA to stay in the Pac-12 and avoid hurting UC Berkeley were viewed as posturing, pure bluffs to get attention and possibly some money from the departing Bruins.
    Privately, Kliavkoff was deeply engaged with a small group of regents about the framework of a deal that would lead to the regents voting to block UCLA’s move — even though the regents did not want to set a precedent of overturning a monumental campus-specific decision.
    The regents did the math. UCLA was supposed to make $62 million per year from the Big Ten’s new mega media rights deal. The Bruins’ travel costs to compete in the Midwest-based conference were expected to be in the range of $10 million to $12 million annually. So, the regents gave Kliavkoff a magic number. If he could guarantee the Bruins $52 million annually during the five years of the league’s next media deal, the regents promised Kliavkoff a vote heavily in favor of UCLA staying in the Pac-12.
    It was not going to be easy for the remaining 10 to stomach giving UCLA a much bigger annual revenue share. The Pac-12’s math said that a media rights deal for 11 schools — even with the Los Angeles market back under the conference footprint — was not likely to net $52 million for each school.
    Not only did Kliavkoff need the Pac-12 presidents to sign off on the guaranteed money, but they would also have to take the leap of faith to sign a grant of rights binding the schools together without knowing the exact details of what their media deal would be. Lastly, the Pac-12 would have to pay the $15-million fee UCLA would owe to the Big Ten for breaking its agreement.
     

    When Kliavkoff presented the idea to the Pac-12 board, Oregon interim president Patrick Phillips vehemently shut it down. He said he would not have the Ducks in a conference where they have to take less money than UCLA, and any conversation about the possibility quickly died.
    Kliavkoff declined to comment on the negotiations that played out quietly behind the scenes.
    On Dec. 14, the UC Regents met and voted 11 to 5 to approve the Bruins’ exit to the Big Ten. While the vote was assumed by many to be mere formality, it certainly could have gone the other direction — a theme that would emerge time and again on the Pac-12’s road to ruin.
    Today, the Pac-12 is now the Pac-4. Oregon and Washington are joining USC and UCLA in the Big Ten, and Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah are headed to the Big 12. Stanford, Cal, Washington State and Oregon State are left to the whims of an industry that has become comfortable making momentous long-term decisions while under immense short-term pressure.
    Following interviews with dozens of sources within the Pac-12 and in other corners of college athletics during the last two years, this is the story behind the Pac-12’s collapse.

    The setup
    The Pac-12 hired Kliavkoff in May 2021 to clean up a mess that was the making of his predecessor, Larry Scott, and the conference’s university leaders.
    The league struggled in just about every facet other than the number of championships won in the lower-revenue Olympic sports. This allowed Scott to constantly trumpet the Pac-12 as the “Conference of Champions” while it fell drastically behind its peers in the Big Ten and SEC in media rights distribution dollars and its self-created Pac-12 Network wallowed in relative obscurity.
    The league was not winning in football, the most visible and lucrative sport, either. USC was struggling to recover from crippling NCAA sanctions, and Pac-12 teams had made the new four-team College Football Playoff just twice.
     

    Morale was down among Pac-12 athletic directors, who felt Scott was disconnected from campus realities, spending most of his time at the conference’s headquarters in downtown San Francisco.
    Of course, morale wouldn’t have been an issue if Scott had backed up his promise to make the schools rich. He maintained until his last days leading the league that it was well-positioned to reach revenue goals in its next media rights agreement, but he would not be the one to see it through.
    Kliavkoff was an entertainment executive at MGM Resorts in Las Vegas when he landed the Pac-12 job, but he previously worked at Major League Baseball and NBC Universal around the advent of streaming. At NBC, he was part of Hulu’s start. With that experience, it was reasonable for Pac-12 presidents to think he would be equipped to handle their media rights negotiations.
    At the time he was hired, though, his most pressing task was mending campus relationships by showing schools that the league office cared about their various plights.
    Kliavkoff’s plan was to spend his first weeks on the job as Kumbaya George, visiting each school and taking meetings with all stakeholders, understanding old grievances so he could help break them down.
    But three weeks into his tenure, the whole college sports landscape shook from an unforeseen blast — Texas and Oklahoma were leaving the Big 12 for the SEC.
     

    Kliavkoff established a war room devoted to making sure his schools would be safe amid the uncertainty. He told The Times in July 2021 that he thrived on solving complex puzzles and that navigating college sports’ next realignment wave was a welcome challenge.
    But Kliavkoff couldn’t just go out and unilaterally fight for the Pac-12. His marching orders came from 12 university presidents and chancellors who, in the heat of battle, were about to show they were allies in name only.
    To expand or not
    Without Texas and Oklahoma, the eight schools left in the Big 12 were looking for a new home. Kliavkoff received word from Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby that the eight were interested in coming to the Pac-12 to make a Pac-20, playing games across every time zone. The Power Five conferences would become a Power Four.
    Three sources with direct knowledge of the talks who were not authorized to discuss the negotiations publicly provided The Times with the following new details about the Big 12’s offer and the Pac-12’s response.
    Kliavkoff was open to adding all eight, but the league was probably going to be more selective and look seriously at a few schools located in strategic markets.
    The Pac-12 formed a membership subcommittee of six officials — three presidents and three athletic directors, each representing one of the league’s six travel pairings. USC president Carol Folt was chosen to represent the Trojans and Bruins.
     

    Pac-12 officials prepared a 12-slide presentation deck explaining the merits of expansion leading into the first subcommittee meeting. About three slides in, Folt told the group that she did not understand why the Pac-12 would expand and expressed surprise they were even talking about it.
    The Times first reported last year that Folt objected to adding Big 12 teams, citing multiple sources not authorized to speak publicly about the committee’s discussions.
    “We’re not going to respond to anonymous comments or hearsay,” Folt said in a statement to The Times when asked about the meeting.
    Out of deference to the Trojans, whom members of the committee considered the linchpin to a strong future, the discussion ended.
    “A lot of times, the way presidents’ rooms work, he or she who speaks the loudest and first kind of sets the dynamic,” a source with knowledge of the discussions recently told The Times. “And if there’s nobody else that has a real strong knowledge base or inclination to do something else, they say the person who has a real strong opinion must feel strongly for a reason.”
     

    Kliavkoff, in his first weeks on the job, didn’t push back against Folt given USC’s importance to the league, a source said.
    Kliavkoff declined to comment on the meeting.
    Less than a year later, on June 30, 2022, the Pac-12 was caught off guard when USC and UCLA bolted for the Big Ten.
    If the Pac-12 had added Big 12 schools when it had the chance, it would have remained the fourth-best conference without the L.A. schools.
    Instead, the Big 12 survived and added four schools of its own from the “Group of Five” — BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF. The Big 12 was composed of 12 schools that were not of interest to the Big Ten and SEC, so they presented a united front.
    The Pac-12 now featured 10 teams, with Oregon and Washington pining for a Big Ten invite. The timing of the events made the league even more vulnerable. With their media rights agreements complete in the spring of 2024, Pac-12 schools were free to leave and start play in another conference in 2024 with with no exit fees.
    This time, a war room wouldn’t be enough for Kliavkoff. His wounded conference needed a MASH unit, too.
    Dreaming too big
    In October 2022, the Pac-12 completed its three-month exclusive negotiating window with Fox. The network, the Big Ten’s top media rights partner, was viewed as a catalyst in USC and UCLA’s move that bolstered its investment in the Big Ten Network and had little interest in bidding on the 10-team Pac-12’s media rights. But ESPN, which had enjoyed the “Pac-12 After Dark” games that kicked off in the 10 p.m. hour Eastern time, remained very interested, three sources told The Times.
     
    Celebrity picker Bill Walton, left, reacts as Lee Corso puts on a bear head to indicate he’s picking UCLA to beat Oregon to close ESPN College GameDay’s broadcast from the UCLA campus on Oct. 23, 2021. 
    (Courtesy of Joe Faraoni / ESPN Images)
    Kliavkoff brought the schools an ESPN offer of $30 million per school annually for all of their rights. The Pac-12’s analysis said the schools would be worth somewhere in the mid-$30-million range apiece, so they could go back to ESPN with a reasonable counter in the high $30-million-range and maybe the two sides would end up around $35 million.
    When the Pac-12 CEO group met to discuss the offer, one of the league presidents had other ideas. The president worked with a professor on his campus to come up with their own estimate of what the 10 schools should get based on their market value: $50 million.
    “George and our media consultant were pretty clear there was some risk, but they said, ‘Nope, our numbers show we’re worth this, go ask for it,’” a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations not authorized to speak publicly about them told The Times. “... ESPN did not react very well to it.”
    Given the stakes of negotiations, a source with experience negotiating media rights agreements told The Times, Kliavkoff should have been more forceful pushing back against the high counteroffer.
     


    With the hopes of a potential Big Ten invite out there for Oregon and Washington, it was always going to be hard to persuade them to sign a grant of rights for what amounted to half a Big Ten distribution share. What if the Big Ten later decided to add them at full shares like USC and UCLA? There was no reason for the Ducks and Huskies, in particular, to box themselves in.
    To the east in America’s heartland, the rejuvenated Big 12 was much more willing to band together at a rate dictated by the networks. On Oct. 30, the Big 12 announced it had re-upped early with Fox and ESPN with a deal that would pay its schools $31.7 million annually.
    New Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark was able to convince his schools that stability was more important than fighting for every last dime.
    As part of the Big 12’s deal, Yormark got the networks to agree that if he were to add “Power Five” schools in expansion, the networks would pay for the additions at the same annual rate.
    The Pac-12 schools now had no exit fee and an attractive fallback plan in case the 10 couldn’t come to an agreement.
    No more waiting
    By the time 2023 hit, Kliavkoff was running out of moves. The Pac-12 presidents had nixed expansion, misread the ESPN negotiation and blocked a deal that could have returned UCLA to the Pac-12, albeit with a steep price tag and some kicking and screaming.
    He waited out the economic downturn and hoped he could secure a palatable media rights deal.
    Pac-12 officials knew that Colorado, in particular, had been flirting with the Big 12. The Buffaloes had been a national power in the Big Eight in the 1980s and 1990s and again emerged in the Big 12 in the early 2000s. As a Pac-12 member, however, they had been a South Division doormat. New football coach Deion Sanders and some influential donors were pushing for a move to the Big 12, a source told The Times.
     

    Other Pac-12 schools certainly knew the Big 12 door was open to them as well.
    The presidents and chancellors gave Kliavkoff a deadline of July 31 to present final media rights offers.
    The commissioner had two options going. One was a package based on traditional linear TV distribution that had ESPN taking the top tier of content. NBC and Amazon were negotiating for the second tier, with Fox grabbing the third and CBS the lowest, which amounted to a handful of basketball games.
    The second option was an all-streaming deal with Apple, which was excited to add the Pac-12 to its growing sports subscription offerings.
    But on July 26, five days before the deadline, Colorado informed the Pac-12 that it wasn’t going to wait any longer. The Buffs were heading back to the Big 12.
    “I applaud our [athletic director] Rick George for choosing the best scenario for all athletics at CU,” Sanders told 247Sports.com’s Carl Reed. “This move is a game-changer and we plan on changing the game.”
    Soon, negotiations broke down with NBC and Amazon. The linear package was dead.
    On Aug. 1, Kliavkoff met with the remaining presidents and chancellors, finally handing them the offer from Apple. Somehow, he was going to have to convince a group of presidents who loved the idea they were worth $50 million to consider an offer for … $23 million.
    The final hours
    The Apple deal was easy to mock once the number was leaked to the public. It didn’t matter that the deal included additional revenue based on subscriptions that could have put the payout to schools well above the Big 12 and the ACC, or that Apple believed in its ability to sell subscriptions to the Pac-12 content so much that it offered the schools an out after two years if they hadn’t reached the Big 12’s $31.7 million, two sources with direct knowledge of the offer told The Times.
    The perception was that the deal was a failure far beyond the small annual distribution.
    The offer did not guarantee teams any games on linear TV networks, although that was something that would have been under consideration.
     


    Pac-12 football coaches were going to recruit kids without being able to tell them they would get to showcase their talent on the networks they grew up watching?
    With the league clearly in crisis mode, the Big Ten began engaging again with Oregon and Washington, while the Big 12 was circling the Arizona schools and Utah.
    Oregon and Washington were the key to keeping the league together, and the Apple deal had one very important Duck feather in its cap.
    “Phil Knight loved it,” a source said.
    The Nike CEO whose millions helped build Oregon into an upstart West Coast power saw the potential that Kliavkoff was pitching.
    After two days of reports circulating that the Ducks and Huskies were pushing to leave for the Big Ten, there was a sudden turnabout. Reports from multiple outlets said the Pac-12 presidents were intending to meet on the morning of Aug. 4 to sign their grant of rights with a 10th school to be added later replacing Colorado.
     

    Ten minutes before the meeting was to begin, however, Washington informed the Pac-12 that it was leaving for the Big Ten. The possibility of playing no games on the major linear networks was too tough of a sell for Washington football coach Kalen DeBoer, two sources told The Times.
    “I give president [Ana Mari] Cauce and [athletic director] Jennifer Cohen a lot of credit, because these are not easy choices,” DeBoer told reporters after the move to the Big Ten was announced, according to the Seattle Times. “But just thinking years down the road, it came to a point where the resources that we need to be able to provide for our student-athletes … going to the Big Ten allowed for a lot of that.”
    Once the Huskies left, the Ducks followed. The Arizona, Arizona State and Utah exodus to the Big 12 flowed naturally from there.
    Washington and Oregon were charter members of the Pacific Coast Conference in 1916. They left the only home they’d ever known to join a conference based 2,000 miles away — a league that was only going to pay them each about half a share for the life of its current media deal.
    What’s next?
    Kliavkoff has been drawing up proposals for the four remaining Pac-12 teams — Stanford, Cal, Oregon State and Washington State.
    But first he must wait until the ACC reaches what seems to be an inevitable conclusion. Despite Notre Dame’s pleas on behalf of fellow academic powers Stanford and Cal, the conference based in North Carolina desperately trying to compete with its better-funded neighbors in the SEC doesn’t see enough value in adding a West Coast flank.
     

    Once the hope of a “power conference” lifeboat with the ACC is officially quashed in the next few weeks, the Pac-4 can work through expansion and merger options with the Mountain West and American Athletic Conference before resuming media rights negotiations.
    If the Pac-12 brand makes it through this period of uncertainty as a transformed league, it will have an uphill battle to maintain its status within the College Football Playoff structure as one of the “autonomous five” conferences, which receive a higher share of the financial pie than the group of five schools.
    The remaining four have hired consultants to help them clear this crisis, including Washington State hiring Oliver Luck, the former West Virginia athletic director and NCAA executive.
    How much of a role Kliavkoff will have in charting the league’s course from this point on remains to be seen.
     

    Boom!

    Reads like something Wilner would write.  Source must be out of Kliavcoff's office, blaming the presidents, not the conference office.  We have heard it from enough sources to know ESPN offered $24-25 million at first.  That $30 million has come out lately, but it could be all from the same source.  The source seems to think they could have gotten upper $30s from ESPN, but at least $35.  Assuming the $30 really happened, I suspect $30 was ESPN's final offer, looking at the meager TV ratings of the Pac 10.  I think ESPN would have done both Big 12 and Pac 10, but with neither above $32 million.  With the market getting difficult and the Pac 10 difficult, ESPN decided not to do $30 million or even $25 million and walked away.  The Pac's exclusive window closed October 7th.  Doesn't say exactly when they got that offer.  Big 12 signed on October 30th and had already been talking since August.

    The source also doesn't seem to understand how wrong it was for Kliavcoff to conspire with regents to try to force UCLA to stay.  Or getting schools to sign a GOR without even having any idea what the deal would be.

    • Hook 'Em 1
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