For those of us with a Peter Pan complex it’s like rolling out of bed in the morning.
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You can have your lawn back. I’ve converted mine to water-efficient xeriscape. 
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What a bizarre off-season hobby.
The funny thing is, let’s say the position he advocates becomes reality, and Utah joins the B12.
It would be the mother of all meltdowns over there, of course, as their hated rival would be poised to upstage them in their new league. PTSD on steroids, for them.
Somebody would point out “Hey, aren’t the you guy who was posting why Ute fans should embrace the Big-12? DID YOU KNOW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!?!?!?”… and then he’d be run off their board, too.
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Wait till Utah joins the SEC.
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What do you all think of this article?
I certainly don’t expect the four corners schools to make any moves first, but I do wonder how likely value based distributions are to appear in this deal? I don’t think Oregon and Washington are in a strong enough negotiating position to get unequal distributions for this round, i think the dust needs to settle before the SEC or BIG Ten make any more moves. I expect status quo with this five year deal and then the back channeling begins over the next few years if the Big Ten and SEC deliver the revenue the TV partners.
“Kliavkoff’s biggest failure with USC and UCLA was not realizing they needed to be treated differently. His inability to court them in a way that reflected their market value contributed to their wandering eye. In reality, he likely didn’t have the financial firepower to stop them. But he never got a chance to truly make his case.”
“The issue with Oregon and Washington and the Pac-12’s future is that the long-term path appears fraught. If there’s a decent deal available to the Pac-12 in the upcoming weeks and if Oregon and Washington want to sign a grant of rights to be part of that deal, it will be a short-term deal. (Think five years.) This means in another three years, the same issues of whether the Big Ten has the appetite to consume them will remain.”
“With the future of Oregon and Washington in the Pac-12 so uncertain, is it worth it for the corner schools to wait for an inevitable disruption or just control their fate and set their own course?”
I’m kind of expecting something like this:
- PAC12-2 adds SDSU, SMU to keep inventory up
- Media deal isn’t as much as hoped ($40M/team) but something like $25-30M but they keep shares even (maybe first few years lower for new members coming from G5 like Utah had)
- Deal is short as mentioned (5 years)
- USC/UCLA start rethinking B1G travel in same time frame
- LA schools maybe come back but start talking about uneven sharing
- Meanwhile, SEC and B1G dictate what they want and everyone fights for the scraps
- ACC gor starts to come up and then some big reshuffling happens
- FBS/CFP breaks off from NCAA and has their own ‘league’ and redraws the whole dang things
- Universities put other sports in traditional or regional conferences
So, yeah, I think that it will more or less be ‘status quo’ but OU/UW will get antsy again in 3-5 years so everything will be uncertain again. But it still doesn’t make any sense for anyone to jump ship early because things might work out ‘ok’ (not great, but not bad enough to blow it up).
It’s clear Larry screwed a lot of things up. Will take time to fix. Should USC (maybe UCLA) been treated differently? If so, OU/UW probably have something to say about that too. Do they do some different 3rd tier rev share (like LHN for Texas but none of these teams probably could have that power)? Like it said, K didn’t have the time to figure out a model/deal and pitch it.
Who’s really making out in all this? Media and their constant clicks on articles and fan forums (esp. El Jefe on CB) with endless discussion on ‘what ifs’ while things get sorted out.
Basically, it’s all just speculation and opinions but we’ll see what deals are made in the next several months. I guess there’s XFL and USFL to watch if we still need a football fix, but time to turn to MBB conference tourneys and March Madness.
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I agree with much of this, but i think the travel piece is perhaps overstated.
i have a buddy who played college club hockey at U Arizona (they were building to become D1 Varsity but didn’t have any special funding) You can imagine a good amount of their hockey schedule was back east. They just would visit multiple schools on their road trips. If club you can have a successful club college hockey team in Arizona (or any college sports in hawaii) you can have an LA hub for your $100mm varsity programs. (Eugene would be tougher, but LA will be easy. ) And every parent and athlete from every Big Ten school is going be thrilled to come to LA from November to March.
I also think of the phrase “to the victor go the spoils” The SEC and Big Ten don’t have to give up their traditions or break from their schools to make money so why would they? For them it’s just more winning more money and higher stakes. Also, why would their successful leaders cede their power to a college football governing body?
By 2030 SEC Big Ten will have absorbed the 2-4 most appealing ACC teams and remaining big brands (Stanford Oregon Washington ND).
based on todays Wilner article on ksl.com and after listening to one of the recent Cazano-Wilner podcast it sounds like the Pac12 media deal will be announced next month in March.
Speculation is that it likely would be presented during the media session of the conference basketball tournament.
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Does the Pac need to provide any specific university with a courtesy call regarding this news?
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Grant of Rights for the ACC isn’t up until 2033
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Yep. Lookong out that far. I wonder if 2-3 years before, the jockeying for position will begin.
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Strong statements on the money, solid on unity, less firm on expansion.
Points:
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Canzano got pushback when suggesting Kliavkoff needed to provide tangible progress by next week: “Says who? That’s a media narrative. His bosses are fine with things”
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Multiple sources indicate the sluggish pace is due to Apple and/or Amazon being new to college athletics, they’re being methodical.
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PAC exploring 4 schools, confirmed to be SDSU, SMU and Colorado State, but not UNLV, Fresno or Boise. He thinks they’ll add 2 or none.
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Multiple statements on unity and specific denials of B12 interest from CU and UO.
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Solid confidence from multiple sources that the money will meet / exceed B12 numbers.
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A solid media deal that stabilizes the PAC is the best of all possible outcomes for Utah. This isn’t just treading water for Utah, this is surfing Nazare.
Utah’s revenue will be adequate to compete with the big boys, not equal to the big boys but good enough. Utah is used to working with a smaller budget and getting results. A massive budget is not a guarantee of success. Look at Tennessee- ranked #10 in the country for total athletic budget but struggling year in and year out to compete with Georgia, Alabama, Florida etc.
Utah will be a consistent threat to make the playoffs. Who is more likely to appear in the playoffs during the next 5 years- Tennessee with their massive stadium, rabid fan base, and massive budget, or Utah who has played in 4 of the last 5 conference championships? I’ll wager on Utah. How about Utah appearing in the playoffs 4 times in the next decade or UCLA appearing in the playoffs once in the next decade? Again, I’ll bet on Utah.
Utah’s profile and success will continue to become more prestigious with conference affiliation with the best schools in the west (minus UCLA). Over a 20 year span Utah has gone from underrated but backwater to top shelf.
As long as the conference stabilizes there is no need to make a jump. One could argue that even a jump to the B1G would not be in their best interest aside from the $. UCLA is, apparently, in dire financial straights and felt forced to chase the Benjamins. The answer is to live within your means and not have to make decisions based solely on money. This goes for your University as well as your own household.
Every argument above applies to Oregon and Washington. The Arizona schools shouldn’t prefer being affiliated with the B12 as long as the conference stabilizes.
My expectation is the the conference will be fine and Utah will shine!
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To be fair, three SEC schools have won a title (the same amount who made the playoffs). Two Pac 12 schools made the playoffs but failed to advance to the Final. I agree budgets matter but recruiting (both for players on the team and students in classes) is going to be key for Utah to get over the hump more than TV money. Getting more publicity of the games is more valuable for recruiting and enrollment than the payout, IMHO.
Sure, Alabama’s payout is good but the enrollment increase from winning has been bigger for the university. They are at their largest enrollment this year for Minority students, out-of-state students and international students.
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I think there’s truth in both 'nooga’s and Bama’s positions.
If the PAC is stable & the TV money is a net “draw” in prestige, Utah & our conference mates will be fine, at least holding the position (which is important).
But to get to the next level, no question the recruiting has to rise. NIL funding, continued success in fighting to get to Vegas, and getting more eyeballs on PAC games, particularly us. I think Utah’s on track to replicate what the Ducks have done in building a national brand. There’s just no substitute for the success we had vs USC this past season, and vs Oregon in '21. We have the chops among the names in the PAC, that next step was made in the product.
The media partners need to make money, and if that’s some combination of outside-the-box scheduling - eg, CU vs Oregon in Week 0 - with some early games to compete for viewers east of the conference, along with holding down the later time slots… those are ingredients we can work with to increase the visibility and attraction for recruits.
The PAC is not going to become a predominantly early game league - it’s too much of a drag on fanbases at the games - but having one game a week for the PAC fighting it out in the crowded time slots back east? Do it. It’s just basic marketing. If audiences in the Central & Eastern time zones watch Iowa State, they’ll absolutely watch PAC teams.
We have another year with the LA schools, then this marketing strategy has to be solid, and effective. I think it can be.
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The notion of this chart is that nationally people want to watch big games with big names. But what about the rest of the games? This chart is kind of fascinating and really illustrates the value of the Utah brand (or rather that it is rising - it is small compared to the big names). But think about that, they ARE climbing up to the brand and name recognition of Oregon, Washington, Florida St, etc.
Also, more and more measurable stats out there show that the lie BYU fans commonly tell, that they have this huge fanbase out there simply isn’t true.
And the bigger point illustrated in this graph is that PAC has a better product than both the ACC and the Big12 (by a long shot) as it currently stands. At the end of the day, it is about business and the TV deals will go by the numbers. They don’t sign multi-billion dollar contracts without doing some basic math.
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This is it - if you look at the graph I just posted it really kind of illustrates this concept. Because look at where Utah is relative to comparable schools, and why are they so high on the list? It’s not like we’ve got this huge student body, in fact a lot of Utah grads stay in Utah.
But, they’ve been winning and in a David and Goliath fashion. If they can get into the CFP and turn some heads there… that will make the biggest difference. It’s also been kind of cool to see Utah gear starting to show up on various professional athletes and celebrities - almost unimaginable even 15 years ago.
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We need to give UCLA and U$C a nice parting gift…a loss on their regular season schedule on their way out to the B1G.
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Media deals have to look at longer term trends, but given the date range - 2012-21 - this understates where Utah is now, IMO. The early years were when we just couldn’t seem to beat Mariota & the Chris Peterson Dawgs, for example.
Love to see the data for the past 5 years. I’m not saying our position is strong enough to keep us at the top of the PAC in a downturn, but we’ve built up.