The Pac-12 on Friday became the latest victim of college football realignment and, by multiple accounts, its own ability to secure a media rights deal.
Multiple factors played into the fracturing of the conference, but none more so than money (and the lack thereof). Each of the schools that defected on Friday — Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, Utah and Washington — will make more in their new conferences, a damning indication of how poorly the Pac-12’s proposed media rights deal was received by conference presidents and athletic directors.
Low figures, and lack of national visibility were major factors in their defections as the Pac-12 nears the end of its 12-year, $3 billion media deal. Washington president Ana Mari Cauce said as much in a Saturday conference call with media members.
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In explaining Washington’s decision to leave for the Big Ten, she said the deal Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff presented to conference leadership was “not giving us what we thought.”
“When you have a deal that people are saying that one of the best aspects are that you can get out of it in two years, that tells you a lot,” Cauce said. “This was about national visibility for our players, being on linear TV so they can be seen, so they could have the national exposure. It was about stability. It was about having a future that we could count on and build towards.”
Multiple reports indicate Kliavkoff presented a tier-based streaming deal with Apple TV+ to conference leadership on Tuesday. While the deal could offer higher revenue per school based on subscriptions driven, early estimates indicated the payout per institution was in the low $20 millions (compared to the next-lowest figure, $31.7 million per school in the Big 12).
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Cauce added that the deal on the table on Friday was not the same one that had been presented to them days earlier. That clearly didn’t sit well with leadership at the various defecting schools, each of whom will make more money than was originally reported from the Apple TV+ deal.
Cauce said the visibility and stability offered by the more traditional linear TV deal in the Big Ten was “simply unmatched,” hence Washington’s decision to leave the Pac-12. She also described the decision to leave — Washington was a founding member of the conference in 2915 — as “heart-wrenching.”
“For more than a year, all of us worked really, really hard to find a viable path forward that would keep us together,” Cauce said.
The Pac-12 now comprises just four teams: Cal, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State. Whatever deal Kliavkoff presented to leadership is likely no longer a possibility considering the sparse teams remaining.
What’s next for the Pac-12 remains to be seen. It’s possible the remaining programs can be picked up by the Big Ten (Cal and Stanford, most likely) or Big 12 (Oregon State, Washington State). More likely is a merger with the Mountain West Conference, which has reportedly been receptive to the idea.
Whatever deals those schools get moving forward will pail in comparison to the ones from schools that left the conference. Likely, it will be less than the deal that ultimately caused the dissolution of the Pac-12.
