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Pete ThamelESPN
As the Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament begins in Las Vegas this week, there’s hope throughout the league that commissioner George Kliavkoff will be able to offer school leaders some clarity on the finances of the upcoming television deal.
There will not be an in-person board meeting in Vegas, but there will be another update to the 10 presidents and chancellors who comprise the Pac-12’s board. No final deal is expected, but rather the latest details on the final stages of the league’s media negotiations will be presented.
League members are longing for financial clarity, as the finances of that deal will ultimately determine the fate of the league.
“It’s all going to come to a head in the next few weeks,” an industry source said. “He’s either going to give them a deal, or he’s not.”
For schools in the Pac-12, there’s still optimism, despite the uncertainty, about the league gaining some kind of short-term bridge deal to recalibrate. For the generally risk-averse presidents making these decisions, status quo is always the easiest decision.
Can Kliavkoff pull off a financially viable television deal — with a palatable balance of streaming and linear — to keep the league afloat?
A source told ESPN on Sunday that a streaming-only media deal with no presence on traditional television is not an option for the league. (A streaming platform sublicensing to traditional television is a potential path, as Apple and Amazon have been linked to the league as streaming suitors.)
Around the Pac-12, this week is viewed as a pivotal one. While there’s no chance at a final deal coming, a continued lack of clarity could be consequential as many league schools remain on edge about the future. Does more ambiguity lead to some putting up their periscopes to seek out more stable ground?
The league has reached a point where schools looking around and engaging with other conferences has gone from an option to an expectation.
According to sources, there has been at least minimal contact between the Big 12 and the Four Corner schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado. That contact has emerged to varying degrees and via various methods, depending on the school. But there’s a bottom-line pragmatism to the conversation. “You can’t blame anyone for looking for options and what’s out there,” an industry source said.
Even with a deal, questions linger. If the Pac-12 can figure out a short-term tourniquet contract, will both Oregon and Washington agree to a traditional grant of rights that comes with it? There’s a temporary air around the league, with a short deal seemingly building a bridge for schools to retest their market value in three or four years.
The lack of permanence in the Pac-12 comes from the fact that Oregon and Washington have national championship aspirations that don’t line up with even the Pac-12’s most optimistic television windfall, as there’s a likelihood the league is $30 million annually per team behind those in the SEC and Big Ten. (The Big 12 schools are expected to get $31.7 million annually, and the chances of the Pac-12 ending up in that neighborhood are unlikely, mostly because no one can understand where the money would come from.)
At some point, do Oregon and Washington’s ambitions lead to some sort of Big Ten invitation that includes watered-down finances for an introductory period? If Oregon and Washington definitively weren’t looking around, we’d have heard loudly and clearly from their leadership, and the waters would be much calmer.
Conference realignment history has taught us that the schools with the most options nearly always have the most sway within the league, making them both necessary linchpins for leagues and dangerous business partners.
“There’s something I’ve learned about membership — don’t trust anyone,” Mike Tranghese, who was the Big East commissioner from 1990 to 2009 and was a part of several of these battles, told ESPN about realignment in general. “Everyone is going to do what they think is in their best interest. Everyone is going to do what they think they have to do to position their schools. That’s the world college athletics has been living in for a long time.”
If there’s nothing available imminently for Oregon and Washington with the Big Ten, it’s hard to imagine the gravitational pull from that league — and its television contract — not emerging prior to the Big Ten’s next trip to the bargaining table after the 2029 football season. Conferences are going to keep growing, and there are only so many strong properties left on the college sports Monopoly board. (Notre Dame is Boardwalk, and there’s a long drop from there.)
At some point, knowing it doesn’t make fiscal sense for Oregon and Washington to be long-term committed, do other Pac-12 schools seek to chart their own course? Colorado and Arizona are the odds-on candidates to jump first to the Big 12, which remains open for business. After all, there’s only so much nobility sticking on a ship that nearly everyone thinks will sink in 60 months.
Colorado has Big 12 roots, a football coach who resonates in the Dallas Metroplex in Deion Sanders and a football product America is curious about for the first time in a generation.
Don’t underestimate Arizona’s basketball-first mindset — the Big 12 is the country’s undisputed top league. And there are also years of administrative animus toward the Pac-12 dating back to former commissioner Larry Scott’s tenure. Former Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne first-guessed Scott’s missteps that set the league off course nearly a decade ago.
Attempting to dig out of that crater, Kliavkoff has been working cloaked in secrecy. The information vacuum and uncertainty has the schools with options checking them. And checking them again.
What’s worse for Oregon and Washington leaders? Being bad partners to those in the Pac-12? Or being fiscally irresponsible to their own athletic departments? What’s the best business move for Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Arizona State? Is it hoping things work out or exploring contingencies until there’s hard numbers tied to the Pac-12’s future?
A telling sign of the tenuous moment the Pac-12 conference is in right now comes from who has spoken out loud — and who hasn’t — during these past few uncertain weeks.
There have been public statements to local media by Washington State president Kirk Schulz and Oregon State president Jayathi Murthy. Both should be commended for going on the record during a time when information is mostly traded in secrecy and backchannels.
Both should also brace themselves for looking naïve in the upcoming months. If realignment history has taught us anything, it’s that believing your colleagues is a terrible idea. As Tranghese said, schools are going to follow the money, no matter what they say on a videoconference. There are few certainties in realignment, but that’s an eternal one.
Murthy said, via JohnCanzano.com: “All this talk about people running off and joining the Big Ten and Big 12 or whatever is just talk. I see a very different picture when I sit with the CEO Group. It’s a group that does want to work together and does value the Pac-12.”
Washington State president Kirk Schulz told the Bay Area News Group: “I don’t feel at all like anyone is spiraling off into places of despair.”
Unfortunately, Washington State and Oregon State are the two league schools with the fewest options. So the strategy here is one based in hope.
“I don’t know if you can give anyone any advice,” Tranghese said, again speaking generally. “The problem is, if you’re not in control, what can you do? That’s how I felt twice [during realignment]. I had no control.”
He added: “I lived it and know how people feel. It’s an awful feeling. It tears the gut out of your stomach.”
Perhaps most telling: Those schools with options haven’t said much. The chances of schools with options not exploring different scenarios are about the same as Seattle becoming a January beach resort destination. It’s negligence if you don’t, especially with so much uncertainty.
Perhaps in Vegas this week, Kliavkoff will tell his schools exactly how he plans to pull off the kind of escape that would make Penn and Teller blush. That’s certainly an option, as there are some in the league who believe things will be good enough for a bandage deal that will kick the problems 60 months down the road.
Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson recently told Arizona Sports that the schools are bracing for an underwhelming but adequate television number that will be “solid enough” to “keep this conference together.” But he did add that the finances “may not be the projections originally contemplated.”
With a high visibility week for the league coming up, it would be an opportune time for Kliavkoff to show his hand.
Until then, it’s best for the Pac-12 schools to trust no one.