New Conference re-alignment thread

[Kiimo]

https://mockupgenerator.ap-south-1.linodeobjects.com/Mockups/Maxizstore/2fb2b8aa-6541-40de-969f-74ab54d0c8b4-64v00-front-forest%20green.jpg


Imagine wearing this around

Like any SEC fan could fit into that shirt

[Raiderhater]

When the Broncos played the Redskins in the Super Bowl my dad rooted for the Broncos for divisional allegiance. I couldn't understand why he would root for a team that you actively root against in games and for championships the rest of the year. I still don't.

There is an argument to be made for it in college sports (I don’t subscribe to it but, it is a legitimate argument) but, there is no logical reason for it the pros.

[Pepe Silvia]

College Football/Basketball doesn’t exist.

[kcclone]

When the Broncos played the Redskins in the Super Bowl my dad rooted for the Broncos for divisional allegiance. I couldn't understand why he would root for a team that you actively root against in games and for championships the rest of the year. I still don't.

The NFL and college football are apples and oranges.

One has always had a true playoff. No matter what, one team from your conference will make it to the championship. TV contracts, apparel, etc are negotiated as a league. The AFC West (or any division) is secure for the next 200 years. The draft supplies all teams/conferences with the same opportunity for obtaining talent. Rooting against your conference rivals makes so much more sense in the pro leagues.

College on the other hand, is every conference for itself. All conferences are competition to one another for dollars, recruits, bowls and now playoff access.

Conference foes winning national championships, bowls and games against other conferences helps the rest of the league, financially and their status.

With that said, it matters more for the B12, P12, ACC etc. so ISU or Tech fans were probably rooting for KU in the final four. On the other hand, I’m sure most of the SEC teams feel secure enough in their conference, that it makes much less sense for them to root for one another.

[Pablo]

The NFL and college football are apples and oranges.

One has always had a true playoff. No matter what, one team from your conference will make it to the championship. TV contracts, apparel, etc are negotiated as a league. The AFC West (or any division) is secure for the next 200 years. The draft supplies all teams/conferences with the same opportunity for obtaining talent. Rooting against your conference rivals makes so much more sense in the pro leagues.

College on the other hand, is every conference for itself. All conferences are competition to one another for dollars, recruits, bowls and now playoff access.

Conference foes winning national championships, bowls and games against other conferences helps the rest of the league, financially and their status.

With that said, it matters more for the B12, P12, ACC etc. so ISU or Tech fans were probably rooting for KU in the final four. On the other hand, I’m sure most of the SEC teams feel secure enough in their conference, that it makes much less sense for them to root for one another.

There's only one conference that has a nerd-bundle of sticks chant, and it ain't the B12 or P12 or ACC.

SEC goons love putting their tongue up Bama's ass and tasting their success second-hand. mutt losers like PGM were definitely jizzing over this last title game and saying stuff like "I don't care who pulls it out, it's a win for the conference either way!!"

[Bearcat]

It's one thing to want a conference to do well versus actively rooting for rival teams in the name of conference pride.

And it's plain silly to think Big 12 teams should all be rooting for each other in the name of the Big 12 not disbanding, since over a decade later it still hasn't happened.


As far as college vs pro, I think a case could be made that there's actually less reason to care about NFL divisional rivalries these days (as opposed to say the old school Chiefs/Raiders games where you could physically assault players from the other team).

You go to high school and hate the cross town high school... then you go to college and hate the college that's miles apart or in the next state over. And you know people who go to those schools and find reasons to hate them, too.

I personally have very little reason to hate the Broncos or people in Denver, especially in the past 20+ years... and even less so for people in LA or Oakland or Vegas or wherever the Raiders will be playing in 10 years.

College sports transcend the up and down years... Auburn can suck and still ruin Alabama's entire season. Broncos suck for a decade or more and..... meh? Maybe they win in October one year?

[RustShack]

I root for the Big12 in football and March madness. Obviously if Kansas and Iowa State matched up in the tournament I’d root against Kansas. But yeah the Big12 needs all the wins it can get post season. I always rooted for Oklahoma or Cincinnati in the playoffs. Hoped TCU and/OR Baylor would have gotten in the first ever playoff.

I think it’s more important than ever now that someone emerges in the new Big12 and wins some playoff games or more.

[Kiimo]

I definitely rooted for Baylor in the college basketball championship game but a lot of that is screw Gonzaga and their pretender paper tiger asses

[DJay23]

If I invest myself in rooting against your team during the entire season, then fuck your team in the playoffs too.

[Buehler445]

If I invest myself in rooting against your team during the entire season, then fuck your team in the playoffs too.

It’s a sliding scale of hate. I did root for Baylor in the Championship. They haven’t really ever been a threat other than that year. And it really is amazing what Drew has been able to do from going from covering up murder to a contender (at the time). And fuck Gonzaga and whoever the media darling is.

I was rooting for Tech against Puke. I rooted hard there.

I rooted for TCU against Zona too. Fuck them they deserve that shit too.

But I laughed as hard as anybody at MU getting dumped by Norfolk State. I was thrilled when Durants UT team choked it out. Same with Griffins OU team.

Odds are I’m rooting for Big 12 against Puke or Carolina or whatever team is particularly annoying.

[Bearcat]

It’s a sliding scale of hate. I did root for Baylor in the Championship. They haven’t really ever been a threat other than that year. And it really is amazing what Drew has been able to do from going from covering up murder to a contender (at the time). And fuck Gonzaga and whoever the media darling is.

I was rooting for Tech against Puke. I rooted hard there.

I rooted for TCU against Zona too. Fuck them they deserve that shit too.

But I laughed as hard as anybody at MU getting dumped by Norfolk State. I was thrilled when Durants UT team choked it out. Same with Griffins OU team.

Odds are I’m rooting for Big 12 against Puke or Carolina or whatever team is particularly annoying.

Exactly... Baylor's just about the least hatable team in the Big 12. I've wanted them to do well in football in the past just to fuck over Texas and OU, and for years watching Drew waste away talent was more sad than anything.

It really comes down to the Big 8 + Texas. There might be a lesser-than-two-evils situation or maybe I want a team to advance so Kansas has a shot at them... but, those were the schools I grew up hating.

[Chief Pagan]

It's one thing to want a conference to do well versus actively rooting for rival teams in the name of conference pride.

And it's plain silly to think Big 12 teams should all be rooting for each other in the name of the Big 12 not disbanding, since over a decade later it still hasn't happened.


As far as college vs pro, I think a case could be made that there's actually less reason to care about NFL divisional rivalries these days (as opposed to say the old school Chiefs/Raiders games where you could physically assault players from the other team).

You go to high school and hate the cross town high school... then you go to college and hate the college that's miles apart or in the next state over. And you know people who go to those schools and find reasons to hate them, too.

I personally have very little reason to hate the Broncos or people in Denver, especially in the past 20+ years... and even less so for people in LA or Oakland or Vegas or wherever the Raiders will be playing in 10 years.

College sports transcend the up and down years... Auburn can suck and still ruin Alabama's entire season. Broncos suck for a decade or more and..... meh? Maybe they win in October one year?

KU football is too pathetic to get worked up about.

K State and Missouri basketball is too pathetic to get worked up about.

So I don't really see the Jayhawks as having a good rivalry.

But I do want the Big 12 to crush other conferences in BB because more top ranked teams mean more nationally televised games for KU.

[DJay23]

It’s a sliding scale of hate. I did root for Baylor in the Championship. They haven’t really ever been a threat other than that year. And it really is amazing what Drew has been able to do from going from covering up murder to a contender (at the time). And **** Gonzaga and whoever the media darling is.

I was rooting for Tech against Puke. I rooted hard there.

I rooted for TCU against Zona too. **** them they deserve that shit too.

But I laughed as hard as anybody at MU getting dumped by Norfolk State. I was thrilled when Durants UT team choked it out. Same with Griffins OU team.

Odds are I’m rooting for Big 12 against Puke or Carolina or whatever team is particularly annoying.

I guess I'll say that I will root for a conference team from an upset standpoint, like TCU/Arizona, but not because TCU was Big XII, rather because I always want the low seeds to win to help out KU.

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

There is an argument to be made for it in college sports (I don’t subscribe to it but, it is a legitimate argument) but, there is no logical reason for it the pros.

Agreed.

I don't like it but I understand the reasoning. A playoff spot can be dependent on how conference mates performed in previous playoff spots or OOC games.

Fortunately, as an Army fan, I don't have to worry about that. :D

We just show up and beat Missouri in bowl games.

[KChiefs1]

John Canzano:

I cringed when I heard UCLA and USC announce they were leaving the Pac-12 Conference in 2024. I’m a traditionalist and I lamented the loss the more than 100 years of conference history.

I was also initially skeptical when I heard politicians might get involved in an attempt to block UCLA’s departure to the Big Ten Conference. But the more I talk with lawmakers, the more I believe the Bruins’ biggest athletic battle this season will take place in Sacramento.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t happy that he didn’t know about UCLA’s departure. Maybe it’s posturing, maybe not. But what’s clear is that Newsom is fired up and wondering why the move wasn’t discussed and debated with the University of California Regents.

More than one athletic department source at UCLA confessed to me that they were surprised the defection news didn’t leak a few weeks before the announcement.

Mike Baumgartner is a former State Senator in Washington. He’s served on a variety of educational and sports committees. He’s closely following the development and sees some troubles forming on the horizon for the Bruins.

“The UC Regents themselves didn’t know what UCLA was up to and no public vote was taken,” Baumgartner said. “It’s still unclear what the majority of them think, but they could do anything from stop it outright to vote to make UCLA athletics subsidize and financial damage to Cal.”

A subsidy would be an interesting compromise. It would penalize UCLA and bolster Cal, but it wouldn’t ease the anxiety of the bondholders of the UC system. The Bruins stand to rake in somewhere between $75 million to $100 million in annual media rights revenue under the Big Ten’s TV deal with Fox. Would having to share revenue with Cal give UCLA pause? Or just serve as a speed bump?

Baumgartner’s alliance is with the Washington schools. But his expertise puts him in a unique position here. He knows the back channels and understands the dynamics better than most. He cautioned me to not listen too carefully to Political Science professors who are busy going on the record with various news outlets saying the Newsom doesn’t have the authority to block the move.

“Nobody knows less about how politics actually works than poli-sci professors,” Baumgartner said. “The leverage a Governor has over a public university is immense. If Newsom doesn’t want UCLA to go, they won’t be going.”

I’m sort of interested to see how the Bruins would perform in football in the Big Ten. They’ve been to one bowl game in the last six seasons and haven’t played in a Rose Bowl since 1998.

Chip Kelly went 8-4 last season and I think his team is going to be competitive again this season, but how many games would UCLA win in a typical Big Ten football season?

TV money is great. And you’d rather not be left behind in college football’s minor leagues(ACC/Big 12), but I can tell you the remaining 10 universities in the Pac-12 are buzzing about how challenging football will be for the Bruins.

6-6?

7-5?

What’s “making it” in the Big Ten for the Bruins’ football program? UCLA has won more than seven games only once in the last six seasons while playing in the Pac-12.

If the resolution here ends up being a heavy subsidy, it’s possible UCLA is facing a lose-lose situation. If UCLA leaves for the Big Ten, gets its teeth kicked in, spends significant revenue on the extra travel, and has to cut Cal a check at the end, is that really a win?

Said Baumgartner: “UCLA’s leadership will be cowering for forgiveness.”

I’ll update with more as this develops.


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[MarkDavis'Haircut]

Another idiot writer who can't see the big picture.

CFB is quickly becoming Tier 1 or Tier Irrelevant. The PAC 12 payouts will ensure that every remaining member will join Tier Irrelevant.

USC and UCLA have won by leaving. The future records be damned. They are on the right side of the future separation.

[KChiefs1]

After listening to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey today I believe the new playoff format is probably rolled out in 2024/25 when the new tv contracts are renegotiated.

I think there will be 4 major conferences with an 12 team playoff. The SEC/B1G champs & runner ups getting byes with 8 at large teams filling out the field.

SEC sticks with 16, B1G sticks with 16.

The remaining PAC 10 members invite BYU, Texas Tech, Baylor & Okie State to join. There is a history there with 3 of those teams flirting with the PAC. This is KU & KSU’s best bet for a conference if offered.

ACC decides to expand to 20, landing UCF, Cincinnati, WVU, and Notre Dame.

That would essentially leave the Big 12 as KU, KSU, Houston, TCU & Iowa State.

KU has been rumored to have reached out to the ACC, B1G, and SEC but they are still on the sidelines of realignment.

Unfortunately, besides a basketball program with a very shady recent history, they don’t have anything to sell besides their AAU membership. KSU is probably screwed.

I believe it was Andy Maples who suggested KU join the Big East except for football and become an independent in football.

Scary times in the state of Kansas.

I think the whole KU/KSU narrative is a testament to how investment in infrastructure is more important than actually success on the court/field.


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[KChiefs1]

John Canzano:

The Big 12 reportedly informed the Pac-12 on Monday evening that it’s not interested in merging.

A few quick thoughts…

• I’m not shocked. I felt like a Big 12 + Pac-12 merger was wishful thinking. There’s strength in numbers, sure. But ultimately this is about fit and I struggled to see how those two conferences would mesh in a way that worked for both entities.

• The Pac-12 (minus USC and UCLA) will have 12.5 million television households in its remaining markets. The Big 12 currently has only 10.2 million TV homes, but will expand to about 15 million after the additions of BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston. Keep those numbers in mind.

• The ACC has 28.2 million households. It’s TV markets are superior to the Big 12 and its not close. Also, the ACC already has a partnership with ESPN, which covets inventory in the Pacific Time Zone.

• I’ve wondered for a while how the Big 12 might fit in a new deal between ESPN and the Pac-12. Answer: It really doesn’t.

• The Big 12 and Pac-12 university presidents and chancellors didn’t feel like a seamless fit. Those who lead the Pac-12 campuses fashion themselves academics and lined up with the Big Ten over the years because of that.

• I’ve been writing and talking about a “loose partnership” between the Pac-12 and the ACC for a couple of weeks. I still believe this is headed in that direction.

• The Big 12’s television contract isn’t up until 2025. The Pac-12’s expires in 2024, but it has opened negotiations early. Those in the industry tell me this difference shouldn’t have been a deal breaker but it’s being cited as one of the reasons.

Bob Thompson, the former president of Fox Sports Networks, told me on Monday night, “If the Big 12 TV partners agreed to open negotiations early that could easily happen before 2024. Nothing precludes an early negotiation as long as parties agree.”

So it just sounds like a merger wasn’t a good fit.

Added Thompson: “So now we see if somebody plays ‘Let’s poach some teams.’”

• There was early speculation that the Big 12 might chase Arizona State, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. But media reports about that were shot down by my Pac-12 sources. I won’t speak for all four of those schools, but the prevailing sentiment from athletic directors within the Pac-12 is that the remaining 10 universities will stick together and ride out the current media rights negotiations together. I’ll make some calls and report back with updates.

• Phoenix’s TV market has 2.1 million households. I’ve wondered for a while if ASU might try to leverage the Pac-12 for a larger share of the next media rights deal. That said, I have a difficult time actually seeing ASU bolt for the Big 12.

• The Big 12 programs that I think the Pac-12 (and ESPN) would be most interested in are: Kansas, Baylor, TCU and Houston. If the Pac-12 goes hunting, I expect those universities to be primary targets. This is 100-percent about potential television revenue.

• I included Kansas because I think ESPN would covet men’s basketball matchups featuring the ACC’s Duke and North Carolina and the Pac-12’s Arizona and Oregon. Kansas would be an interesting addition.

• The Pac-12 is in an exclusive negotiating period with the ESPN and Fox. That window expires on Aug. 4, but I’m told the parties could come to an agreement before then.

• ESPN is the likely bidder here. Think about what that network needs. It has to think about the restless members in the ACC and how it might get them some additional revenue right now. A partnership with the Pac-12 makes sense to me. Sharing revenue with the Big 12 (Read: more mouths to feed) doesn’t.

• Pac-12 Media Day is July 29 in Los Angeles. Commissioner George Kliavkoff needs something to sell to the public during that event. I expect he’ll have something of substance. I don’t think we’re going to have to wait until Aug. 4.

More as this develops…


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[TribalElder]

California might sue to block the two cali schools from leaving the pac 12

[FloridaMan88]

Notre Lame could help the Big 12 get a lucrative new TV contract from NBC… maybe.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Notre Dame targeting $75 million annual media rights payout in quest to remain independent. Big 12 would be used to enhance contract with NBC. <a href="https://t.co/Do0GY2YbwU">https://t.co/Do0GY2YbwU</a> <a href="https://t.co/zuourq7GJZ">https://t.co/zuourq7GJZ</a></p>&mdash; Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) <a href="https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status/1549113956169572354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 18, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Mr. Plow]

After listening to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey today I believe the new playoff format is probably rolled out in 2024/25 when the new tv contracts are renegotiated.

I think there will be 4 major conferences with an 12 team playoff. The SEC/B1G champs & runner ups getting byes with 8 at large teams filling out the field.

SEC sticks with 16, B1G sticks with 16.

The remaining PAC 10 members invite BYU, Texas Tech, Baylor & Okie State to join. There is a history there with 3 of those teams flirting with the PAC. This is KU & KSU’s best bet for a conference if offered.

ACC decides to expand to 20, landing UCF, Cincinnati, WVU, and Notre Dame.

That would essentially leave the Big 12 as KU, KSU, Houston, TCU & Iowa State.

KU has been rumored to have reached out to the ACC, B1G, and SEC but they are still on the sidelines of realignment.

Unfortunately, besides a basketball program with a very shady recent history, they don’t have anything to sell besides their AAU membership. KSU is probably screwed.

I believe it was Andy Maples who suggested KU join the Big East except for football and become an independent in football.

Scary times in the state of Kansas.

I think the whole KU/KSU narrative is a testament to how investment in infrastructure is more important than actually success on the court/field.


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I don't know. KU seems to be doing ok.


https://a.espncdn.com/photo/2022/0405/r995479_1296x729_16-9.jpg

[Bearcat]

I don't know. KU seems to be doing ok.


https://a.espncdn.com/photo/2022/0405/r995479_1296x729_16-9.jpg

You aren't supposed to enjoy that.

[Pablo]

You aren't supposed to enjoy that.

You’re right. It’s better to celebrate the conference than individual accolades.

[Mr. Plow]

You aren't supposed to enjoy that.

Sorry, I keep forgetting how dumb winning national titles is.

[lawrenceRaider]

You’re right. It’s better to celebrate the conference than individual accolades.

AFC West!

I always take pride when a team from the West wins.

LMAO

[RustShack]

PAC messed up declining to merge with the Big12 last year. Now it’s the PAC who wants to merge and the Big12 said “nope, we’ll just take a few of your schools instead”

[Prison Bitch]

The reason KU won the title: it just means more to us.

[Sassy Squatch]

Notre Dame is seeking 75 million annually from NBC to stay independent. Think that ultimately ends up with them going to the contingent that prefers they stay independent no matter what and saying it just doesn't make sense not to join the BIG. That's assuming, of course, NBC balks at that number.

[Kiimo]

Unfortunately, besides a basketball program with a very shady recent history, they don’t have anything to sell besides their AAU membership. KSU is probably screwed.



Lol you're a moron

[DJay23]

Lol you're a moron

More eyeballs on KU football last year than on Mizzou.

SEC!SEC!SEC!
https://medium.com/run-it-back-with-zach/which-college-football-programs-were-the-most-watched-in-2021-49ef4f315858

[Mr. Plow]

More eyeballs on KU football last year than on Mizzou.

SEC!SEC!SEC!
https://medium.com/run-it-back-with-zach/which-college-football-programs-were-the-most-watched-in-2021-49ef4f315858

https://c.tenor.com/iV__D-FgJQQAAAAM/good-fine.gif

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

More eyeballs on KU football last year than on Mizzou.

SEC!SEC!SEC!
https://medium.com/run-it-back-with-zach/which-college-football-programs-were-the-most-watched-in-2021-49ef4f315858

Army was 16 spots higher than the Tigers.

And they weren't have reached spot #60 without our bowl game matchup. You are welcome, Missouri. :thumb:

[kcclone]

PAC messed up declining to merge with the Big12 last year. Now it’s the PAC who wants to merge and the Big12 said “nope, we’ll just take a few of your schools instead”

And the reason they didn’t merge with us last year is because USC/UCLA knew they wanted out.

[Titty Meat]

The reason KU won the title: it just means more to us.

Gonna hit different when they gotta vacate it

[Rams Fan]

The reason KU won the title: it just means more to us.

Why does Kansas only have 4 titles then?

[BryanBusby]

More eyeballs on KU football last year than on Mizzou.

SEC!SEC!SEC!
https://medium.com/run-it-back-with-zach/which-college-football-programs-were-the-most-watched-in-2021-49ef4f315858

We were busy having sex.

With women.

Checkmate.

[lawrenceRaider]

We were busy having sex.

With women.

Checkmate.

Bragging about tagging family members?

[Kiimo]

Why does Kansas only have 4 titles then?

Oh no it's the Rupp Rafters Massey Prenup of arguments! KU "only" has four titles. Saying this is supposed to make us mad about Helms titles as if four titles is such a small amount that we'd be forced to defend a bread company title. As if any of us care about defending Helms titles.

Nice try. And nice first round exit. Gonna run another coach out of Lexington?

[lawrenceRaider]

Why does Kansas only have 4 titles then?

What's that 15 seed defeatee and NIT first round loser?

[lawrenceRaider]

Oh no it's the Rupp Rafters Massey Prenup of arguments! KU "only" has four titles. Saying this is supposed to make us mad about Helms titles as if four titles is such a small amount that we'd be forced to defend a bread company title. As if any of us care about defending Helms titles.

Nice try. And nice first round exit. Gonna run another coach out of Lexington?

Besides, he forgot that 2020 title.

[BryanBusby]

Bragging about tagging family members?

Sorry, not a Raiders fan.

[lawrenceRaider]

Sorry, not a Raiders fan.

LMAO

Yeah, because that makes sense.

Almost as much sense as you not paying for it.

[Rams Fan]

Oh no it's the Rupp Rafters Massey Prenup of arguments! KU "only" has four titles. Saying this is supposed to make us mad about Helms titles as if four titles is such a small amount that we'd be forced to defend a bread company title. As if any of us care about defending Helms titles.

Nice try. And nice first round exit. Gonna run another coach out of Lexington?

Titles are the only things that matter. Anything short of that is failure. PB said the title just means more to KU, so why haven’t they won more?

I’m curious what happens first: Calipari leaves or Self is forced out due to a FBI investigation?

What's that 15 seed defeatee and NIT first round loser?

The same sorry ass 15 seed defeatee beat the champions at the Phog?

[Bearcat]

https://y.yarn.co/6d55cbe1-eff1-43d7-8552-db442b79d400_text.gif

[Chief Pagan]

Titles are the only things that matter. Anything short of that is failure. PB said the title just means more to KU, so why haven’t they won more?

I’m curious what happens first: Calipari leaves or Self is forced out due to a FBI investigation?



The same sorry ass 15 seed defeatee beat the champions at the Phog?

Self wins another title with KU or Calipari fails to qualify for the NCAA?

[Rams Fan]

Self wins another title with KU or Calipari fails to qualify for the NCAA?

Calipari will win his second title with Kentucky before Self wins his 3rd at Kansas.

I put Self winning another title at Kansas as more likely than Calipari missing the NCAA tournament again unless he has volatility to the extent Roy did at UNC.

[Prison Bitch]

Why does Kansas only have 4 titles then?

This years tourney. It just means more to us.

[Pablo]

Calipari will win his second title with Kentucky before Self wins his 3rd at Kansas.

I put Self winning another title at Kansas as more likely than Calipari missing the NCAA tournament again unless he has volatility to the extent Roy did at UNC.

Is there a reason some folks on Rupp Rafters call him CCC, Can't Coach Cal?

Is it because he in fact, doesn't know how to coach and just says RUN! and GO!?

[Kiimo]

Titles are the only things that matter. Anything short of that is failure. PB said the title just means more to KU, so why haven’t they won more?

I’m curious what happens first: Calipari leaves or Self is forced out due to a FBI investigation?



The same sorry ass 15 seed defeatee beat the champions at the Phog?



If titles are the only thing that matters then why were total wins #1 on The List




...were.

[BryanBusby]

LMAO

Yeah, because that makes sense.

Almost as much sense as you not paying for it.

Let me help you make sense of it.

Raiders fans fuck their relatives.

You're welcome.

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

Besides, he forgot that 2020 title.

Kansas claims it?

[lawrenceRaider]

Kansas claims it?

No. But it's fun to muck about with the rubes that root for Mizzou, KSU, and other lesser types.

[lawrenceRaider]

Let me help you make sense of it.

Raiders fans fuck their relatives.

You're welcome.

Yeah, your projection of the behavior of Mizzou fans, and some KC Chiefs fans, onto other fan bases is hysterical.

[lawrenceRaider]

The same sorry ass 15 seed defeatee beat the champions at the Phog?

Keep flogging that dead pony.

Kansas was short handed and it was the regular season. I guess that's all that matters to you rather than titles? Except you now don't even have that overall wins #1 spot either.

Honestly you are starting to sound like a fan of a lesser program.

[Rams Fan]

Keep flogging that dead pony.

Kansas was short handed and it was the regular season. I guess that's all that matters to you rather than titles? Except you now don't even have that overall wins #1 spot either.

Honestly you are starting to sound like a fan of a lesser program.

No, I just don’t understand your mental gymnastics. By your logic, Bradley>Kansas, right? And UNI>Kansas? Evansville>Kentucky, too. And Stephen F. Austin>Duke.

If we’re using the short handed excuse, Grady, Wheeler; and Washington were all playing hurt from January on(including the Kansas game). But I won’t do that. Losing to St. Peter’s should have never happened.

Last I checked, Kentucky has more titles than Kansas, too, by the way.

Enjoy the fun while you still can before the sanctions come and continue gloating (as you should). Doesn’t bother me.

Also, a lesser program wouldn’t have a better head to head since Calipari’s been there vs Kansas (5 wins for UK vs 4 for Kansas).

[Rams Fan]

But you’re right, natty outweighs regular season success. I just tried bringing it up as a red herring. ;)

IU fans do the same shit with 2011-2012.

[Prison Bitch]

8 titles lulz. Congrats on winning three titles when there were 8 team tourneys, win one to go to the FF (jerkoff motion)

In the modern era when the tourney expanded to 64 in 1985, we each have 3.

[Rams Fan]

8 titles lulz. Congrats on winning three titles when there were 8 team tourneys, win one to go to the FF (jerkoff motion)

In the modern era when the tourney expanded to 64 in 1985, we each have 3.

Does Duke go back to pre-K levels of success?

Kansas, Kentucky, UNC have all won titles with multiple coaches (as has UCLA and Villanova).

[Pablo]

Do you think the CCC moniker is apt or unfair from your kentucky brethren?

[Rams Fan]

Do you think the CCC moniker is apt or unfair from your kentucky brethren?

Unfair. Cal’s actually a very good coach, both recruiting wise and coaching on the court wise.

Look at what he did with his early UMass teams, what he’s done at Memphis, and at Kentucky overall.

If coaches won only by talent, how come Memphis hasn’t done anything with Penny?

[Pablo]

I just saw a Barstool article where a Kentucky fan is thrashing a mutt football player and their funny program. I enjoyed it.

Titled 'It's Honestly Sad Listening To This Mizzou DB Desperately Try To Create A Rivalry By Ranting About How Much He Hates Kentucky'

Welp, I didn't think I'd be blogging about Mizzou football, but thanks to Martez Manuel here we are. Let's get right to the point. Mizzou doesn't matter. It's to the point where if Kentucky loses to Missouri, it's a backbreaking season loss. We own Missouri. 8-4 overall against them. Won 6 of the last 7. We've reached a point where if you put Missouri above Kentucky in any season predictions you have a hot take.

https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3425328/its-honestly-sad-listening-to-this-mizzou-db-desperately-try-to-create-a-rivalry-by-ranting-about-how-much-he-hates-kentucky

[lawrenceRaider]

Unfair. Cal’s actually a very good coach, both recruiting wise and coaching on the court wise.

Look at what he did with his early UMass teams, what he’s done at Memphis, and at Kentucky overall.

If coaches won only by talent, how come Memphis hasn’t done anything with Penny?

Cal's one shining moment? Overwhelming talent won the day.

In years where his talent collection is good, but not great, he loses early.

[lawrenceRaider]

Does Duke go back to pre-K levels of success?

Kansas, Kentucky, UNC have all won titles with multiple coaches (as has UCLA and Villanova).

It will be very interesting to see how Duke fairs post K.

Duke fans would have us believe K has been a mere figurehead for years.

[Rams Fan]

Cal's one shining moment? Overwhelming talent won the day.

In years where his talent collection is good, but not great, he loses early.

He’s made it to the Elite 8 in 7/12 tournaments at UK.

For reference, Self has made the Elite 8 9 times since he’s been at Kansas and the Final 4 as many time as Cal has.

So, does that mean Self loses early, too?

[Chief Pagan]

It will be very interesting to see how Duke fairs post K.

Duke fans would have us believe K has been a mere figurehead for years.

Even if he was just a figurehead, was it the Duke brand or coach K brand bringing in players?

Guess we will find out.

[Rams Fan]

Even if he was just a figurehead, was it the Duke brand or coach K brand bringing in players?

Guess we will find out.

Yeah, it will be very interesting, especially as long as Self and Calipari are in place as well as UNC with Davis and UCLA’s sudden renaissance.

Kentucky also might have Calipari’s best class at Kentucky coming in for 2023, too.

[Chief Pagan]

He’s made it to the Elite 8 in 7/12 tournaments at UK.

For reference, Self has made the Elite 8 9 times since he’s been at Kansas and the Final 4 as many time as Cal has.

So, does that mean Self loses early, too?

Self has under performed his seeding a bit. But still a relatively small sample size, crap shoot, and all that.

It's not like every #1 seed makes it to the final four every year...

[Chief Pagan]

Besides, he forgot that 2020 title

Kansas claims it?

They should claim a #1 Banner and hang it in the rafters with all the other Banners.

[Rams Fan]

Self has under performed his seeding a bit. But still a relatively small sample size, crap shoot, and all that.

It's not like every #1 seed makes it to the final four every year...

I know, but if the argument is Calipari has underachieved, he’s really only had one massive choke job in the tournament. He usually makes it to at least the second weekend every year.

[Prison Bitch]

Does Duke go back to pre-K levels of success?

Kansas, Kentucky, UNC have all won titles with multiple coaches (as has UCLA and Villanova).

K’s 5 > UK’s 8 > Wooden’s 10

[Pants]

I see the sting and embarrassment of losing to an absolute DOG SHIT team in the first round has abated enough to care about UK basketball again. Nice.

[Rams Fan]

I see the sting and embarrassment of losing to an absolute DOG SHIT team in the first round has abated enough to care about UK basketball again. Nice.

Remember when Kansas lost to 14 seed Bucknell and 13 seed Bradley in the first round in 2 consecutive tournaments?

Pepperidge Farms remembers.

K’s 5 > UK’s 8 > Wooden’s 10


Considering Wooden was being bankrolled by a realtor, I can get behind that argument to an extent.

[Pants]

Remember when Kansas lost to 14 seed Bucknell and 13 seed Bradley in the first round in 2 consecutive tournaments?

Pepperidge Farms remembers.




Of course I remember that. What I don't remember is fucking KU fan dunces claiming they are not fans of KU basketball anyway, which was my point about you.

[RustShack]

I’m guessing we don’t hear anything until August. PAC has exclusive negotiating rights with Fox and ESPN until the beginning of August, then others can put in bids. Big12’s new commissioner officially starts August first even though obviously he’s already involved.

After the PAC gets their best offers I’m sure schools will be scrambling to jump to the Big12 assuming the B1G and SEC don’t take them. I think the Big12 ends up with 4-6 PAC schools then wait until the ACC gets raided and add a few more.

[KChiefs1]

John Canzano:

Q: What happens to the Big 12 if/when the Pac-12 raids and steals their top four teams? — @benwilkinson

A: There’s a lot of Big 12 vs. Pac-12 sentiment out there. I don’t think your scenario spells the end of the Big 12, necessarily, but would it force that conference to take on new partners that don’t bring as much media-rights value. The Big 12 TV footprint isn’t great as it stands. Access to the College Football Playoff becomes problematic, too. But I think we’re going to see turmoil and uncertainty for the next few years before things settle down.

Q: When it all comes down to it, what do you think will ultimately save the Pac 12? — @vakaviti

A: The same thing that threatens it — television. ESPN and a potential streaming partner (ESPN+ or Amazon or Apple TV+) are now the solution. Also, some good leadership. Commissioner George Kliavkoff spent his first year connecting with campus leaders across the Pac-12. That generated some good will, but now it’s time to slide into visionary mode and lead.

Q: Any chance the remaining Pac-10 ADs and presidents declare UCLA and USC ineligible for conference championships in their final two seasons? I know the answer is ‘no’ but it sure would feed my vindictiveness. — @CenterFielder3

A: The Bruins and Trojans are contractually bound to the Pac-12 through the summer of 2024. The parties could negotiate an early out, but there’s no kicking USC and UCLA out of the conference without compensation. If it makes you feel better, I suspect the football teams at USC and UCLA will be met with hostility on the road this season.

Q: What are the chances of unequal revenue sharing? — @hmckee53

A: An imbalanced split of media revenue feels like it is very much on the table. Minimally, it’s being discussed. I suspect Washington, Arizona, Stanford, Cal and ASU feel entitled to larger than an equal share because of their TV markets. I also think Oregon believes its brand merits additional compensation. They all have leverage right now.

Q: Phil Knight’s impact on UO and Duck sports specifically are massive. But while we hope he lives forever for all of the positive things he does, have he and/or the university talked about what happens after he’s gone? Will the Ducks and their brand take a big step back? — @robbieparness

A: Phil and Penny Knight have given more than $1 billion to the University of Oregon over the years. In 2021, they stepped up with $500 million more for the Knight Campus. Insiders tell me there is already a plan in place for a massive endowment from Knight that would continue to subsidize UO’s athletic department. I’ll have more on this in the coming weeks.

Q: Will hot pretzels return to Autzen this year? They weren’t part of last season’s reduced menu, and I was surprised how much I missed them. I can’t wait to watch a game in person, forget about realignment and enjoy the little things that make game day special. — @WoodburnDuck

A: I am on the “hot pretzel” beat now. I loved this question. And you’re right, it’s the little things that make a college football Saturday. If Autzen Stadium doesn’t bring the pretzels back, I will lead the crusade for their return.

Q: Amazon’s relationship with CBS/Paramount+ is intriguing. There’s a possible avenue to network-TV there, which I assume is still important. Despite the social media nonsense (I HAVE SOURCES) why would there be any other movement before other outlets can get involved after Aug 4? — @SteinerLine36

A: ESPN and Fox are in an exclusive, 30-day negotiating period with the Pac-12 that ends Aug. 4. There’s incentive for ESPN, particularly, to come with a strong Tier 1 offer and get the primary deal done without bidding against others. But I’d expect the streaming part of this could take additional time because the Pac-12 would want to talk with Amazon, Apple, etc. and let the market weigh in.

Q: What about adding Hawaii as football only to sell last time slot of the night as part of package to ESPN and then adding Gonzaga as member for all other sports? Bay Area schools not go for Gonzaga? — @ReedJones

A: Football is driving 80-85 percent of the revenue in college athletics. Gonzaga is a great basketball brand, but it doesn’t move the needle for television without football involved. Hawaii has only 445,000 television households in its market. That makes UH a long shot. That late college football TV window is probably more likely to go to a Pac-12 program in a much larger TV market kicking off at 7 p.m. or 7:30 p.m.

Q: Is there a trickle-down effect for FCS football when the FBS completely changes? Also what sport other than football gets the biggest change due to realignment? — @TylerHergert

A: I spoke to a number of Big Sky Conference sources who tell me they’re not worried… for now. There will always be a need among FBS members for lucrative payday football games. The FCS members are focused on ensuring they continue to receive revenue from the NCAA Tournament. As long as they keep access to the college basketball tournaments and that TV money, the FCS members should be OK.

Q: If the Pac-12 expands, how important is getting into the Central Time Zone? Or is it more important to lock down California? — @RoaringForkDvl

A: I took a deep dive on why television markets matter a couple of weeks ago. If you try to think like a TV executive, the strategy makes sense. ESPN needs content in the Pacific Time Zone. But if a Mountain or Central Time Zone university can add value to a TV contract, they become important.




Next Friday is Pac-12 Media Day.

I'll be on the scene in Los Angeles for a big chunk of the week. My goal is to make you smarter and elevate the conversations you’re having with friends, neighbors and family. If you’re looking for sourced, in-depth reporting and commentary… you’re in the right place. Thanks for being here. Have a great weekend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RustShack]

It’s funny they think raiding the Big12 is even an option. Sure, the B1G and SEC could if there was anyone else they wanted. No one’s leaving the Big12 for the PAC or ACC though.

[kcclone]

It’s funny they think raiding the Big12 is even an option. Sure, the B1G and SEC could if there was anyone else they wanted. No one’s leaving the Big12 for the PAC or ACC though.

Pac 12 is AIDS.

They just lost their top two. No one cares about college sports in their largest remaining TV markets. At least 3 of the schools (Stanford, Oregon and UW) want out.

[BWillie]

It’s funny they think raiding the Big12 is even an option. Sure, the B1G and SEC could if there was anyone else they wanted. No one’s leaving the Big12 for the PAC or ACC though.

Why not? The Big 12 has to carry like 4-5 sacks of shit schools around.

[RustShack]

Why not? The Big 12 has to carry like 4-5 sacks of shit schools around.

Outside of Kansas, the bottom of the Big12 is better than any conference. They are the most competitive league top to bottom and have been for awhile. The Big12’s problem is it doesn’t have Alabama or Ohio State, because the media only cares about the top school(s).

The Big12 had the benefit of being poached last year, and were able to bring in the best available. The Big12 also benefits from people actually watching their games unlike most of the PAC. The PAC has been the worst conference for awhile, and losing USC and UCLA days before entering media right negotiations isn’t going to make it better.

[RustShack]

The PAC wanted to merge with the Big12 and the Big12 rejected just days ago. How can anyone think the PAC is better? Fox has no interest in negotiating with the PAC, but their head honcho went out of his way to congratulate the new Big12 commissioner and said he can’t wait to work with him. There’s also rumors of CBS and Amazon wanting the Big12. Hell there’s rumors ESPN wants to over pay for the Big12 network(converting the LHN) just to get Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC earlier.

Yet there’s been no rumors of interest in the PAC so far. Just that Fox has no interest and ESPN is lowballing them.

[GloucesterChief]

Outside of Kansas, the bottom of the Big12 is better than any conference. They are the most competitive league top to bottom and have been for awhile. The Big12’s problem is it doesn’t have Alabama or Ohio State, because the media only cares about the top school(s).

The Big12 had the benefit of being poached last year, and were able to bring in the best available. The Big12 also benefits from people actually watching their games unlike most of the PAC. The PAC has been the worst conference for awhile, and losing USC and UCLA days before entering media right negotiations isn’t going to make it better.

SDSU and other good mid-majors are available for poaching on the west coast.

[Prison Bitch]

The PAC wanted to merge with the Big12 and the Big12 rejected just days ago. How can anyone think the PAC is better? Fox has no interest in negotiating with the PAC, but their head honcho went out of his way to congratulate the new Big12 commissioner and said he can’t wait to work with him. There’s also rumors of CBS and Amazon wanting the Big12. Hell there’s rumors ESPN wants to over pay for the Big12 network(converting the LHN) just to get Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC earlier.

Yet there’s been no rumors of interest in the PAC so far. Just that Fox has no interest and ESPN is lowballing them.


You just post blind homerisn endlessly. You have no clue what these folks discussed or what the outcome was. Just more of your BooClone sunshine pumping

[RustShack]

SDSU and other good mid-majors are available for poaching on the west coast.

And you think that will raise the value after losing USC?

[RustShack]

You just post blind homerisn endlessly. You have no clue what these folks discussed or what the outcome was. Just more of your BooClone sunshine pumping

At least I’m not dumb enough to think the PAC will poach the Big12.

[RustShack]

Plus the schools added weren’t bad. BYU as an independent, Cincinnati and Houston as former P6 schools who over achieved at the lower level and made it back. UCF from Florida who has been very competitive in football, has one of the largest enrollments of students in the nation, and well is in Florida.

You think SDSU or Boise compare to them? After the Big12 turned them down?

[GloucesterChief]

And you think that will raise the value after losing USC?

Gives the Pac a team in SoCal. Doesn't make up for it but it is a larger media market. Add in some another like UNLV, CSU, Air Force, or Fresno St. and you have a decent conference.

[chiefsfan987]

At least I’m not dumb enough to think the PAC will poach the Big12.

I think it makes you very naive to think the PAC can't pull off a poaching of the Big 12. With everything that has happened anything can happen at this point.

[R Clark]

I think it makes you very naive to think the PAC can't pull off a poaching of the Big 12. With everything that has happened anything can happen at this point.

Bullshit

[Archie Bunker]

I think it makes you very naive to think the PAC can't pull off a poaching of the Big 12. With everything that has happened anything can happen at this point.
Correct

Bullshit

We all would’ve said that about USC and UCLA a month ago.

[lawrenceRaider]

I think it makes you very naive to think the PAC can't pull off a poaching of the Big 12. With everything that has happened anything can happen at this point.

Wishful thinking.

[RustShack]

Correct



We all would’ve said that about USC and UCLA a month ago.

Let me get this straight, you’re comparing the PAC to The SEC and B1G, as well as comparing Texas and USC to Baylor and Houston?

The Big12 has another advantage over the PAC, their media rights last another year. It would be easier for PAC schools to leave for the Big12. The PAC also has schools like Oregon, Washington, and Stanford still trying to jump ship to the B1G, which maybe 1-3 get that chance if NBC doesn’t give Notre Dame the 75 million they are looking for(NBC currently gives them 15 million).

The PAC is too unstable at the moment for any current P5 to go there. Especially considering they are projected to make less than the Big12.

It literally makes no sense to think the PAC will be the one doing the poaching unless Apple jumps in and offers 50+ million per school.

[chiefsfan987]

Wishful thinking.

Exactly how is that wishful thinking? I don't want the Pac 12 to raid the Big 12 but to think it can't happen just doesn't even make sense at this point.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Amazon a Seattle based company didn't throw it's hat in the ring for live sports and want to feature west coast teams including the local washington huskies. If the money is right it could poach Big 12 schools. Nobody really knows what's going on and in this era of realignment nothing is impossible if the money is right.

[RustShack]

Exactly how is that wishful thinking? I don't want the Pac 12 to raid the Big 12 but to think it can't happen just doesn't even make sense at this point.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Amazon a Seattle based company didn't throw it's hat in the ring for live sports and want to feature west coast teams including the local washington huskies. If the money is right it could poach Big 12 schools. Nobody really knows what's going on and in this era of realignment nothing is impossible if the money is right.

Amazon has been interested in the Big12 for awhile. It wouldn’t be surprising for them to want the Big12 to poach the PAC. Or maybe they want both the Big12 and PAC. Maybe the PAC stays at 10 or adds SDSU and Boise, maybe a few others as well.

But the PAC is in no place to raid the Big12. Not even remotely close unless they want to do unequal revenue sharing and pay the Big12 schools more then themselves, but that makes no sense.

[Willie Lanier]

Amazon has been interested in the Big12 for awhile. It wouldn’t be surprising for them to want the Big12 to poach the PAC. Or maybe they want both the Big12 and PAC. Maybe the PAC stays at 10 or adds SDSU and Boise, maybe a few others as well.

But the PAC is in no place to raid the Big12. Not even remotely close unless they want to do unequal revenue sharing and pay the Big12 schools more then themselves, but that makes no sense.

I hate to break it to you smalls, but the cyclones are in big trouble with the rest of the soon to be defunct Big 12

[RustShack]

I hate to break it to you smalls, but the cyclones are in big trouble with the rest of the soon to be defunct Big 12

They’ll be fine until the schools are able to pay players themselves.

[RustShack]

“One of major issues right now is that ESPN offer is low and Oregon and Washington want unequal sharing. They want a certain percentage more. Numbers don’t make survival possible within the conference. Big fracture within the conference and other schools won’t budge.“

[GloucesterChief]

That sounds like typical UW arrogance.

[Sassy Squatch]

ESPN is offering 24 million per school per year. yeesh.

[Prison Bitch]

I think the B12 gets 20m

[KChiefs1]

John Canzano:

The Novo theater in Los Angeles has some very cool acts on the schedule. Brian McKnight and Lupe Fiasco will play the venue in coming months. But the headliner on Friday at Pac-12 Conference Media Day will be George Kliavkoff.

I’m dying to see his performance.

Said one conference insider: “It’s George’s stage.”

I just wish the conference commissioner was sharing with his bosses. The Pac-12 CEO Group is compromised of a dozen presidents and chancellors of the respective universities. They hold the votes and make the decisions, but what they don’t often do is step up and speak out. I’d like to hear from them more often on matters relating to the conference.

Kliavkoff’s speech will be the most anticipated and attended in the history of the conference’s annual football hype-fest. If he wants to win it, he’ll need to do more than cast a strong presence. He’ll need to get candid and share his vision.

Last month, the Pac-12 got ditched by UCLA and USC, tentpoles of the very market that Friday’s event is held in. The conference is now in crisis-management mode, seeking a path forward while engaged in a 30-day negotiating window with ESPN and Fox.

Blame Kliavkoff for the splintering of the Pac-12?

I guess. He was the commissioner of record when the Big Ten poached two key properties. But as one current athletic director told me, “What is George supposed to do when USC lies to his face?”

The troubles for the Pac-12 were born well beyond Kliavkoff’s first 365 days on the job. The presidents and chancellors who enabled and tolerated the act of ex-commissioner Larry Scott hold a large share of the blame. He overspent, failed to adequately position the Pac-12, and got lapped by the SEC and Big Ten in the race for media-rights dollars.

Scott put the Pac-12 on a perilous path, while sipping a glass of Dom Pérignon on a chartered flight. But the presidents and chancellors who hired Scott and left him unsupervised for a decade are equally culpable. Many of them are long gone, though. Only UCLA’s Gene Block and Arizona State’s Michael Crow are still around. I’d love to hear an explanation from that duo on Friday.

Being a commissioner isn’t easy business. But as Don Draper once famously ranted, “That’s what the money’s for!” Kliavkoff will be paid well to stand out front on Friday and absorb the hit that his predecessor and those university presidents lined up for him.

Kliavkoff likes a good scrap. One of his staff members who observed him jousting with a reporter in March at the Pac-12 basketball tournaments told me that the commissioner likes to mix it up. He’ll get his shot on Friday. The Pac-12 has been knocked down and dragged around the ring in the last few weeks. Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren broke the so-called “alliance” with a secret haymaker blow. Kliavkoff’s job now is to get himself up off the canvas and punch back.

Why the Pac-12 didn’t deviate from this path years ago is puzzling. Navigate — a data and consulting firm that contracts with major college conferences — published a report in March that laid it all out.

It projected the Pac-12’s total media rights payouts to members would eclipse the Big 12’s by 2026.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220726/47720bd6c4f135ba3f2894ed4c978ee1.png


Great news for the Pac-12, but the chart also noted the surging revenue of the SEC and Big Ten. It was a giant, waving, red flag. One that had been waving in the Pac-12’s face for several years.

This is the trajectory Kliavkoff inherited. If you’re spinning the circumstances positively, it’s evident that the new commissioner has an opportunity to come up with new, innovative ideas that close the gap. If you’re spinning negative, you have to wonder, is it too late?

I suspect this will be the last Pac-12 Media Day held in Los Angeles. I think Las Vegas is a good bet to host the event in future. Kliavkoff still lives there and is well connected. He referred to it as “the sports capital of the world,” last March.

The Novo is a fine venue. It will have two stages, one for Pac-12 players and the other for coaches. They’ll speak all day. But Kliavkoff will make the opening remarks. He’ll be alone up there. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RustShack]

I think the B12 gets 20m

50-60 is the projection.

[ChiTown]

This thread gets more reeruned by the day....

[Prison Bitch]

John Canzano:

The Novo theater in Los Angeles has some very cool acts on the schedule. Brian McKnight and Lupe Fiasco will play the venue in coming months. But the headliner on Friday at Pac-12 Conference Media Day will be George Kliavkoff.

I’m dying to see his performance.

Said one conference insider: “It’s George’s stage.”

I just wish the conference commissioner was sharing with his bosses. The Pac-12 CEO Group is compromised of a dozen presidents and chancellors of the respective universities. They hold the votes and make the decisions, but what they don’t often do is step up and speak out. I’d like to hear from them more often on matters relating to the conference.

Kliavkoff’s speech will be the most anticipated and attended in the history of the conference’s annual football hype-fest. If he wants to win it, he’ll need to do more than cast a strong presence. He’ll need to get candid and share his vision.

Last month, the Pac-12 got ditched by UCLA and USC, tentpoles of the very market that Friday’s event is held in. The conference is now in crisis-management mode, seeking a path forward while engaged in a 30-day negotiating window with ESPN and Fox.

Blame Kliavkoff for the splintering of the Pac-12?

I guess. He was the commissioner of record when the Big Ten poached two key properties. But as one current athletic director told me, “What is George supposed to do when USC lies to his face?”

The troubles for the Pac-12 were born well beyond Kliavkoff’s first 365 days on the job. The presidents and chancellors who enabled and tolerated the act of ex-commissioner Larry Scott hold a large share of the blame. He overspent, failed to adequately position the Pac-12, and got lapped by the SEC and Big Ten in the race for media-rights dollars.

Scott put the Pac-12 on a perilous path, while sipping a glass of Dom Pérignon on a chartered flight. But the presidents and chancellors who hired Scott and left him unsupervised for a decade are equally culpable. Many of them are long gone, though. Only UCLA’s Gene Block and Arizona State’s Michael Crow are still around. I’d love to hear an explanation from that duo on Friday.

Being a commissioner isn’t easy business. But as Don Draper once famously ranted, “That’s what the money’s for!” Kliavkoff will be paid well to stand out front on Friday and absorb the hit that his predecessor and those university presidents lined up for him.

Kliavkoff likes a good scrap. One of his staff members who observed him jousting with a reporter in March at the Pac-12 basketball tournaments told me that the commissioner likes to mix it up. He’ll get his shot on Friday. The Pac-12 has been knocked down and dragged around the ring in the last few weeks. Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren broke the so-called “alliance” with a secret haymaker blow. Kliavkoff’s job now is to get himself up off the canvas and punch back.

Why the Pac-12 didn’t deviate from this path years ago is puzzling. Navigate — a data and consulting firm that contracts with major college conferences — published a report in March that laid it all out.

It projected the Pac-12’s total media rights payouts to members would eclipse the Big 12’s by 2026.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220726/47720bd6c4f135ba3f2894ed4c978ee1.png


Great news for the Pac-12, but the chart also noted the surging revenue of the SEC and Big Ten. It was a giant, waving, red flag. One that had been waving in the Pac-12’s face for several years.

This is the trajectory Kliavkoff inherited. If you’re spinning the circumstances positively, it’s evident that the new commissioner has an opportunity to come up with new, innovative ideas that close the gap. If you’re spinning negative, you have to wonder, is it too late?

I suspect this will be the last Pac-12 Media Day held in Los Angeles. I think Las Vegas is a good bet to host the event in future. Kliavkoff still lives there and is well connected. He referred to it as “the sports capital of the world,” last March.

The Novo is a fine venue. It will have two stages, one for Pac-12 players and the other for coaches. They’ll speak all day. But Kliavkoff will make the opening remarks. He’ll be alone up there. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



So if the money in the PAC and BIG 12 are the same, there’s zero incentive for either to lose any schools. “The PAC is less stable tho!” Then that stands to reason they have a much better portfolio of schools, who could conceivably make a future move.

[KChiefs1]

#B1G commissioner Kevin Warren confirms USC and UCLA will receive full revenue shares when they enter the Big Ten.

Might not sit well at Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers, which did not receive full shares.

Big Ten commish Kevin Warren told me he has not spoken w/Pac-12 commish George Kliavkoff since USC/UCLA announced they were leaving Pac-12, but said his office is scheduling a call sometime after Friday's Pac-12 media day


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[KChiefs1]

“One of major issues right now is that ESPN offer is low and Oregon and Washington want unequal sharing. They want a certain percentage more. Numbers don’t make survival possible within the conference. Big fracture within the conference and other schools won’t budge.“
https://www.johncanzano.com/p/canzano-delusion-aside-the-big-12

Canzano: Delusion aside -- the Big 12 has nothing on the Pac-12

The numbers (and brands) don't lie.

John Canzano

The Pac-12 Conference’s top universities get better television ratings than Big 12 counterparts. The Pac-12 has bigger TV markets, superior brands, stronger broad-based athletic programs, better academics, and higher-profile members.

The Pac-12 also includes the Pacific and Mountain Time Zones that media partners covet. The notion that the Big 12 is somehow stronger than the Pac-12 is delusional from any quantitative standpoint.

Still, some in Big 12 country insist it’s true.

Stewart Mandel of The Athletic published an interesting study that compared the television impact of the Big 12 vs. Pac-12. He looked at TV ratings from 2015-2019 and 2021 for the remaining universities in each conference.

The Pac-12 won by knockout.

The top six remaining Pac-12 universities out-ranked all the remaining Big 12 universities by average rating. Oregon, Stanford, Washington, Washington State, Colorado and Utah all averaged more than 1.44 million viewers per game. Oklahoma State was the Big 12’s top-rated product, weighing in at 1.28 million viewers.

The ability to kick off games at 10:30 p.m. ET — “Pac-12 After Dark” — creates a distinct ratings advantage for the conference. Wrote Mandel: “As much as Pac-12 coaches and fans loathe those late games, they may be the league’s saving grace in its next deal.”

I’ve looked hard at the Big 12 in recent weeks, trying to figure out whether a merger with the Pac-12 made sense (Answer: nope). I also examined the Big 12’s TV markets and wondered if there was a no-brainer target for the Pac-12 to poach (Answer: nope).

I also don’t think the Big 12 is a strong candidate to lure away any of the remaining Pac-12 universities. When I asked Pac-12 athletic directors about the possibility of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and ASU leaving, I was told another round of defections was unlikely as long as Oregon and Washington remained in the Pac-12.

One current AD said: “I don’t know where all this ‘the Big 12 is better’ stuff is coming from. You wouldn’t trade our troubles for theirs.”

The Big 12 lost Texas and Oklahoma. Like the Pac-12, it’s watching the Big Ten and SEC position themselves as mega-conferences in front of what will be an expanded College Football Playoff. The holdover TV markets in the Big 12 have a combined 10.25 million television households. The Pac-12, even without the Los Angeles TV market, has 12.4 million.

The Big 12 will add another 5 million TV homes with the additions of BYU, Houston, Cincinnati and UCF, but that doesn’t solve the time-zone conundrum. The Big 12’s top games will always be stuck in head-to-head battles with the best inventory of the new-and-improved Big Ten and SEC. The Pac-12’s late kickoffs may stink for fans and media, but ESPN needs them and will pay for them.

I suspect that we’re going to soon learn that the “talks” with the Big 12 about a possible merger were never really that serious. Also, that the Big 12 spun out of the rejection in damage-control mode, eager to craft an alternate narrative.

I’m not sure what a merger with the Big 12 even offered, aside from strength in numbers. Or maybe the state of Texas. But the more I thought about it, teaming up with the Big 12 made little sense for the Pac-12.

If you’re the Pac-12 and looking for an advantageous partnership, you’d first turn to the ACC (28 million-plus TV households). If you are the Pac-12 and looking to poach programs, you’d probably turn to San Diego State (1.1 million TV households in the Pacific Time Zone). And the world views of the typical university presidents and chancellors in the Pac-12 footprint don’t mesh easily with those of the Big 12’s leaders.

We’re going to hear from Pac-12 leaders this week as part of the conference’s football media day. Commissioner George Kliavkoff needs to answer some tough questions and may even have some news to share. But before that, the delusion about Big 12 superiority has to stop.

Big 12 fans are nervous about being left behind. Some of the same hysteria swept over the Pac-12 in the wake of the USC/UCLA news. But it’s been replaced by logic, reason and a search for good options. The Pac-12 is the better conference. Period. End stop. The only question now is what ESPN and others are willing to pay to carry its games.



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[RustShack]

Canzanu is an idiot and cherry-picking stats to fit his Pro PAC narrative.

[BWillie]

50-60 is the projection.

Are you sure those numbers? I don't think those are once Texas and OU leave?

[Archie Bunker]

Really don’t see anything that he’s wrong about. Academics, Ratings, everything but having Iowa State seems to favor the PAC 12. It’s a large hurdle

[KChiefs1]

Canzanu is an idiot and cherry-picking stats to fit his Pro PAC narrative.


Doesn’t appear to be an idiot.


In his career,[3] Canzano has worked at six daily newspapers including The San Jose Mercury News and The Fresno Bee.
He covered University of Notre Dame football and Indiana University basketball as the beat writer during the tenure of coach Bob Knight. He is a former national Major League Baseball writer and national NFL writer at the San Jose Mercury News as well.
He has also covered five Olympic Games.

Canzano was hired as lead sports columnist at The Oregonian in 2002.[4] He also appears on KGW-TV, where he offers commentary and analysis on sports. Canzano also hosts a radio show called "The Bald-Faced Truth" on Portland's 750 AM "The Game". The radio show airs weekdays from 3-6 p.m. in the Portland metro area. The show is also syndicated in Eugene, Ore. on Fox Sports Eugene (95.7-FM and 1050-AM) and in Klamath Falls, Ore. on KLAD (104.3-FM and 960-AM).

He worked as the NFL and Major League Baseball columnist at the San Jose Mercury News and is a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He holds a Baseball Hall of Fame Vote and is a voter for the Heisman Trophy. Canzano's work has also appeared in GQ magazine and The Sporting News.

Canzano left The Oregonian in March 2022, after 20 years with the newspaper.[1]



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[KChiefs1]

Canzano today:

GRANDSTANDING: Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren did a fair bit of grandstanding as part of the conference media day on Tuesday. He didn’t do a cartwheel on stage, but he came very close.

Warren spent a good portion of his time touting the Big Ten’s poaching of USC and UCLA. Pac-12 stakeholders weren’t happy about all the horn tooting. Said one conference employee: “The only people happy with the USC/UCLA move are those in the B1G, USC/UCLA and FOX.”

Warren also appeared to take a shot at the Pac-12 when he was asked about expansion and the health of college football.

Said Warren: “If a conference is allegedly on the brink, there are many more issues than members leaving. There are deeper issues. I’m not promoting conferences facing a crisis or going out of business, not at all. But I come out of the NFL for 21 years. In the NFL, either you succeed or you fail, and that's not only on the field. I’m talking about in business, operationally. Either you have your fan base or you don’t.”

The Pac-12’s biggest problem is its media rights deal. The conference has advantageous geography in the Pacific Time Zone. It has good history, strong brands, and it wants very much to matter. But let’s face it — losing USC and UCLA was a gut punch from Warren’s conference. That blow equated to the loss of 5.2 million television households.

How do you replace that if you’re the Pac-12?

I’ve long wondered about San Diego State as a Pac-12 expansion candidate. It would add back 1.1 million TV homes in the Southern California footprint. I also wonder about UNLV as a possible addition.

The Las Vegas television market is only in the top-40 right now, but the region is growing rapidly. There’s a pile of untapped sponsorship money buried in Vegas and commissioner George Kliavkoff lives there and is deeply connected. I’ll bet he rarely pays for a meal.

UNLV might not command a full share of media rights distributions out of the gate. It also plays home football games in the NFL stadium in Las Vegas. It would be a speculative play, for sure, but doubling down on Vegas makes sense.


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[KChiefs1]

Interesting. [emoji848]


Brett McMurphy
@Brett_McMurphy
Big Ten commish Kevin Warren told @ActionNetworkHQ there are "handful of schools" besides Notre Dame that would add value to Big Ten.

Sources said other schools being considered by Big Ten:
Oregon,
Washington,
Stanford,
Cal,
Miami
Florida State


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[MarkDavis'Haircut]

Canzano today:

GRANDSTANDING: Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren did a fair bit of grandstanding as part of the conference media day on Tuesday. He didn’t do a cartwheel on stage, but he came very close.

Warren spent a good portion of his time touting the Big Ten’s poaching of USC and UCLA. Pac-12 stakeholders weren’t happy about all the horn tooting. Said one conference employee: “The only people happy with the USC/UCLA move are those in the B1G, USC/UCLA and FOX.”

Warren also appeared to take a shot at the Pac-12 when he was asked about expansion and the health of college football.

Said Warren: “If a conference is allegedly on the brink, there are many more issues than members leaving. There are deeper issues. I’m not promoting conferences facing a crisis or going out of business, not at all. But I come out of the NFL for 21 years. In the NFL, either you succeed or you fail, and that's not only on the field. I’m talking about in business, operationally. Either you have your fan base or you don’t.”

The Pac-12’s biggest problem is its media rights deal. The conference has advantageous geography in the Pacific Time Zone. It has good history, strong brands, and it wants very much to matter. But let’s face it — losing USC and UCLA was a gut punch from Warren’s conference. That blow equated to the loss of 5.2 million television households.

How do you replace that if you’re the Pac-12?

I’ve long wondered about San Diego State as a Pac-12 expansion candidate. It would add back 1.1 million TV homes in the Southern California footprint. I also wonder about UNLV as a possible addition.

The Las Vegas television market is only in the top-40 right now, but the region is growing rapidly. There’s a pile of untapped sponsorship money buried in Vegas and commissioner George Kliavkoff lives there and is deeply connected. I’ll bet he rarely pays for a meal.

UNLV might not command a full share of media rights distributions out of the gate. It also plays home football games in the NFL stadium in Las Vegas. It would be a speculative play, for sure, but doubling down on Vegas makes sense.


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What a dope.

I like San Diego State and UNLV. But households are only useful if people are watching those teams. SDSU has a decent following at best and UNLV football has been a non-entity for decades.

They are not replacing the anchor brands of USC and UCLA. Those are iconic programs.

The PAC 12 needs successful programs. SDSU has been good on the field. UNLV hasn't.

[GloucesterChief]

What a dope.

I like San Diego State and UNLV. But households are only useful if people are watching those teams. SDSU has a decent following at best and UNLV football has been a non-entity for decades.

They are not replacing the anchor brands of USC and UCLA. Those are iconic programs.

The PAC 12 needs successful programs. SDSU has been good on the field. UNLV hasn't.

Its about getting the channels on basic cable packages over who is actually good. See Rutgers and Maryland in the Big 10 instead of say WVU and VT. Not many in the DC area cares much about Maryland. They do care about WVU, Pitt, and VT though.

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

Its about getting the channels on basic cable packages over who is actually good. See Rutgers and Maryland in the Big 10 instead of say WVU and VT. Not many in the DC area cares much about Maryland. They do care about WVU, Pitt, and VT though.

The era of the TV markets driving realignment is dying.

It is now about brand names and streaming numbers.

Besides, the issue for the PAC 12 has been time zones. They need Central Time slots.

[KChiefs1]

John Canzano:

Canzano: Pac-12 in a dance with ESPN and knows who else might bid


Pac-12 Football Media Day is scheduled for Friday at the Novo Theater in Los Angeles.

Commissioner George Kliavkoff will take the stage and try to shift the narrative on the state of the conference. Fox and ESPN are in an exclusive 30-day negotiating window with the Pac-12 that expires on Aug. 4.

I wondered how much Kliavkoff might know and be able to share on that front. So I reached out to Bob Thompson, the former president of Fox Sports Networks, for an answer.

Said Thompson: “He’s probably got a number from ESPN at this point. Is it their best, last, final? Probably not. But given there’s about a week to go they’ve got to be honing in on it.”

Thompson said the Pac-12 should also have an idea about the interest of other television and streaming bidders who aren’t involved in the exclusive window.

“Nothing precludes the others from reaching out or back-channeling their interest to the conference or most likely to the conference’s television consultant,” he said. “So he probably has a good idea who else out there might be interested.”

On whether a deal will get done before Aug. 4?

“I personally don’t think a deal is going to be done in the exclusive window unless it’s some kind of blow-me-away offer from ESPN,” Thompson said. “I think the conference will be wise and want to see who is on the outside looking in when the Big Ten option ends. There’s going to be some folks who expressed an interest in collegiate football who aren’t going to get it in the Big Ten deal.”

On potential expansion targets for the Pac-12:

“Certainly San Diego State and the San Diego market would be attractive,” Thompson said. “I kind of go back and forth after that between Las Vegas, Fresno and Boise. They’re almost interchangeable. None of them blow you away from a market standpoint. There’s not a real clear second partner for the Pac-12. Beyond that, you could go to SMU or try to poach the University of Houston before they get into the Big 12.”

On San Diego State:

“There’s no doubt in my mind that San Diego State is the No. 1 target — without a doubt — should they decide to go forward with expansion.”

Thompson is going to join me today at 3:45 p.m. PT on my statewide radio show in Oregon. Tune in on 750-AM (Portland), 1050-AM (Eugene), 960-AM (Klamath Falls), 1490-AM (Roseburg), stream the show or listen the podcast after it posts.

UNIFIED FOR NOW:

The prevailing sentiment among the six Pac-12 athletic directors I’ve communicated with in the last two weeks is that the remaining 10 members of the conference feel like they’re in this together.

One told me, early on: “We have good options.”

Another said: “George is kicking ass.”

A third offered: “As long as Washington and Oregon stay in the fold, we’re going to be fine.”

A fourth said: “Phil Knight could help this. Even if it’s rhetoric, Phil Knight being supportive of the Pac-12 staying together would be meaningful.”

I’ve wondered whether unequal distributions of revenue from the conference might be on the table. To this point, I don’t have a good answer. Media rights distributions have mostly been even. There was a small provision in the last media deal that gave small bonuses to programs that appeared more frequently on ABC. But everyone got the same base distribution.

It’s partially what drove UCLA and USC into the arms of the Big Ten, I’m told. I don’t think that will change. But would the Pac-12 reward a member who reached the College Football Playoff by giving it a larger share of the CFP payout? Under the current deal, the bowl payouts are split evenly among the conference members.

I’ll be in Los Angeles for Media Day. I’ll share more in the coming 24-48 hours about what I learn.

I appreciate that you’re here for it.



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[MarkDavis'Haircut]

The conferences and ADs don't get it. ESPN/Disney and FOX decide these things.

[KChiefs1]

Canzano: Setting the stage for Pac-12 Media Day

Getting you caught up...

I saw Pac-12 Conference Commissioner George Kliavkoff an hour before he was scheduled to take the stage at Friday’s Media Day. He was walking alongside Andrew Walker, the conference’s vice president of communications.

Huge day for Kliavkoff and his team.

The conference needs the commissioner to cast a strong figure and change the narrative. That’s his No. 1 duty today. I don’t know how much he’s going to talk about the loss of USC and UCLA to start the day, but if that’s what we’re all talking about at sundown, it amounts to a loss.

Three things Kliavkoff must do:

• UNIFY: Unify the conference. Or at least present that front. The Pac-12 made the decision to hold its athletic director meetings via video conference. One of them, Scott Barnes at Oregon State, was out sick. But I think it may have also been a strategy move, designed to keep the ADs from being interviewed about their respective universities and competing agendas. Kliavkoff needs to pull the remaining 10 members of his conference together.

• INFORM: The public is desperate to get an update on the Pac-12’s quest to land a media rights deal. ESPN and Fox are in an exclusive, 30-day negotiating window. They get to bid first. Kliavkoff is likely to take the rights to market when the period ends on Aug. 4, but we need an update that creates some structure for this process. In the wake of all the unrest and uncertainty, ambiguity isn’t his friend.

• LEAD: Kevin Warren of the Big Ten did a lot of grandstanding as part of his media day events this week. Kliavkoff needs to punch back in measured ways. This is his first true test as commissioner. Kliavkoff needs to exude confidence, strength and vision.

I asked one Pac-12 AD whether unequal revenue sharing might be on the table. Would they split media distributions unevenly among the 10 remaining members? Or maybe give a program that qualifies for the College Football Playoff a larger share of that massive distribution?

The AD said: “We’re not there yet, but I imagine we would not leave anything on table in terms of talking about all revenue distribution models, which btw was going to happen at 12 (teams) too if I had to guess.”

I’m going to update frequently today. For those of you who are subscribed and receive my columns directly in your email in-box in real time, please forgive me in advance. You will receive more than one post from me today. It will be unusual, but I don’t want you to miss a thing.

If you’re reading via JohnCanzano.com, please check back frequently. I’ll update this post as the day unfolds. Refresh. Visit often. And make sure you stay with me on Twitter and Instagram.

The event occupies two floors at the Novo Theater. The print media and TV media that cover the conference have been situated on the third floor. That’s where the main stage sits and the Pac-12 has dressed it up nicely.

Radio row is on the fourth floor. It has a lounge-like vibe, complete with mood lighting, couches, and pillows. When I popped in, shortly before 7 a.m., they were piping jazz music through the speakers.

I’m the only media member who covers the Pac-12 who not only writes a column, but hosts a daily radio show. As a result, I’m set up on both the third and fourth floor and will be running between them for most of the day.

I’ll be present on the third floor at 8 a.m. when Kliavkoff takes the stage, but I’m not likely to ask a question. I have the commissioner 1-on-1 later in the day, and I’ll save them for that fourth-floor setting. Kliavkoff is among the 34 scheduled 1-on-1’s that I have. My statewide radio show 3-6 p.m. today will be a rich experience, but my plan is to also share some of what I learn in those 1-on-1’s with you here.

Chip Kelly? Dan Lanning? Jonathan Smith? Lincoln Riley? Kyle Whittingham?

“Make sure you hydrate,” a friend of mine texted.



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[RustShack]

George really attacked the Big12, like he’s threatened and backed into a corner. Wouldn’t touch the B1G topic, who literally just swiped USC and UCLA away from his conference though. Only 5 AD’s showed up after all 12 were there last year too?

Rough. I guess days after Warren publicly stated the B1G would be in every time zone in the next few years, and be able to have games for every time slot took away any sliver of hope the PAC had left. Oregon President wouldn’t commit to signing a GoR and said any new media deal would have to be short.

[BryanBusby]

That PAC conference was a hot mess. Like shambles mess.

Woof

[KChiefs1]

Canzano: Pac-12 Media Day turns into a car wash

My column on media day.

LOS ANGELES — George Kliavkoff arrived on the fourth floor of the Novo Theater on Friday afternoon and slid into a plastic chair in a corner of the room.

He’d already delivered a state-of-the-conference speech in front of a packed room. Now, he was ready for our one-on-one interview.

A table covered with black draping sat between us. Flowing, sheen curtain panels hung along the wall. The space — typically used as a night club — was dimly lit, with purple and orange light bulbs. I led with the question that has been on my mind for a while.

“Where were you when you found out?”

The Pac-12 Conference commissioner spent the last month sequestered. Kliavkoff made no public statements. He offered no insight into the defection of USC and UCLA. His conference was poached of those Los Angeles schools, then talked about like it was some kind of truck stop by the Big 12.

All of it, without comment.

“I was in Montana on day two of my first vacation, driving,” he said. “I was in a spot where I had almost no cell service. My deputy commissioner left me two messages saying, ‘You need to get to where you have cell service.’”

Kliavkoff’s next move was to get to his home base in Las Vegas, where he had full use of the resources he’d need to communicate with his bosses. He then decided to go silent “because I could have spent all day, every day on the phone refuting media reports and what I needed to do was get to work.”

Earlier Friday, Kliavkoff received mixed reviews for his performance on the main stage. Some felt the conference commissioner deviated from his message when he quipped, “With respect to the Big 12 being open for business, I appreciate that. We haven’t decided if we’re going shopping there or not yet.”

Others loved that a conference with a black eye and a fat lip punched back.

The pointed remark came as part of the question-and-answer portion of the event. Earlier, in his scripted speech, Kliavkoff had been far more collegial and reserved. But in that moment, he traded his scalpel for a sledgehammer. He later said his frustration stemmed from a month spent defending against grenades launched from every corner of the Big 12.

“I understand why they're doing it,” Kliavkoff said, “when you look at the relative media value between the two conferences. I get it, I get why they’re scared, why they’re trying to destabilize it. I was just tired of that.”

A win for the commissioner?

A loss?

You decide. I’ll wait to see how Kliavkoff performs where it counts — media rights revenue. He’s in an exclusive, 30-day negotiating window with ESPN and Fox. Beyond that, he’ll wait for the Big Ten’s media package to be finalized, then let the market determine what the Pac-12’s rights are worth.

I asked Kliavkoff in our sit down interview whether the Pac-12’s media distributions or access to the College Football Playoff mattered more. Which is more valuable — a pile of money? Or a path to the promised land?

“Both,” he said.

Kliavkoff told me he expects the conference to “absolutely” have access to the playoff. Also, he believes that the Pac-12 will ultimately end up “in the middle” of the Power Five Conferences when it comes to media rights distributions.

He also told me that he could foresee a situation where a university that reaches the playoff, for example, might garner a much larger share of that windfall.

“That type of bonus,” Kliavkoff said, “would incentivize members where it counts.”

Don’t be surprised when that comes true. Also, I think it would extend to the NCAA Tournament units that the league typically splits evenly.

I think what we learned on Friday was that this journey isn’t anywhere near a resolution. It likely won’t be settled until at least September, maybe longer. There’s still some anxious parties. The news of USC and UCLA’s departure dominated the event, sure. But it felt like the Pac-12 changed the conversation some.

I interviewed 34 coaches and players on Friday during media day. I also spoke to a couple of Pac-12 athletic directors and a line of conference employees. Oregon State’s Jonathan Smith jumped from station to station along radio row and told me it felt like going through “a car wash.”

I laughed at that.

I sure needed it.

Some other things overheard at Pac-12 Media Day:

• Stanford coach David Shaw, 3-9 last season, on how he’s feeling about the upcoming football season: “I feel like a tiger in the weeds.”

• Chip Kelly on when he learned UCLA was leaving for the Big Ten: “I was on the 14th hole at a charity golf tournament in New Hampshire. They told me, ‘This is happening in an hour, don’t tell anyone.’”

• Utah QB Cam Rising on the one player he’s happy isn’t in the Pac-12 anymore: “Kayvon Thibodeaux — he presented a problem.”

• Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff on whether UCLA could reverse course and come back to the conference: “We’d welcome them back with open arms.”

• Utah coach Kyle Whittingham on the ability to adapt: “It’s a must, or you get left behind. Whether you like the changes or not, it’s survive or you get left behind.”

• Stanford defensive back Kyu Blu Kelly on his side hustle: “Nobody knows this but I’ve developed a video game. It’s coming out soon.”

• UCLA offensive tackle Jon Gaines II: “I’m a cat person. I have three cats. Dogs are cliche’.”

• Arizona coach Jedd Fisch on college football looking more like a professional league: “It gives us a little bit of an advantage because of our NFL experience. We know what free agency looks like.”

• ASU coach Herm Edwards on the changes in college football: “We thought it was sacred. It’s changing before our eyes and we’re struggling with it.”

• Utah defensive back Clark Phillips III on where he was when he heard that USC and UCLA were leaving the Pac-12: “I was in yoga. I was rolling up my mat and my phone started blowing up.”

• USC coach Lincoln Riley on what he learned from Mike Leach: “A lot of things that aren’t relevant to anything. Mike lives outside the box. I try to think outside the box — once in a while.”



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[KChiefs1]

Canzano: UCLA gone? Yup, but Pac-12 leaves door ajar anyway

Conference making contingency plans.

LOS ANGELES — Chip Kelly was playing in a charity golf tournament in New Hampshire when his phone rang with the news that UCLA was defecting to the Big Ten.

“It’s going to happen in an hour,” Kelly was instructed. “Make sure you don’t say anything.”

Kelly’s foursome included close friend and ex-New Hampshire quarterback, Matt Cassano. Also there, recently retired New Hampshire head coach Sean McDonnell and ex-Nike executive Gary DeStefano.

Ohio State head coach Ryan Day was in the group behind Kelly, playing with his father-in-law and some others.

“By the time we got to No. 16, everyone in the world knew,” Kelly said.

I talked with Kelly on Friday in Los Angeles about a variety of subjects including his sleep habits, the time he’s spent with Navy SEALs, and how he came out of the new Top Gun: Maverick film ready to hop in a military-grade jet.

“I’d probably pass out,” Kelly said. “I don’t think I could handle the G’s but I’d like to try.”

What Kelly and I didn’t talk about was whether he could handle the whiplash of a possible flip-flop by UCLA. I didn’t ask. In part, because I don’t believe for a moment that the Bruins’ head coach has a say in where UCLA plays in 2024 and beyond. But Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff just might.

I want to stop right here and point out that in no way do I expect UCLA to reverse course and announce it will rejoin the Pac-12. That would require a series of wild events to occur. Also, it would potentially come with a damaging public relations hit to the Bruins. But it’s something I left Media Day thinking about.

Add San Diego State? Poach Baylor or Houston? How about UNLV? There are a variety of options that need exploring. One of them involves the possibility that the Pac-12 might give UCLA second thoughts.

Said one person familiar with the situation: “The not-so-hidden question is UCLA. The Pac-12 won’t move on expansion until that’s decided.”

The Regents of the University of California system may have a say. That mostly feels like political posturing, though. One UCLA official, in fact, told me, “All that is just a bunch of noise.” In the meantime, I wonder whether the Pac-12 is asking bidders on the conference’s media rights to run valuation models that includes UCLA and/or USC staying.

The Bruins are leaving. They announced it. The Big Ten talked about it. They’re gone, right?

“Maybe,” said Kliavkoff on Friday.

Former Fox Sports Networks President Bob Thompson told me that prior to the defections of USC and UCLA, he expected the Pac-12 would sign a media rights deal worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million a year. That would result in annual distributions of roughly $42 million to each Pac-12 university. In the Big Ten, the Bruins and Trojans are expected to collect a minimum of $72 million a year.

That’s a $30 million-a-year gap, minimally.

Could the Pac-12 go all-in, get creative, sell off the Pac-12 Networks, and cobble together a media rights package that would push above $60 million a year in distributions and give UCLA and/or USC something to think about?

“I’m not going to get into the specifics,” Kliavkoff told me. “What I will say is the UCLA community, I feel bad for. The vast majority of people in that community immediately did not like that decision and I think the longer that decision sticks, the worse they’re going to like it.”

I doubt it happens. The dollars probably won’t be there. UCLA and USC are telling everyone they’ve moved on and I believe them. But the win that Kliavkoff needs most is one that unwinds the defections. If Kliavkoff could pull it off, it would define his legacy.

“I am not predicting that they come back,” Kliavkoff said. “But if they came back, we’d welcome them back.”

Expanding with San Diego State and maybe one or three others is a decent fallback plan. It would aggregate some additional dollars and get the conference back in Southern California. Mining the landscape for new partners, such as Amazon, Apple and Turner is sound strategy, too. There are some new media players at the table and they may have a pile of money to spend with Fox and ESPN gobbling up so much of the Big Ten and SEC. But if the Pac-12 is smart, it’s asking bidders to give them a valuation model that includes USC and UCLA remaining.

Would UCLA stay in the Pac-12 if the potential $30 million distribution gap were whittled down to $10 million-a-year? How heavy would the pressure from alumni, the UC system and non-revenue generating sports feel in that scenario?

Years ago, Chip Kelly announced he was leaving Oregon for the NFL. He was set to become the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was gone. The university was making contingency plans. Then, overnight, Kelly changed his mind and decided to come back for one more year.

It was a Chip-flop.

That was one quirky person, changing his mind, though. A UCLA flip flop would require the unwinding of decisions, and a willingness from the Bruins to withstand some blowback.

Stanford coach David Shaw told me he thinks geography will ultimately win out. Shaw said he believed the traditional Pac-12 universities would one day be re-united. Perhaps, in five years, or maybe a decade, when the media rights deals come up for bid again.

“Who knows what’s going to happen in the next couple of years, but my heart of hearts tells me that in some point of time this will self correct,” Shaw said. “The reason conferences were created were proximity reasons… I do believe in the next round of TV contracts, it will start to go back.”

It sounds like a pipe dream, but I left Friday’s Pac-12 Media Day wondering about UCLA’s next 24 months. USC may leave regardless of the media numbers. But we all noted that Kliavkoff was collegial toward both the Bruins and Trojans in his remarks.

He threw a haymaker at the Big 12, sniped at the Big Ten, and lamented the loss of the “college” part of college athletics. But the commissioner insisted the Bruins and Trojans would continue to be treated as respected members of the conference.

He left the door ajar.



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[KChiefs1]

Canzano: College football waits for the trickle down of TV money

FCS funds programs with payday games

Count Portland State University football coach Bruce Barnum among those wringing their hands over what happens next with major college football.

“I still need money games,” Barnum told me.

The Vikings subsidize the football program — and the rest of the PSU athletic department — by playing a couple of “payday” games every season.

This season, PSU will make $500,000 to play at Washington and another $435,000 to play at San Jose State. In 2023, PSU will collect a $575,000 check for playing at Oregon and another $400,000 to play at Wyoming. In 2024, the Vikings travel to Washington State ($563,000) and San Diego State ($475,000).

That six-game haul: $2,948,000.

Said Barnum: “Am I going to still be able to play the Pac-12 and still be able to get that money?”

The Vikings have a 2-10 record in their last 12 payday games. Both upset victories over FBS opponents came in 2015. PSU knocked off Mike Leach and Washington State 24-17 and then beat North Texas 66-7 the same season. The Vikings went 2-0 and collected a combined $925,000 to play those games.

Incidentally, the 59-point margin of victory vs. North Texas was the most lopsided win in history by a FCS program over an FBS opponent. After the game, North Texas promptly fired coach Dan McCarney.

Barnum is carefully watching the developments in the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 and thinking about how it might impact — or benefit — his mission. Given the television money pouring into the upper division of college football right now, the market for the payday games may increase.

“That’s the line I’m in,” Barnum said. “I would love to just play one of those games every season. I would love to take one of those games off my docket in the future. I’d like to play only one of them. I’m tired of two games with odds of winning being low. I’ll be in the front of the line, calling anyone who has an open date.”

Barnum said he was approached by Alabama after the 2016 season about possibly playing a payday game in 2019 or 2020. The Crimson Tide were coming off a national championship and noticed Washington’s 41-3 win over PSU on the schedule that season.

Said Barnum: “Washington smacked me in the chops and went to the semifinal of the playoff. So Alabama saw it and said, ‘Well, if Washington can play them and still get to the playoff, we should play them, too.’”

Barnum was already scheduled to play at Arkansas in 2019. He didn’t want to play road games vs. two SEC programs. Well, not unless Alabama was really willing to pay for it.

“I told them, ‘$1.7 million and I’m all yours,’” Barnum said. “I will roll in and not even ask for sandwiches.”

The game was not scheduled.

SHOW TIME: I arrived to Pac-12 Media Day on Friday at 6:45 a.m. and left about 11 hours later. During my trip to Los Angeles, I wrote a few columns (one and two and three) and conducted 34 informative and fun 1-on-1 interviews with coaches, players and the conference commissioner.

We aired 15 of those interviews (one-stop shop) on the statewide radio show on Friday. We’ll play my unaired talks with Arizona State coach Herm Edwards and Arizona coach Jedd Fisch today from 3-6 p.m. I have a pile of leftover interviews with a variety of Pac-12 players from Friday that you will really enjoy.

Also, Pac-12 Network analyst Yogi Roth will join me live today at 3:18 p.m. Listen in Portland (750-AM), Eugene (1050-AM), Klamath Falls (960-AM), Roseburg (1490-AM) or stream the show live.

LISTEN UP: Thrilled to announce that Jon Wilner and I have formed a new alliance. We’ve signed on with Alpha Media and created a podcast — “Canzano & Wilner” — that will cover a variety of topics, including the Pac-12 Conference.

I’ve known Wilner for years and we were co-workers when I covered the NFL and MLB at the San Jose Mercury News. We don’t always agree, but I respect the heck out of the guy. It’s a project we’ve discussed for several months and we’ve now officially launched it with an introductory episode.

We have a lot to say and want you in on it. Subscribe and listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify or Soundcloud so you don't miss a thing.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Eleazar]

What a dope.

I like San Diego State and UNLV. But households are only useful if people are watching those teams. SDSU has a decent following at best and UNLV football has been a non-entity for decades.

They are not replacing the anchor brands of USC and UCLA. Those are iconic programs.

The PAC 12 needs successful programs. SDSU has been good on the field. UNLV hasn't.

A (heretofore) major conference taking city schools or schools from mid-major conferences like the Mountain West to bolster their numbers does not better their brand, IMO, it degrades the brand further.

[KChiefs1]

Canzano: There is a singular threat to Pac-12 now -- the Big Ten

Pac-12 AD calls Big 12 threat "laughable."

The Pac-12 Conference athletic directors are anxiously waiting to see what happens in the next 24 hours. The conference’s 30-day, exclusive negotiating period with ESPN and Fox is set to expire Aug. 4.

The ADs I spoke with said they haven’t seen any potential revenue numbers yet.

Former Fox Sports Networks president Bob Thompson recently told me he’d be shocked if a deal got done with ESPN in the early negotiating window. That dovetails with the remarks from Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff last Friday, who pumped the brakes on the timeline. I left media day thinking it might be early September before we get resolution.

There’s some customary back-channeling going on right now. Consultants are involved. It’s in the conference’s best interest to go slow, allow the Big Ten to set the market, and give some other bidders a chance to weigh in.

Thompson said: “I think the conference will be wise and want to see who is on the outside looking in when the Big Ten option ends. There’s going to be some folks who expressed an interest in collegiate football who aren’t going to get it in the Big Ten deal.”

In the meantime, the athletic directors of the Pac-12’s remaining 10 universities are still communicating regularly and tell me they’re upbeat.

Said one AD, “The dialogue, candor, and environment have been positive. Everyone is moving in the same direction.”

Are there still threats out there?

Sure.

Said the AD: “It’s a singular threat — the Big Ten and the Big Ten only. That’s it. The Big 12 threat is laughable.”

Would the Big Ten decide to further expand and add Oregon and Washington? Or maybe chase Stanford? I’m going to dive deeper into the calculus of that in the coming days. But the prevailing thought is that none of those universities generate enough potential media rights value by themselves to make doing so a no-brainer.

In fact, I floated that Oregon-Washington-Stanford question to a current Big Ten Conference athletic director, who waved it off.

“I think Stanford might be interesting to our conference presidents just because of the academic piece,” he said, “but unless Notre Dame is coming in too, I don’t think further expansion happens in this cycle.”

The Pac-12 mostly laughed off the Big 12 threat last Friday at media day. It makes sense that those two entities are at odds. There’s only so much money in the college football ecosystem. The SEC ate first, now the Big Ten is feasting. The ACC is waiting for 2036, while Pac-12 and Big 12 are left to fight over what’s left.

There have been reports about the Big 12 trying to poach Utah, Colorado, Arizona and ASU. Nobody at those universities seems much interested at this point. The financial advantage just doesn’t appear to be there. But the noise annoyed the Pac-12 anyway.

Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff holds a degree in journalism from Boston University. He told me on Friday that he is frustrated with the Big 12’s tactics.

“It’s incredibly destructive, but that’s why they do it,” he said. “When I was in journalism school we were taught you had to source things from two reliable sources and you can’t run with it until. Now, we’ve got folks in the national media reporting stuff that is on burner Twitter accounts. It’s unfortunate. It’s the world we live in. I don’t have thin skin. I’m OK with this stuff, but it does destabilize people.”

Kliavkoff said that several Pac-12 universities have shared communications they’ve received from the Big 12 and other conferences.

“If they hear something or if someone from a different conference is approaching them, they forward those messages,” he said. “Those are fun to read. I’ve read every single one that has been sent to our conference over the last three weeks. It’s amazing how brazen those other conferences are.”



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lawrenceRaider]

Me thinks Canzano doth protest too much.

[kcclone]

The networks are doing a great job of promoting fighting between the P12 and B12, while they themselves burn conferences to the ground…

“Look here, not there”

[Eleazar]

It seems like the trouble is that the remaining piece of the pie is not big enough to sustain a third major conference. The existence of the Pac12 and the Big12 each precludes the other from leveling with the SEC and B1G, even before the PAC's two biggest name schools and their biggest TV market left.

[lawrenceRaider]

The real question is when do the networks trash both the SEC and the BIG and create an independent conference with only the real contenders from both those leagues.

[Eleazar]

The real question is when do the networks trash both the SEC and the BIG and create an independent conference with only the real contenders from both those leagues.

Yes, everyone is clearly waiting with bated breath for that to happen.

[lawrenceRaider]

Yes, everyone is clearly waiting with bated breath for that to happen.

Not paid attention to how corporate mergers work? Lots of fat to get cut from both the B1G and SEC.

[Eleazar]

Not paid attention to how corporate mergers work? Lots of fat to get cut from both the B1G and SEC.

Make sure you let us know when the SEC and the B1G are going to merge. We don't want to miss it.

[Spicy McHaggis]

Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff holds a degree in journalism from Boston University. He told me on Friday that he is frustrated with the Big 12’s tactics.

“It’s incredibly destructive, but that’s why they do it,” he said. “When I was in journalism school we were taught you had to source things from two reliable sources and you can’t run with it until. Now, we’ve got folks in the national media reporting stuff that is on burner Twitter accounts. It’s unfortunate. It’s the world we live in. I don’t have thin skin. I’m OK with this stuff, but it does destabilize people.”

Kliavkoff said that several Pac-12 universities have shared communications they’ve received from the Big 12 and other conferences.

“If they hear something or if someone from a different conference is approaching them, they forward those messages,” he said. “Those are fun to read. I’ve read every single one that has been sent to our conference over the last three weeks. It’s amazing how brazen those other conferences are.”

Things Kliavkoff is mad at:
1. Journalists (Other than the Pac-12 water carriers)
2. Twitter
3. The Big 12

Things Kliavkoff is not mad at:
1. The B1G

Smacks of desperation. I'd still put my bet on the Pac 12 surviving in some form, but it won't be because of this putz

[Prison Bitch]

Yeah he’s mad at the league who didn’t steal his prize schools ROFL

[RustShack]

Dodd on realignment


There's a big reason why we've reached another conference realignment crossroads. It centers around a 51-year-old media executive who has been pulling the strings behind the scenes for a while.

No matter how this round of reorganization ends, Mark Shapiro will have a significant stake. The president of Endeavor -- a powerful global sports, entertainment and content company -- is currently advising the Big 12 on its next media rights deal after its current agreement expires ahead of the 2025 season.

You already know the Big 12 is in the middle of rearranging itself for the second straight summer as it gazes westward to possibly grab some Pac-12 members. At the same time, college athletics is anticipating the Big Ten's new media rights contract, expected to be announced any day. It could be the largest in history.

Those two things are not unrelated. Back in 2004, Shapiro, then an ESPN executive, offered prior Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany a take-it-or-leave it deal to renew with the Worldwide Leader. Delany refused amid what he perceived to be a lowball offer.


"You are rolling the dice," Shapiro infamously told Delany.

"Consider them rolled," Delany responded.

Delany further monetized his conference's rights by taking some of them in-house and starting his own channel. The Big Ten Network has been wildly successful, to the point that subsequent conference expansions to Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers contributed to that success. Those moves provided more content for the network as well as linear cable partners Fox and ESPN.

Delany then made another brilliant move that got us to this moment. In 2017, he signed a short six-year, $2.64 billion deal with Fox and ESPN that has landed the Big Ten in the advantageous place it now finds itself: on the brink of signing a $1 billion-plus annual media rights deal.

The circle is almost complete. Shapiro is among those waiting for a Big Ten announcement that will almost assuredly reshape conference alignment and possibly college athletics. The size of the deal could compel further movement, force Notre Dame into the Big Ten and/or further consolidate power within the Big Ten (and SEC).



Perhaps none of it would have been possible without Delany's vision being accelerated by Shapiro's lowball bid. Thus far, Shapiro is getting high marks for his work with the Big 12. In fact, conference athletic directors are giddy at what Endeavor has already accomplished by positioning the Big 12 ahead of the Pac 12 -- if only slightly -- in terms of earning power.

Without Texas and Oklahoma, the Big 12 is valued north of $30 million annually per school, CBS Sports reported last week.

"The numbers look like they favor us," one Big 12 AD said. "Not by a huge amount. This is not like comparing Texas to Texas State. But there seems to be a noticeable difference."


Conference realignment notebook
Further expansion could create legal problems
The only conference commissioner to run a 16-team league in the modern era has a warning for the SEC and Big Ten: Beware of the legal ramifications of expanding beyond 16 teams.

Karl Benson, former commissioner the old WAC, presided over 16 members from 1996-98 before the league collapsed on itself because -- surprise -- the money didn't stretch far enough. When BYU was left out of the Bowl Alliance (the precursor to the BCS) despite becoming the first Division I-A (now FBS) team to win 14 games, Senate hearings were convened. The word "collusion" was tossed around as it related to the college football's powers holding other programs at bay. That word could pop up again.

"Maybe the reason Washington and Oregon didn't go with USC and UCLA [to the Big Ten] at the same time is the fear of collusion," the now-retired Benson told CBS Sports. "That's a legitimate concern of the damages that one conference does to another."


The stakes are higher this time. The SEC and Big Ten have a chance to monopolize the sport. Perhaps that has already happened. Administrators within both leagues are treading lightly out of an awareness of antitrust issues. Well, sometimes. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has said he could stage a playoff with his own league.

"[No one has] ever gone in and gutted a conference," Benson added. "If the Big Ten gutted a conference and took Washington and Oregon, [if I was Pac-12 commissioner] George Kliavkoff, I might pursue antitrust action there."

Big Ten interest has cooled in Pac-12 teams
After the anxiety caused last week regarding further Big Ten expansion, industry sources have indicated the Big Ten is no longer as interested in adding California, Oregon, Stanford and Washington. Rightsholders were balking at paying the same amount for those schools as the 16 Big Ten schools going forward ($80 million-$100 million).


While those four programs may eventually have options, the Big Ten is concentrating on its new deal in 2023 while trying to lure Notre Dame, which has an open invitation. More and more stakeholders now believe the Fighting Irish will ultimately stay independent.

Opportunity lost
Let's not forget the Pac-12 had its chance to bolster its ranks last year when the Big 12 was wounded by the exits of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC. Sources told CBS Sports this week the Pac-12 vote was 8-4 against taking any Big 12 schools. It would sure be interesting to be find out those Pac-12 schools who voted for expansion a year ago. We already know USC president Carol Folt "shut down" interest in expansion.

"We all would have jumped," one Big 12 AD told CBS Sports in reference to the Pac-12's interest in getting into Texas.


Pac-12's future may hinge on a time zone
Late-night West Coast games are referred to as occurring the "Fourth Window" -- after 10 p.m. ET. As much ribbing as the Pac-12 has received for those games (#Pac12AfterDark), there is no way around them. They are valuable programming that fills late-night TV slots with guaranteed ratings.

That's why the late window is key for the Pac-12. It may be why ESPN could remain engaged with the conference beyond Thursday's reported expiration of an exclusive 30-day negotiating window. Without the Pac-12, ESPN may not have late-night football. Fox is already set there with its Mountain West contract.

One industry course speculated: If ESPN doesn't get a piece of the Big Ten, does it go all-in with whatever is left of the Pac-12? More importantly, if ESPN does get a portion of the Big Ten, does the Pac-12 continue to market without either of the two biggest college football rightsholders (ESPN, Fox) having interest?


"That's a huge advantage for us to basically get what we want in expansion with [the Pac-12]," one Big 12 source told CBS Sports. (Cue the vultures.)

Big 12 remains well-positioned
Fox and the Big 12 disagreed five years ago when the conference was adding back its championship game. Figures weren't available, but sources said Fox didn't want to pay the value deemed for the game by the Big 12's media consultant. Last summer, former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby issued as strident a takedown of ESPN as any of us had experienced. But when it comes to the nitty of the gritty of the business – media rights – bygones can always be bygones.

The Big 12 continues to be engaged with both Fox and ESPN for its new right deal, which will begin in 2025.

[KChiefs1]

Canzano:

PAC-12 FRONT: There’s a real shortage of sourced, in-depth reporting when it comes to the Pac-12 Conference and its media rights conundrum. I’m only giving you what I can verify with multiple, well-placed sources for that reason. I appreciate you being here for it.

Three things:

• The 30-day exclusive negotiating window with ESPN and Fox is closing (or already closed) today. I think the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors have a solid idea of the early media rights valuation, but several ADs told me on Wednesday that they hadn’t yet seen numbers. I believe them. I don’t think the conference wants that information out there yet, and I expect the Pac-12 to slow play this. They’ll get ESPN’s first offer, but not its best offer. The rest of the market needs a chance to bid and that won’t come until after the Big Ten finalizes its media package. Any numbers you hear or see are just guesses until you hear and see them from a sourced entity.

• There were erroneous reports that originated from media members, particularly in Arizona, about the conference’s four corners schools meeting with the Big 12 Conference. I’ve talked with high-level sources at all four of those institutions (Utah, Arizona, ASU and Colorado). No meetings were even scheduled. It was all smoke and no fire. One of the ADs from those universities told me at the time, “No meeting with Big 12 and George (Kliavkoff) is kicking ass.”

Those who reported the meetings as fact, whiffed. They’re spitballing and guessing or just listening to the wrong people. As I wrote in a column on Wednesday, there is (and always has been) only one threat to the Pac-12 — the Big Ten. It remains the lone threat.

• I’m more interested in the “kicking ass” part of that AD’s quote, aren’t you? Kliavkoff fashions himself a problem solver. I want to see if he’s as good as advertised. On that front, I keep circling back to a potential “loose partnership” with the ACC, which the Pac-12 began exploring a few weeks ago.

If the Pac-12 is looking for creative and new revenue, inviting ESPN to enhance the value of the ACC isn’t a bad play. Not talking about a merger here. That would require the ACC’s grant of rights to be unwound and free some restless members. I’m talking about some creative early-season football and men’s basketball games and seeded crossover games during championship-game week in Las Vegas. Also, ESPN could combine the ACC Network with the Pac-12 Networks to generate a pile of fresh content for ESPN+. It makes sense for all parties and adds some value to what the Pac-12 is shopping.

• Expansion is still out there, too. San Diego State is interesting because it brings 1.1 million TV households in Southern California. Also, it would allow the conference to play some “home” games in Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium, potentially. I think SMU is a potential No. 2 target, if the conference expands. I also think Houston is interesting, depending on whether it can wiggle out of its Big 12 commitment.

After that, Fresno State, UNLV and Boise State have some selling points. However, I expect the presidents and chancellors of the conference won’t make an expansion move unless it’s a no-brainer. They’re not risk takers. Beyond San Diego State, I’m having a difficult time finding a great fit. I wonder if the better short-term plan is to try and retain UCLA and pair it with San Diego State. It’s a long, long shot. I don’t expect it to happen. But it’s absolutely what I’d try before moving on.

I’ll have more as this develops.

Another college football season is approaching. There’s a pile of uncertainty. Re-alignment has sparked fears and doubts in the Pac-12 Conference. The loss of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten was a gut punch. The conference is now trying to pull itself together while angling for media rights money and access to the College Football Playoff.

The Big Ten and SEC are busy chasing new revenue and monopolizing the playoff. The sports world is shifting. Loyalty, tradition and geography don’t seem to matter. And I wonder what happens to fan interest if large swaths of the Pacific and Mountain Time Zones are shut out of the sport.

Apathy, probably.

Frustration, for sure.


Canzano: Pac-12 AD says remaining conference members have no time for "noise"

ADs say they're committed.

I’ve talked with more than half of the Pac-12 Conference athletic directors since the defection of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten was announced.

Maybe I’m naive, but none of them sound imminently concerned about the Pac-12 being further poached. Not two weeks ago. And not earlier this week. But I reached out to one of the South Division ADs on Friday to check in anyway. In the course of conversation, I asked whether the Big 12 had ever made contact.

Was that ever a thing?

Is it still?

The answer came back: “We’re focused on our task, working with incumbent media, and other nine schools, that I don’t have time nor attention for the Big 12 noise.”

What about the University of Arizona?

Are they a candidate to be poached?

“They are right there with us,” the AD told me.

Again, I could be a sucker. But I’m here to serve as a conduit between the entities I cover and my readers. I’m only going to give you sourced, in-depth reporting and analysis. I’ll tell you what I know. And right now, I have a multitude of Pac-12 ADs all essentially saying the same thing — they are galvanized and believe the conference has good options. Like you, I’m eager to learn what those are.

It may prove that Oregon, Washington and Stanford one day become targets of another round of expansion in the Big Ten. But nothing feels imminent and nobody is sitting by the telephone, waiting to see what happens.

There is some strategizing going on, however.

The SEC and Big Ten members are going to receive distributions from their conferences that dwarf what Pac-12 members receive. The SEC distributed nearly $55 million to each member in the last fiscal cycle (2021). That figure will grow, year over year. Meanwhile, the Pac-12 doled out $33.6 million to each member in 2020. And estimates of the Big Ten’s future distributions fall between $70 million to $100 million a year.

How will the Pac-12 members stay competitive?

Said one North Division AD: “Like we always have. We’ll just have to spend a larger percentage of what we receive on football and men’s basketball. We’ll make a larger investment, percentage-wise. That’s what UCLA was going to have to do if it stayed in the conference. That’s what we’ll all do — go heavy in football — because that’s where the biggest returns will always be.”

The University of Oregon, for example, spent $24.5 million on football in the last fiscal year (2021). That figure was skewed by the pandemic, but I’ll be curious to see if the Ducks and some other contenders ramp up spending in pursuit of the College Football Playoff. Also, I’ll follow where Oregon, and other Pac-12 universities, might cut back — Olympic sports.

Had UCLA stayed in the Pac-12, it would have been faced with that exact dilemma. I don’t think the Bruins would have dropped its prestigious track and field program. But I doubt UCLA would have funded the program as well as it will after the defection to the Big Ten.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RustShack]

They are committed until they aren’t. AD’s don’t make the decision anyways. USC and UCLA were committed. Texas and OU were committed. They all say they are up until the news breaks.

[RustShack]

I saw one bowl game scenario that makes so much sense and would save most bowl games, but obviously it won’t happen.

Play the bowl games before the playoffs. Add a little bit of a March madness feel to football. You could still expand the playoffs, but maybe just to 6 or 8 instead. Adds another data point against strong schools from other conferences. Obviously the top 4-8? Probably wouldn’t play each other, but it would still be a tough game with added chance of upsets and maybe helps a G5 or non “P2” show their worth and potentially shake up the rankings heading into the playoffs.

[Bearcat]

They are committed until they aren’t. AD’s don’t make the decision anyways. USC and UCLA were committed. Texas and OU were committed. They all say they are up until the news breaks.

Yeah, I remember years ago when I paid close attention to all the mental masturbation of sports analysts.

These days it's not much more than people creating drama over tweets.

[KChiefs1]

Canzano:

Q: What are the odds the Big Ten or SEC adds more schools that fit as institutions and good markets, even if not great football of late? Colorado, ASU, Washington, Stanford may not raise Big Ten profits just yet, but they’re great fits otherwise. If Rutgers and Maryland did it, why not? — @cjmfour

A: The Big Ten added Rutgers and Maryland years ago to capture New York (7.45 million television households) and Washington, D.C. (2.45 million). Any expansion candidate would now have to generate $70 million-plus in projected media rights revenue for justification. Of those you mentioned, Stanford is the most interesting. Academically attractive, great brand, and 2.65 million TV households in the Bay Area. However, the projected media value of Stanford only falls somewhere around $38 million, according to the experts and analysts I consulted with. The other Big Ten members would have to be OK with subsidizing Stanford.

Q: Is the Big Ten playing hardball to get the likes of UW/UO/Cal/Stanford to get desperate and agree to an unequal revenue sharing deal below their fair value? — @TomeiTyler

A: The Big Ten already gobbled up UCLA and USC and it’s full… for now. It’s also finalizing its media rights packages (which cause a pause) and it will wait to see what Notre Dame does in the next 12-18 months (independent or no?). I think the Irish will stay independent as long as they believe they have access to the playoff and a good TV deal with NBC. I suspect those programs you mentioned would love to be with the “haves.” Maybe this process softens them up from a negotiating standpoint, but it’s more likely that the Big Ten is just going to exhale for a bit and see how this works out.

Q: While admittedly not at UW or UO level why is WSU considered a “have not”? Metrics like 1 million+ viewed games and average viewership put them third highest among the remaining Pac-12 schools, yet they are always lumped in with OSU (who they’ve beaten 8 straight btw). Perception? — @Smittytheclownn

A: Pullman (35,000 population) is a close approximation with Corvallis (58,000). The WSU and OSU campuses are located in true college towns. Both are state universities, both immediate TV markets are modest in size, and both fancy themselves agricultural schools. Also, both programs finished 7-6 last season on the field. You’re right, though, WSU won 61 games in the decade that ran 2010-2019. OSU only won 43 games in that same span. Head to head, it was a TKO. Still, those two get lumped together for the list of aforementioned reasons.

Q: Oregon is a household name in college football. Aren’t these experts being short sighted here? Shouldn’t they be looking at the opportunity here? If Oregon joined the Big Ten and got another $20-30 million per year, how much more relevant would they be? — @jbeam22

A: The math doesn’t work right now. The Big Ten members are going to receive $70 million to $100 million in distributions from their conference. If the Big Ten took Oregon, it would have to do it at a deep discount to justify it. The Ducks need to continue to invest heavily in football and make the playoff in football. I’m told by Pac-12 sources that an uneven distribution of bowl game revenue and units from the men’s basketball NCAA Tournament is on the table. Basically, if you win big in football and basketball, you get a larger share of the proceeds generated by your success. Previously, those winnings were split evenly among members. Oregon would benefit greatly from this new model, if it happens.

Q: A few weeks ago a alliance between the Pac-12 and the ACC sounded like the best option for both conferences going forward. I haven’t heard any talk of the alliance lately and heard no mention at Pac-12 media day of the ACC. — @dpstang

A: I’m told a “loose partnership” is still very much on the table. It solves financial problems for the ACC and Pac-12 and allows ESPN to get the Pacific Time Zone and a pile of new content for ESPN+.

Q: What are you reporting on Pac-12 valuations? And compared to the Big 12? Also status update on the negotiation window? — @vakaviti

A: The Pac-12’s 30-day, exclusive negotiating window with ESPN and Fox expired Aug. 4. Industry experts did not expect a deal to be announced in the early window. Former Fox Sports Networks president Bob Thompson told me, “I think the conference will be wise and want to see who is on the outside looking in when the Big Ten option ends. There’s going to be some folks who expressed an interest in collegiate football who aren’t going to get it in the Big Ten deal.”

The Pac-12 will slow play this, then eat what’s leftover in the market. I believe the Pac-12 has some advantages over the Big 12 right now. Kickoffs in the Pacific Time Zone are especially attractive to ESPN, for example. Also, the current Pac-12 Network content is coveted by ESPN+. I think the Pac-12 will eclipse the Big 12 for those reasons. But ideally, you’d like both conferences to do well on the media rights front to ensure the overall health of college football.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Prison Bitch]

Cocks selling tix at Costco for their red hot SEC! matchups


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Interesting. Have not seen this before. <br><br>Gamecocks football tickets at Costco in West Ashley. <a href="https://t.co/EfMIKs3RQr">pic.twitter.com/EfMIKs3RQr</a></p>&mdash; Scott Eisberg (@SEisbergWCIV) <a href="https://twitter.com/SEisbergWCIV/status/1554967570696097792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Archie Bunker]

Pretty smart actually

[RustShack]

Cocks selling tix at Costco for their red hot SEC! matchups


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Interesting. Have not seen this before. <br><br>Gamecocks football tickets at Costco in West Ashley. <a href="https://t.co/EfMIKs3RQr">pic.twitter.com/EfMIKs3RQr</a></p>&mdash; Scott Eisberg (@SEisbergWCIV) <a href="https://twitter.com/SEisbergWCIV/status/1554967570696097792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I think I saw Rutgers was going the same thing last week.

[BWillie]

Cocks selling tix at Costco for their red hot SEC! matchups


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Interesting. Have not seen this before. <br><br>Gamecocks football tickets at Costco in West Ashley. <a href="https://t.co/EfMIKs3RQr">pic.twitter.com/EfMIKs3RQr</a></p>&mdash; Scott Eisberg (@SEisbergWCIV) <a href="https://twitter.com/SEisbergWCIV/status/1554967570696097792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Thats honestly a fantastic idea

[BryanBusby]

Cocks selling tix at Costco for their red hot SEC! matchups


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Interesting. Have not seen this before. <br><br>Gamecocks football tickets at Costco in West Ashley. <a href="https://t.co/EfMIKs3RQr">pic.twitter.com/EfMIKs3RQr</a></p>&mdash; Scott Eisberg (@SEisbergWCIV) <a href="https://twitter.com/SEisbergWCIV/status/1554967570696097792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
A lot of shit talking from a program that was begging fans to buy ticket for pennies on Groupon.

[KChiefs1]

Canzano: The price for Notre Dame to turn its back on the Big Ten is set

How much do the Irish need to stay independent?

Notre Dame loves its independence. But we’ll soon find out what that autonomy is worth when it comes to college football media rights and NBC.

The Irish have been with NBC since 1991. The current deal pays the university an average of $15 million a year. It expires in 2025. The Big Ten Conference would love to include Notre Dame as a member.

Fox’s deal with the Big Ten is expected to result in distributions to conference members in the $75 million to $80 million range.

So what happens with Notre Dame and NBC?

I turned to Fox Sports Networks president Bob Thompson for the answer. He’s negotiated a number of big-time media rights deals with a variety of sports conferences over the years.

“They have always taken a bit less TV money than others to retain their independence,” Thompson said. “As the gap widens, though, I have to think that they will have to get a significant increase to make it worthwhile to continue as an independent.”

Notre Dame’s current deal with NBC is backloaded. The Irish receive $22 million this year and will get $24.75 million from NBC in the final year of the deal. Notre Dame also receives $12 million-a-year in distributions from the ACC, where it’s a member in all sports except football and ice hockey.

Total take in the final year of the deal: $36.75 million

The Big Ten may covet Notre Dame and its golden brand, but as long as the Irish have access to the football playoff and a competitive pile of media rights revenue, they don’t need the conference affiliation. But what does Notre Dame need in total annual distributions to justify being independent?

Thompson’s estimate: $78 million in 2026.

Plus, four percent annual increases.

That’s the bar the Big Ten’s $1.25 billion deal with Fox is setting. If you assume the ACC distributions continue to rise in a way that is consistent with the market (3-4 percent annually), then NBC needs to increase its payment to a minimum of $65.7 million in 2026 to keep Notre Dame happy.

Dennis Dodd, of CBS Sports, recently reported that Notre Dame is “targeting” $75 million a year in payouts. Thompson’s estimates dovetail nicely with that figure. But there’s another wrinkle to consider.

Said Thompson: “Notre Dame does very well in the College Football Playoff payout area, especially considering that they don't have to share any payouts with other conference members.”

The payouts for an expanded playoff are expected to increase dramatically. Navigate, a Chicago-based data and consulting firm, demonstrated that an expanded, 12-team playoff would serve as a windfall.

It modeled what a 12-team event would have distributed annually had it existed from the inception of the playoff. Notre Dame was projected to reach the playoff 30 percent of the time and receive an average annual payout of $44 million, per Navigate. Best of all, the Irish wouldn’t have to split its playoff distributions like other conferences do.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220807/85e30bd33dc0cb29783ca780f83ae981.jpg

Notre Dame could join the expanded Big Ten, sure. But it would have to compete with Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan and others for playoff spots. Or it could just stay independent, rake in media rights money, and have an easier path to the playoff.

I’m hoping Notre Dame turns its back on the Big Ten. Not because I don’t think it could compete, but because I think it would further destabilize college football. The Irish, operating as an independent, help leave the door open for outsiders. They’re an interesting part of the ecosystem. Moving to the Big Ten would tip the scales. (For that reason, I suspect the SEC would secretly like the Irish to stay independent as well.)

What does Thompson expect to happen?

“So as long as Notre Dame can get NBC and ACC payouts that get it in the mid-$78 million per year and they have a continued, guaranteed path to College Football Playoff I really expect them to sit out this round of realignment,” he said.

That’s the number.

I’ll bet NBC and the Big Ten know it, too.

PAYOUT PIE: I studied Navigate’s 12-team playoff payout chart. The Pac-12 was estimated to put 1.7 teams in the playoff and receive $269 million in annual distributions.

Keep this in mind when it comes to two factors:

• The Pac-12 currently splits the playoff and bowl-game distributions equally. It does the same with “units” earned from the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments. I’m told by multiple sources that the Pac-12 has discussed rewarding teams that qualify for the football playoff and basketball postseason by giving them bonus shares of those distributions. Keep an eye on that. It’s merit based and would serve as an enticement to keep Oregon, Washington and potentially some others from getting restless.

• After the defections of USC and UCLA, the Pac-12 is left with only 10 members to share media revenue and bowl-game payouts. There’s been lots of speculation about whether the conference will expand and add San Diego State, UNLV, Fresno State, SMU or maybe poach Houston or some others from the Big 12.

The number of television households matters. So does brand. Consider that when you’re expanding, you’re dividing the postseason-payout pie in more slices, too. If the Pac-12’s annual distribution to an expanded playoff is projected to be $269 million — or $26.9 million to every member, if split evenly.

Add two teams?

That payout drops to $22.6 million.

It’s why the conference has to go slow and only make a no-brainer move when it comes to expansion. I think some form of unequal revenue sharing is going to happen. If I’m Oregon, for example, I don’t want to invest heavily in football, make the playoff and have to share that playoff distribution equally with others.

We’ve all been caught up on the necessity for the Pac-12 to add two members. Why two? It’s an even number of teams for scheduling purposes. But the more I think about it, I’m wondering if the Pac-12 might replace UCLA/USC with only one team — San Diego State? Someone else? It would leave one fewer mouth to feed.

CLOSING WINDOWS: The Pac-12’s exclusive, 30-day negotiating window with ESPN and Fox expired quietly last week.

No news.

No deal.

No nothing.

This sparked some to believe the 30-day period might have been extended. But that doesn’t make sense. The early and exclusive negotiating window doesn’t benefit the conference, it benefits the network partners.

The Pac-12 would never go for that.

Remember, the Pac-12 accelerated the negotiating window by holding an emergency meeting of the Pac-12 CEO Group in early July. The conference voted and announced it was “immediately” opening that 30-day period. Not so it could wait and then extend the window, but because the Pac-12 wanted to get through the 30-day period and get its media rights to the open market and other bidders ASAP.

It’s possible that ESPN and the Pac-12 are involved in a deep, complex negotiation involving a loose partnership with the ACC. It’s also possible that the Pac-12 is selling its in-house network to ESPN for use on ESPN+. That stuff would take time. But you don’t need to be in an exclusive negotiating window to have those conversations.

The more likely scenario is that the 30-day window expired and that the Pac-12 is now legally shopping itself to other media partners. Also, it’s probably waiting for the Big Ten to finish eating and set the market.



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[Bearcat]

Costco >>>>>>> TicketMaster




(wouldn't be surprised if TM still somehow profits from that though)

[KChiefs1]

Canzano: ESPN shut out of Big Ten? If true, great for the Pac-12

Report: ESPN will be without Big Ten football and basketball

The Sports Business Journal posted an interesting story on the Big Ten’s media rights negotiations. John Ourand, a very good reporter, had the goods:

Barring a last-minute change of direction in the Big Ten’s media rights negotiations, ESPN will be without the conference’s football and basketball games for the first time in 40 years. With Big Ten negotiations nearing an end -- I’m told agreements could be reached by the end of this week or push into next -- CBS and NBC have emerged as the clear front runners to pick up Big Ten rights alongside Fox Sports.

Some rapid-fire thoughts:

• This could be a leak, designed to tweak ESPN for a few bucks. A couple of industry insiders that I communicated with wondered if the news was the Big Ten doing some public negotiating. Keep an eye on that.

• Does the Big Ten think NBC can help steer Notre Dame into its arms down the road? I wondered when I read the story. So did some others. The Big Ten would love Notre Dame in the fold. The Irish covet their independence. I took a deep dive on that on Sunday.

• NBC might want to position Notre Dame as a lead-in to the Big Ten’s weekly primetime game. Or it could flip flop the two products, week to week. Doing so would give the network a consistent Saturday football schedule.

• I also wondered if the Big Ten was trying to cannibalize some of the revenue that would have potentially gone to Notre Dame in its next deal. There is only so much money to spend and every dollar that the Big Ten eats is one less for the Irish, right?

• I floated that idea to Bob Thompson, the former president of Fox Sports Networks, on Monday evening. He said, “Problem with that is Notre Dame could walk down to ESPN and get a deal done in about 10 minutes.”

• Thompson also added, “If ESPN is on the outside that’s very good news for the Pac 12.”

• Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff told me on media day that the conference would wait to see what the Big Ten with its deal before acting. Meaning, the Pac-12 will allow the Big Ten to set the market and, also, see which networks are left on the outside, looking in. If ESPN is really not getting any Big Ten games, it’s not just good for the Pac-12, but also the Big 12, which will need to eat, too.

• I’ve written a lot about a “loose partnership” between the Pac-12 and ACC. I continue to hear this is a real possibility. ESPN may lean hard into making that happen if they don’t spend any money on the Big Ten.

• Imagine non-conference crossover football and basketball games between the ACC and Pac-12 on ABC/ESPN. Also, imagine conference championship week in the college football season where the ACC champion is pitted vs. the Pac-12 champion in Las Vegas. No. 2 vs. No. 2? No. 3 vs. No. 3? Basically, a late-season festival, presented by ESPN?

• If ESPN’s relationship with the Big Ten is indeed over, it would signal the end of a long-running partnership. Ourand pointed out in his piece that ABC started carrying Big Ten games in 1966. ESPN cut its first deal with the conference in 1982. But this era of college football appears to be the place where traditions go to die.

• USC and UCLA know what I’m talking about.

• CBS lost the SEC games in the last round of negotiations. It needs inventory in the 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time Zone window on Saturdays. So CBS makes a lot of sense as a partner for the Big Ten.

• This whole thing is being positioned by some as an ESPN vs. Fox battle. Industry experts don’t see it that way. During the NFL season, does anyone see it as a Fox (NFC) vs. CBS (AFC) battle? Or do we just watch football?

Thompson, the former head of Fox Sports Networks told me:

“Saturdays are just gonna look like Sundays.”

“Why is everyone making this about Fox vs ESPN. Nobody says that about Fox vs CBS as it relates to NFL! This is just business and placing your network in the best position for a piece of the next iteration of the CFP playoffs.”

It’s just business, folks.

I’ll have more as this develops…



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[lawrenceRaider]

Canzano: ESPN shut out of Big Ten? If true, great for the Pac-12

Report: ESPN will be without Big Ten football and basketball

The Sports Business Journal posted an interesting story on the Big Ten’s media rights negotiations. John Ourand, a very good reporter, had the goods:

Barring a last-minute change of direction in the Big Ten’s media rights negotiations, ESPN will be without the conference’s football and basketball games for the first time in 40 years. With Big Ten negotiations nearing an end -- I’m told agreements could be reached by the end of this week or push into next -- CBS and NBC have emerged as the clear front runners to pick up Big Ten rights alongside Fox Sports.

Some rapid-fire thoughts:

• This could be a leak, designed to tweak ESPN for a few bucks. A couple of industry insiders that I communicated with wondered if the news was the Big Ten doing some public negotiating. Keep an eye on that.

• Does the Big Ten think NBC can help steer Notre Dame into its arms down the road? I wondered when I read the story. So did some others. The Big Ten would love Notre Dame in the fold. The Irish covet their independence. I took a deep dive on that on Sunday.

• NBC might want to position Notre Dame as a lead-in to the Big Ten’s weekly primetime game. Or it could flip flop the two products, week to week. Doing so would give the network a consistent Saturday football schedule.

• I also wondered if the Big Ten was trying to cannibalize some of the revenue that would have potentially gone to Notre Dame in its next deal. There is only so much money to spend and every dollar that the Big Ten eats is one less for the Irish, right?

• I floated that idea to Bob Thompson, the former president of Fox Sports Networks, on Monday evening. He said, “Problem with that is Notre Dame could walk down to ESPN and get a deal done in about 10 minutes.”

• Thompson also added, “If ESPN is on the outside that’s very good news for the Pac 12.”

• Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff told me on media day that the conference would wait to see what the Big Ten with its deal before acting. Meaning, the Pac-12 will allow the Big Ten to set the market and, also, see which networks are left on the outside, looking in. If ESPN is really not getting any Big Ten games, it’s not just good for the Pac-12, but also the Big 12, which will need to eat, too.

• I’ve written a lot about a “loose partnership” between the Pac-12 and ACC. I continue to hear this is a real possibility. ESPN may lean hard into making that happen if they don’t spend any money on the Big Ten.

• Imagine non-conference crossover football and basketball games between the ACC and Pac-12 on ABC/ESPN. Also, imagine conference championship week in the college football season where the ACC champion is pitted vs. the Pac-12 champion in Las Vegas. No. 2 vs. No. 2? No. 3 vs. No. 3? Basically, a late-season festival, presented by ESPN?

• If ESPN’s relationship with the Big Ten is indeed over, it would signal the end of a long-running partnership. Ourand pointed out in his piece that ABC started carrying Big Ten games in 1966. ESPN cut its first deal with the conference in 1982. But this era of college football appears to be the place where traditions go to die.

• USC and UCLA know what I’m talking about.

• CBS lost the SEC games in the last round of negotiations. It needs inventory in the 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time Zone window on Saturdays. So CBS makes a lot of sense as a partner for the Big Ten.

• This whole thing is being positioned by some as an ESPN vs. Fox battle. Industry experts don’t see it that way. During the NFL season, does anyone see it as a Fox (NFC) vs. CBS (AFC) battle? Or do we just watch football?

Thompson, the former head of Fox Sports Networks told me:

“Saturdays are just gonna look like Sundays.”

“Why is everyone making this about Fox vs ESPN. Nobody says that about Fox vs CBS as it relates to NFL! This is just business and placing your network in the best position for a piece of the next iteration of the CFP playoffs.”

It’s just business, folks.

I’ll have more as this develops…



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You a paid sunshine pumper for Canzano?

[RustShack]

You a paid sunshine pumper for Canzano?

I think he’s just one of the few living PAC fans left.

[Al Bundy]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Kansas?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Kansas</a> fan believes that the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/B1G?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#B1G</a> and the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SEC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SEC</a> are going to be fighting over the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Jayhawks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Jayhawks</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RockChalk?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RockChalk</a> <a href="https://t.co/rRcIYTaCSB">pic.twitter.com/rRcIYTaCSB</a></p>&mdash; Message Board Geniuses (@BoardGeniuses) <a href="https://twitter.com/BoardGeniuses/status/1556781447612096512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 8, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[KChiefs1]

You a paid sunshine pumper for Canzano?


I just like the guy & he is pretty in tune with the realignment stuff.


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[KChiefs1]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Kansas?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Kansas</a> fan believes that the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/B1G?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#B1G</a> and the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SEC?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SEC</a> are going to be fighting over the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Jayhawks?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Jayhawks</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RockChalk?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RockChalk</a> <a href="https://t.co/rRcIYTaCSB">pic.twitter.com/rRcIYTaCSB</a></p>— Message Board Geniuses (@BoardGeniuses) <a href="https://twitter.com/BoardGeniuses/status/1556781447612096512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 8, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


https://media1.giphy.com/media/l5DePfMmB09ZVkh3Af/giphy.gif


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[Prison Bitch]

Yeah that’s dumb. Kansas and Dook are terrible fits for the sec and neither side would benefit. Some folks are bored

[Bearcat]

WTF is he talking about with "P2 gets the tourney" over and over and over?

Is he just saying the "power 2" gets a bunch of teams into March Madness?

[lawrenceRaider]

I just like the guy & he is pretty in tune with the realignment stuff.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

By in touch, you mean just repeats anything/everything that gets spammed around and hopes something sticks?

[RustShack]

By in touch, you mean just repeats anything/everything that gets spammed around and hopes something sticks?

He also spins everything he can has a positive for the PAC.

[KChiefs1]

Canzano: Pac-12 Conference gets a much-needed win

"Our strategy is sound."

The Big Ten Conference won’t partner with ESPN in the next cycle of media rights contracts, per reports. For the first time in 40 years, the Big Ten football and men’s basketball games won’t be included among the worldwide leader’s programming.

The Pac-12 is smiling today.

The Big Ten issued a statement saying nothing has been “finalized.” Still, if this holds up, it appears the “Conference of Champions” finally got a much-needed win.

ESPN reportedly pulled the plug on negotiations, walking from a seven-year, $380-million-a-year deal that would have left the network behind Fox and NBC in weekly pecking order. John Ourand, of Sports Business Journal, had the news first.

Word ripped across the Pac-12 footprint on Tuesday morning. It was greeted with enthusiasm and optimism. Conference athletic directors were already tuned in, aware that ESPN is the most likely Tier 1 bidder for the Pac-12’s rights. But the fear was that the network might overspend to continue its relationship with the Big Ten.

“This is where the real work begins,” said one Pac-12 Conference AD.

“Our strategy is sound,” added another.

“This contributes to further stability for the 10,” said a third.

Fox locked up the Tier 1 rights for the Big Ten weeks ago for an estimated $500 million a year. NBC and CBS are likely coming at $380 million and $350 million each for the second and third positions. Total estimated take: $1.23 billion. Because Fox owns 60 percent of the Big Ten Network, it sat in on negotiations for the Big Ten’s No. 2 and No. 3 partners.

Bob Thompson, the former Fox Sports Networks president, told me Fox’s presence in the room wasn’t customary.

“It probably made the other networks very uncomfortable.”

ESPN reportedly balked at a deal with the Big Ten. If the Pac-12 could have performed a cartwheel, it would have. It’s been a gut-wrenching five weeks since USC and UCLA announced they were defecting to the Big Ten. One Pac-12 athletic director who has been part of the turmoil associated with several different conference expansions and realignments offered some context.

“It always starts with shock, surprise and frustration, then folks who weren’t invited start knocking on doors asking why not us?” he said. “Then the dust settles and folks confront reality.”

The reality?

The Pac-12 now needs to capitalize. It needs a strong, creative and lucrative media rights package and possible expansion. Those things now walk hand in hand.

George Kliavkoff, the Pac-12 commissioner, worked as an executive at Hulu in its infancy. He was also employed at NBC Universal. The new commissioner had a low bar to clear when he took over for Larry Scott and got good marks. But this media rights stuff is the kind of work Kliavkoff was hired to do. He’ll be judged on what happens in the next month.

Some additional thoughts:

• NBC is clearly trying to replicate its successful Sunday Night Football experience with a matching Saturday night college football bonanza. But Thompson, the former Fox executive, points out that “they aren’t going to have an exclusive window like they will on Sunday night. There’s gonna be a lot of other college games in that window. NBC’s pick is probably going to be the second or third best game that week.”

I’m not sure it works as well. You?

• Once the dust settles on media rights negotiations, access to the expanded College Football Playoff will become the major point of focus for all conferences. It will create a massive windfall for the conferences that participate. It’s why the media rights payouts and network affiliations are vital.

I expect the Big Ten’s wish to include multiple media bidders for the playoff right will result in an NFL-like scenario where viewers watch playoff games on a variety of networks. But will viewers really watch college football playoff games like it’s the NFL?

• Two weeks ago, I asked Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff which was more important: A) media rights revenue; or B) access to the playoff. He said: “Both.”

You can’t easily have B without A, though. We’ve learned that in watching the Pac-12 fall woefully behind in the four-team playoff format.

• Kliavkoff told me at Pac-12 Media Day that he would wait to see what the Big Ten did with its media partners. Once that is settled, he anticipated the negotiations getting serious for the Pac-12. It feels that we’ve just about arrived at that juncture.

I’ll have more as this unfolds…



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[Spicy McHaggis]

WTF is he talking about with "P2 gets the tourney" over and over and over?

Is he just saying the "power 2" gets a bunch of teams into March Madness?

I have no idea what he's on about there.

If his other point is that the B1G could add KU and have their share be equivalent or slightly less than their respective revenue add to the conference's value, he's probably right.

I don't think there are any schools outside the SEC and B1G that wouldn't take a substantially reduced share % in exchange for that golden ticket.

It's not going to happen. If they have 4 spots to fill there are a number of higher value targets that would need to say no before that sort of discussion even occurred.

[BWillie]

I have no idea what he's on about there.

If his other point is that the B1G could add KU and have their share be equivalent or slightly less than their respective revenue add to the conference's value, he's probably right.

I don't think there are any schools outside the SEC and B1G that wouldn't take a substantially reduced share % in exchange for that golden ticket.

It's not going to happen. If they have 4 spots to fill there are a number of higher value targets that would need to say no before that sort of discussion even occurred.

If the Big10 and SEC do remove themselves from the NCAA and have their own postseason tournament for basketball....then KUs value skyrockets. The problem is there isn't enough teams to make it work for the common fan. Common fans need Shithead State vs LSU for some reason to watch.

[KChiefs1]

With ESPN reportedly out, here's how your college football TV routine will change with Big Ten's brewing media deal

It looks like the Big Ten is on the verge of finalizing its new media rights deal. And according to Sports Business Journal, ESPN won’t be a part of it.

SBJ reported Tuesday morning that ESPN has pulled out of the negotiations. Without ESPN involved, the Big Ten’s deal is expected to include three entities: Fox, CBS and NBC.

Fox, which has a 60% stake in Big Ten Network, would be the conference’s primary rights holder with CBS and NBC also part of the agreement.

It would mark a major shift in the media landscape as ESPN’s first deal with the Big Ten dates back to 1982. Additionally, ABC first carried Big Ten games in 1966.

With ESPN out of the equation, a Big Ten Saturday could look like this: a noon game on Fox, a 3:30 p.m. game on CBS and a prime-time game on NBC. According to SBJ, Big Ten games would also air on FS1 and Big Ten Network with Peacock, NBC’s streaming service, also in the mix.

Additionally, according to The Athletic, a “streaming package” with Amazon or Apple could also be part of the deal.

The long-negotiated deal, which has been rumored to be worth in excess of $1 billion, “could be reached by the end of this week or push into next week,” per SBJ.

The Big Ten’s current media rights deal expires in 2023.

A lifeline for the Big 12 and/or Pac-12?

If ESPN is indeed out on the Big Ten negotiations, a significant portion of the network’s inventory goes by the wayside. To fill that void, ESPN could turn to the Big 12 and Pac-12.

Both conferences lost major members in realignment with Texas and Oklahoma departing the Big 12 for the SEC, and USC and UCLA leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. Without those marquee members, particularly in the Pac-12’s case, the media rights of those conferences are nowhere near as lucrative as they once were.

Still, this has to be viewed as a positive development for the Pac-12, which began its media rights negotiating window early last month (the Big 12’s deal expires in 2025). ESPN wants live sports to broadcast, particularly in late-night windows. The Pac-12, should it remain together, could certainly provide that with its remaining members.

The Big Ten is setting the market with this deal.

Thoughts on the CFP, Notre Dame and more

A few other thoughts:

ESPN is the exclusive rights holder of the SEC, and losing out on the Big Ten could provide further incentive to get Texas and Oklahoma into the SEC before 2025. It also makes you wonder if ESPN would have interest in pulling some strings to accelerate some sort of merger or partnership between the Pac-12 and ACC.

Would ESPN want to strike deals with the Big 12 and Pac-12, or would some of the remaining Pac-12 teams — like Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah — make more sense in an expanded Big 12? I’m not sure that would make the deal significantly more lucrative, but only having to put in a bid for one conference is cheaper than two.

How does this impact the TV deal for the College Football Playoff? If the CFP expands, could we be heading toward a setup that resembles the NFL playoffs with games played across multiple networks with the national title game rotating between networks on a yearly basis like the Super Bowl? The current CFP contract expires in 2026.

Does NBC’s involvement sway Notre Dame one way or the other? We all know the Big Ten would love to add Notre Dame, which has long retained its independence. Will the fact that the Big Ten now extends to the West Coast make joining the conference more appealing to the Irish brass?


https://sports.yahoo.com/heres-how-your-college-football-tv-routine-will-change-with-big-tens-reported-brewing-media-deal-025521582.html


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[lawrenceRaider]

If the Big10 and SEC do remove themselves from the NCAA and have their own postseason tournament for basketball....then KUs value skyrockets. The problem is there isn't enough teams to make it work for the common fan. Common fans need Shithead State vs LSU for some reason to watch.

The NCAA tournament is the most popular sports event.

People who root for underdogs root for big upsets, and get at least one most years. The unpredictable nature of it makes for amazing TV.

[KChiefs1]

Pat Forde: SEC Commissioner Says It’s Time to Take a ‘Fresh Look’ at March Madness

Greg Sankey potentially has his eyes on expanding the 68-team men’s field.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, probably the most influential person in college athletics, said Thursday he wants to take “a fresh look” at the NCAA men’s basketball tournament—perhaps with an eye toward expansion of the current 68-team field.

Sankey cautions that he is “not ready to make headlines there yet.” But he also is open to conversations about a Big Dance that doesn’t exclude small-conference champions while potentially including more teams.

As an example, he mentions the 2022 College World Series baseball championship, which was won by SEC member Mississippi—the last team into the 64-team field.

“If the last team in can win the national championship, and they’re in the 30s or 40s from an RPI or [NCAA] NET standpoint, is our current approach supporting national championship competition?” Sankey asks. “I think there’s health in that conversation. That doesn’t exclude people. It goes to: How do we include people in these annual national celebrations that lead to a national champion?”

Sankey’s remarks pertained to the men’s tournament, but given the recent NCAA emphasis on an equal tournament experience for both the men and women, it is conceivable the discussion of an expanded bracket would also apply to the women’s tournament as well.

There has been a rising tide of concern about being left out of March Madness among conferences that send only their tournament winners to the NCAA tourney—the underdogs who so often give the event their best moments and unique flavor. Some of that comes from comments Sankey reportedly made to members of the Division I Council earlier this summer about the NCAA tournament looking different in the future.

Sankey stresses that he said the tourney “could” change, not that it would. But the suspicion among some mid-major and low-major programs is that their automatic bids would instead be given to more teams from the rich and powerful multi-bid leagues.

“March Madness will become much more controlled by a handful of schools,” Florida Gulf Coast president Michael Martin told a Fort Myers TV station recently. “And automatic qualifiers that we now get from being in the A-Sun will disappear.”

Sankey, though, makes no mention of potentially taking away automatic bids. He’s aware that tinkering with one of the most popular formulas in college sports could lead to enormous backlash. Instead, he talks about the quality of teams that either just barely make the field or are left out.

“I thought [SEC member] Texas A&M should have been in the field in basketball [last season],” Sankey says. “People didn’t agree. But the way they played at the end of the year, I firmly think they were one of the better teams in the country. I’m biased. But somebody else, Dayton was one of the first four out.

“Look at what UCLA did as an 11-seed [in 2021], what Virginia Commonwealth did as an 11-seed [in 2011], what Syracuse did as an 11-seed [in 2018]. Those are three teams that played [in the First Four] in Dayton and went to the Final Four eventually. It should broaden our thinking.”

(Sankey was conflating two Syracuse appearances. In 2016, it made the Final Four as a 10-seed that did not play in Dayton, but played against Dayton. In 2018, Syracuse was in the First Four in Dayton but was eliminated in the Sweet 16.)

One potential method of expansion—which was not raised by Sankey—would be to have a quartet of First Fours, one at each region. That would increase the total number of bids from 68 to 80.

But quadrupling the moving parts also would increase the logistical hurdles for the NCAA. Getting eight teams to Dayton in short order after Selection Sunday, then dispersing the winners to various sites around the country with a fair chance in their first-round games, is not easy.

Still, Sankey sounds willing to explore several options for a bigger Big Dance.

“Just take a fresh look at all of it,” he says. “As we think collectively, everyone goes to the corner and says, ‘I have to hang on to what’s mine.’ But how do we contribute and build it better together?”



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[PHOG]

Translation: SEC SEC SEC

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

Sankey is ridiculous.

68 is more than enough. Extend it to 96 and the 97th team starts whining.

[BWillie]

Sankey is ridiculous.

68 is more than enough. Extend it to 96 and the 97th team starts whining.

Yeah its ridiculously too big now. If they do make more teams in it then protected top seeds sure as shit better get home games up to a certain point.

[RustShack]

If it expands I’d do two auto bids. I’m 100% fine with how it is now and would leave it, but I might add a second auto bid per conference. One as is for tournament champions, and the other for conference champions. That wouldn’t change anything at the P6 level, but would help some from other conferences who have their bids “stolen” by an upset in the conference tournament.

But obviously Sankey wants more SEC schools in March Madness, so he wouldn’t agree to that. Same reason he wants the football playoffs expanded(as we all do, but he just wants more SEC schools in there).

[Chief Pagan]

Put 128 teams in and every match up is a win three out of five series and start March Madness in November.

What's not to like?

[Pepe Silvia]

Put in 1,000 teams.

[Saulbadguy]

idc about any of this, but I apologize for making an AIDS joke 11 years ago.

[Bearcat]

idc about any of this, but I apologize for making an AIDS joke 11 years ago.

To be fair, the old one was before we could ban people from threads, so the comment is basically true in that it couldn't even protect itself from the common troll.

[displacedinMN]

Big Ten=Big Money

The Big Ten's new $7 billion media rights deal will string the conference's top football games across three major networks each week, creating an NFL-style television schedule on Saturdays.

The Big Ten announced Thursday it has reached seven-year agreements with Fox, CBS and NBC to share the rights to the conference's football and basketball games.

The deals go into effect in 2023, expire in 2030 and eventually will allow the conference's soon-to-be 16 member universities to share more than $1 billion per year, pushing the total value of the agreements past $7 billion, a person familiar with the terms told The Associated Press.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because Big Ten and network officials were not disclosing financial details publicly, but the deal is believed to be the richest ever on an annual basis for a college sports property. The large increase in revenue to the conference won't kick in until the third year of the deal and gradually will increase over the final five years.

"I think what it does, it affords us the opportunity to make sure that we can continually do the things we need to do to take care of our student-athletes, to fortify our institutions, to build our programs," Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren told the AP.

The deal sets a new benchmark in the college sports arms race, which is based heavily on TV money. The Southeastern Conference has a deal with ESPN that starts in 2024 and is also worth upward of $7 billion, but over 10 years. That deal was announced before the conference moved to expand to 16 schools with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma.

The Big Ten currently has 14 members, stretching from Rutgers and Maryland on the East Coast to Nebraska across the Midwest, and covering some of the biggest media markets in the country, including New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.

In 2024, Southern California and UCLA are scheduled to join the Big Ten, adding the Los Angeles market to its footprint.

Former Fox Sports President Bob Thompson said adding teams from the second-largest media market in the country (5.8 million homes) had to make the conference even more appealing to TV networks.

Plus, the West Coast schools should help increase what conference can make off its cable network in that part of the country.

"The economics of that alone are rather large," Thompson said. "If you get 3 million people all of sudden get the Big Ten network as part of their expanded basic (cable package), that's $3 million a month. Compared to what they had been getting which is like $3 million a year."

With ESPN out of the equation for Big Ten football after a 40-year relationship, the league is set to lock down three prominent time slots with its network partners.

Fox, which has shared the rights to the Big Ten with ESPN since 2017 and owns a majority stake in BTN, will continue to feature noon Eastern time as its primary game of the day.

Fox and its cable network FS1 will have the rights to more than two dozen football games, at least 45 men's basketball games and women's basketball games.

CBS, starting in 2024, will replace the Southeastern Conference game of the week at 3:30 p.m. Eastern — that is moving to ABC — with a Big Ten game.

CBS will carry 14-15 Big Ten football games a season from 2024-29, including a Black Friday game. Unlike with its longtime SEC deal, CBS will not be guaranteed the first selection of football games each week with the Big Ten. Fox, CBS and NBC will hold a draft for games, allowing each network some opportunities for first selection in a given week.

In 2023, CBS will carry seven Big Ten games while it still has the SEC on CBS at 3:30 p.m. Eastern. The network will continue to be the home of Big Ten men's basketball, including the conference tournament semifinals and finals, and it will begin airing the women's basketball tournament championship.

"When we did our financial analysis, and looked at the major markets — even before USC and UCLA — and the national footprint of the Big Ten, it was a very attractive deal for us," said Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports. "And I think the money is fair. It's unprecedented. They're the largest deals in the history of college football."

Starting in 2023, NBC will launch "Big Ten Saturday Night" in prime time and broadcast 15-16 games per season. The agreement with NBC also includes eight football games and dozens of men's and women's basketball games per season to be exclusively streamed on Peacock, the network's online subscription service. NBC also has a separate, longstanding broadcast deal with Notre Dame, which remains unaffiliated with a conference.

Each network will air the Big Ten's championship football game at least once during the length of the deals, with Fox securing the rights to four (2023, '25, '27 and '29).

Warren spent more than two decades working as an executive in the front office of three NFL teams. He said the Big Ten's vision for its new broadcast deal was modeled after an NFL Sunday, with three consecutive marquee games across three different networks, airing from noon to nearly midnight Eastern.

"I just thought where we were in the Big Ten, we had a very unique opportunity because we have the institutions that could do it," Warren said. "We have the fan avidity. We have the breadth, we have the historical foundation, that we were in a position to really do something unique with three powerful brands in Fox, CBS and NBC."

The Big Ten's alignment with three traditional networks shows that while streaming might be the future, linear television is not dead.

"It may be dying in certain aspects. You could say things like scripted dramas. Sitcoms. But for sports and news, it's never been stronger," Thompson said.

"The conferences or leagues are a little reticent to make that big of a jump from the wide, wide distribution of broadcast television," he added. "Now you're going to jump to the streaming service, which in the big scheme of things, the numbers are still relatively small in terms of how many people watch and use them."

[KChiefs1]

Dennis Dodd: Further Big Ten expansion could open door for additional revenue, broadcast partners

Though the Big Ten reached a historic seven-year deal with CBS, Fox and NBC on Thursday, the conference may soon have more inventory on its plate. The Big Ten may consider further expansion before -- or even after -- its new media rights agreement with the three broadcast behemoths on July 1, 2023.

CBS Sports reported last month the Big Ten was evaluating California, Oregon, Stanford and Washington as potential future league members. Rightsholders pushed back on the notion as they did not believe those current Pac-12 schools would bring equal value to the league as USC and UCLA did upon being added. CBS Sports subsequently reported interest had cooled on those four schools; however, adding those four schools would create additional inventory for the Big Ten, which could result in ESPN getting a piece of the action.

Though the Big Ten has expressed interest in Notre Dame, there is growing sentiment the Fighting Irish will remain independent, sources told CBS Sports.

Much was made Thursday of ESPN walking away from bidding on the rights to the Big Ten, ending what had been a 40-year relationship with the cable sports giant airing Big Ten football and basketball games.

Should it expand, the Big Ten would need a rightsholder (or rightsholders) to pay for its extra inventory. CBS, Fox and NBC already have their schedules set with what they believe to be cost certainty -- number games to be televised, windows to televise those games and a "selection draft" for the most desirable games.

"I would keep that window open for ESPN," a high-profile source with extensive knowledge of media rights told CBS Sports. "Until all this is done, there are lots of moving parts. Never say never."

ESPN will still show nonconference games and bowl games involving Big Ten teams as part of its existing deals with other Power Five conferences. And there is no use in the Big Ten alienating ESPN, which will be among the networks falling all over themselves to bid on what is expected to be an expanded College Football Playoff in the next few years.

"I don't think there's any concern [regarding expansion]," said CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus. "We have really good exclusivity provisions in our contract. I can't go into specifics, but our window [to show games] is protected.

"If there were additional games to be added in different time slots, we would certainly take a look at that. I'm sure NBC and Fox would also. Expansion, by and large, would only be a positive. But we would have to find windows and time slots to air any potential games but that would be a benefit to everybody."

McManus spoke only about the concept of Big Ten expansion, not referring to any specific schools or addressing the likelihood of it occurring.

It may be only a coincidence, but it was noticed throughout the industry when Anil Gollahalli was hired away from Oklahoma by the Big Ten in March to become the league's chief legal officer. That was three months before USC and UCLA joined the league.

Gollahalli had been with OU for 14 years. He was obviously in place when the Sooners made the move from Big 12 to the SEC. Prior to that, he guided the school through two rounds of Big 12 realignment including the Pac-12's failed attempt to take half the Big 12, including Oklahoma, in 2010.

There are already huge implications to the Big Ten growing to 16 teams with a record rights deal. The SEC and Big Ten will further separate themselves from the rest of major-college football with their schools making at least $30 million more annually compared to the rest of FBS.


Fallout from the Big Ten media rights deal
Futures of Pac-12, Big 12 hang in the balance: Separate from any Big Ten discussion, ESPN now has a chance to become somewhat of a "kingmaker" regarding these leagues. Each conference is eying the other's schools in what could become the next big realignment story. Without a Big Ten deal, ESPN has theoretically freed up money to spend as both conferences are currently in flux.

The Pac-12 is desirable because ESPN would not otherwise have any games in the valuable "fourth window" -- after 10 p.m. ET. The "Pac-12 After Dark" tag has been ridiculed by some, but it would be valuable to ESPN.

Taken to the extreme, it's worth asking: Would ESPN now have an influence over which league survives this round of realignment? There is already word circulating that the Pac-12 -- in the middle of its own media rights negotiations -- might have to agree to a media rights contract that allows Cal, Oregon Stanford and Washington an "out" if approached by another conference.


It is already known that any combination of the two leagues doesn't necessarily add value to one or the other. The Pac-12's current deal expires in 2024, while the Big 12's deal with Fox and ESPN ends in 2025.

There is some feeling in the industry that, if the Big 12 doesn't strike now and snag some Pac-12 teams, the opportunity might be lost. "This is their window," one insider said of the Big 12. "If they can't do it now, I would think the Pac-12 is going to find their financial situation."

There is still value to the remaining 10 Pac-12 teams staying together because Oregon and Washington are considered next-best schools "available" following USC and UCLA's departure to the Big Ten; however, neither school brings pro rata (equal value) to a 16-team Big Ten.

But in the Pac-12? They have plenty of leverage. That has led to speculation Oregon and Washington could agree to stay in a reconstituted Pac-12 with an uneven revenue distribution paying the Ducks and Huskies more than other programs. If the pair make that demand, what option would commissioner George Kliavkoff have to consider?

New Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is being aggressive in realignment if judged only by his comment last month at media days. "The Big 12 is open for business," he said.

Despite the upheaval, the Pac-12 still has an advantage because it is closer to calling for a show of hands (grant of rights) in a new agreement than the Big 12. The Big 12 is at least a year from the beginning of formal negotiations on a new rights deal.

Closest thing to the NFL: It's more than coincidence that the Big Ten and SEC combined have the same amount of teams as the NFL, 32. There have already been comparisons the leagues are so NFL-like that the SEC might as well be the AFC and the Big Ten the NFC. "I have heard that," Warren said.

They will be mini corporations running themselves with little or no NCAA oversight. That is a certainty. Deregulation is coming soon, perhaps by the end of the month. That means less enforcement and perhaps fewer FBS members to dilute the voting process. The two big boys will have such a monopoly the transfer portal and NIL won't matter. They will control it all. Revenue sharing? Cool. Pay the players? No problem.

The amount on money in the system as a whole -- not just in the Big Ten and SEC -- adds questions to how much of it should go to athletes in the future. The Big Ten recently endured what must be characterized as a unionization effort at Penn State. Some representatives are seeking a student-athlete bill of rights in Congress. NIL has made overnight millionaires of some athletes.

Warren reiterated to CBS Sports that he is open to learning more about unionization. "In the next couple of months, I'm going to be digging into the legitimate facts regarding unionization," he said.

There is no College Football Playoff without these two leagues, so why wait to expand until 2026 like the CFP contract says? A 16-team playoff has already been discussed by FBS commissioners.

These 32 are about to form a different way to think about college football. Big Ten has the best markets and biggest population. SEC has the best traditions, best recruiting grounds and most successful programs over the last 15 years. Together, they offer the best college football. Does anything else matter?

The implications are huge. The move all but formalizes the separation by the SEC and Big Ten from the rest of the sport. There are even dueling major networks representing each conference. How that plays out in the future is anyone's guess. There has never been this battleground for advertisers, ratings, recruiting, even playoff berths at this level.

To get a glimpse of the future, take a look at the 2022 CBS Sports Preseason All-America team released Wednesday. Accounting for USC, UCLA, Texas and Oklahoma in their 2024 conferences, the SEC and Big Ten would have combined for 70% of the first-team selections (19 of 27).

The CFP hopes to arrive on an expansion decision by next summer. FBS commissioners have let it be known they prefer multiple partners on the next CFP contract that expands after the 2026 championship.

Circle of life: The outgoing Big Ten chair, Northwestern president Morton Schapiro, is a former chair of the USC economics department. In that sense, the Big Ten continues to take from the Pac-12. Schapiro is being replaced at Northwestern by Oregon president Michael Schill.

Schill currently serves on the NCAA Board of Directors, which will approve how the association looks in the future with deregulation on the way. That deregulation will have to account for a consolidation at the top of college athletics, in part, because of the Big Ten and SEC media
deals.

Warren, 58, has now overseen the biggest college TV deal in history two years after controversially cancelling the Big Ten season -- then reinstating it -- over COVID-19. This deal reinforces his place, along with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, as one of the most powerful
persons in college sports.

The deal sets a new benchmark in the college sports arms race, which is based heavily on TV money. The Southeastern Conference has a deal with ESPN that starts in 2024 and is also worth upward of $7 billion, but over 10 years. That deal was announced before the conference moved to expand to 16 schools with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma.

"Before I came here, even to this day, I stayed incredibly prayerful," Warren said. "I do the best I can, have a tremendous work ethic, stay optimistic and try to keep stacking really good days. I'm not really one of those persons who reflects a lot."

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/further-big-ten-expansion-could-open-door-for-additional-revenue-broadcast-partners/

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[RustShack]

It’s time for PAC schools to jump. Conference is dead in the water.

[KChiefs1]

Canzano: Pac-12 on high alert after Big Ten reveal

Conference must play defense with Oregon, Washington, and others.

At halftime of the Oregon-Ohio State football game last season, I bumped into Kevin Warren and George Kliavkoff in the press box of Ohio Stadium.

The Big Ten commissioner and Pac-12 commissioner were good buddies back then. They were eating meals together and sat alongside each other at the game. After all, Warren and Kliavkoff were part of the so-called “alliance” and the two men humored me by posing for a quick photograph in the hallway.

The Big Ten Conference unveiled the details of its seven-year media rights deal on Thursday. It’s worth $1.2 billion a year, but the real kicker was the room it left for further conference expansion and lucrative escalation of the deal.

Be certain, Warren isn’t done trying to raid the Pac-12. Be sure, Kliavkoff knows it and understands his job just got more difficult.

More on that in a moment.

First a few quick thoughts on the Big Ten’s deal:

• $1.2 billion per year average over seven years is in line with the $1.23 billion estimate that former Fox Sports Networks President Bob Thompson floated to me a few weeks ago. He’s been money on this stuff, in part, because he’s negotiated a bunch of these deals himself.

• Thompson crunched the numbers again on Thursday and figured out that the media-rights distribution to Big Ten members caps out at $78.2 million per university in 2029-30.

• Neither Amazon nor Apple made it to the dance floor. Peacock is the only party with an exclusive-streaming package. This surprised some industry insiders who expected Amazon and Apple to be bigger players. Maybe this bodes well for the Pac-12? Or maybe it’s just too soon for the streamers to be factors. We’ll soon know.

• Also absent — ESPN. This was widely reported and not a surprise. For the first time in 40 years the network won’t carry Big Ten football or men’s basketball games. The Big 12 and Pac-12 must have smiled when they heard this.

• The Big Ten’s deal made some accommodations for CBS. Seven games in the first year, then it jumps to 15 games in 2024. The prevailing thought is that the Big Ten probably also made some accommodations for NBC to put Notre Dame games in primetime.

• The UC Regents are still discussing UCLA’s departure to the Big Ten. After seeing the Big Ten’s media rights deal, I’m less optimistic that the system will effectively block the Bruins’ exit. UCLA signed on with the Big Ten as the conference was negotiating this rights package. I’m not a lawyer, but a breach of that contract would most assuredly trigger significant damages. It feels like the face-saving move by the UC Regents might be to try and force UCLA to share some of its new-found loot with Cal.

• USC and UCLA took the money and ran to the Big Ten. Any of the remaining 10 athletic directors and presidents/chancellors in the Pac-12 would have likely done the same thing when offered $70-plus million a year in distributions.

Kliavkoff’s job got a little more difficult today. He not only needs to out-maneuver the Big 12 for a deal with ESPN, his Big Ten worries aren’t going away, either. Kliavkoff knows that the Big Ten would love to someday add Washington, Oregon, Stanford and Cal for a potential “west” division that would ease the travel concerns for USC and UCLA.

Lose two teams, and you pull yourself together and scrape by.

Lose six?

You’re cooked.

It’s why Kliavkoff has to be at his absolute best in the next few months. He’ll need to hold together his membership — particularly Oregon — while simultaneously negotiating the conference’s media rights deal. He’ll have to beat out the Big 12, hold off the Big Ten, make ESPN happy, find a streaming option, decide if adding San Diego State (or others) makes sense, and land a distribution number that doesn’t leave the door open for further raiding.

Got all that?

There are some other tricky nuances at work, too. For example, Kliavkoff’s conference can’t provide inventory to any potential television partners before 2 p.m. Eastern Time. The Big 12 can. ESPN may value that. So may NBC and Fox/FS1, who still may be hunting for a few early games to fill in their schedules.

The biggest advantage that the Pac-12 has right now is the Pacific Time Zone, which leaves ESPN and the streamers as the most likely options. But it’s becoming evident that the Pac-12 doesn’t have a long line of suitors to create valuable leverage.

Said Bob Thompson: “I still think ESPN will be the Pac-12’s primary carrier, I just think Big 12 will have more bidders.”

Kliavkoff and Warren were reportedly in Napa Valley, Calif. together on Thursday when the details of the Big Ten’s deal went public. They’re at Rose Bowl meetings with other officials. It must be awkward.

A few weeks ago, I asked Kliavkoff about whether he felt betrayed by Warren. Kliavkoff said, “I’ve been always someone that has given every single person I meet, respect and trust until they give me a reason not to give them respect and trust.

“I’ll just leave it at that.”



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[KChiefs1]

Andy Staples: SEC vs. Big Ten enters a new chapter as TV deals collide with more than theme songs at stake

The song was written to introduce the Super Bowl XXI telecast on CBS. It became the theme of college football on CBS in 1987, nine years before CBS started televising SEC games regularly. But thanks to more than two decades of classic matchups at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS on fall Saturdays, not many people think of composer Lloyd Landesman’s nameless song as a Super Bowl anthem or as the introduction to a Mountain West game on CBS Sports Network. For a generation of college football fans, those raging synths meant one thing: SEC football.

That tweet was part of a multimedia salvo Thursday from the Big Ten, Fox, CBS and NBC celebrating the finalization of a massive package of media rights deals worth a reported $8 billion over seven years that will make the Big Ten — already America’s richest conference — even richer. Even though the song never actually belonged to the SEC, it felt like CBS saying “… and we gave them your theme music, too.”

It also likely is the first of many shots in an off-field conflict that will turn college football’s obsession with conference superiority into strictly a Big Ten versus SEC affair.

Those two were the richest, most successful conferences before, but with Oklahoma and Texas headed to the SEC and UCLA and USC headed to the Big Ten, there is no more Power 5. There is only a Power 2. And they’re going to spend a lot of time trying to convince us that one is superior to the other.

“We’re going to continue our efforts to grow our comprehensive revenue,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said this week. “And we’re going to do it in a healthy way.”

The SEC can point to its success on the field. The league has produced 12 of the past 16 national champions — 2014 Ohio State is the Big Ten’s only champion in that period — and twice in the past five seasons SEC teams have met in the national title game. And yet the Big Ten makes more money, and will widen the gap with this new set of deals.

How did the SEC let that happen? It’s a matter of timing.

The people who run the SEC don’t like to be No. 2 at anything, but in this case, there wasn’t much the current administration could have done to stay even with the Big Ten. The Big Ten’s ability to cash in this big dates back to a shrewd decision by former commissioner Jim Delany in 2016 to sign six-year deals with Fox and Disney/ESPN. Conventional wisdom at the time suggested that cable cord-cutting would lead to a “pop” of the media rights bubble that would lead to lower rights fees in the future, and other leagues — most notably the ACC, which locked itself up with Disney/ESPN through 2036 — had sought long-term deals to guarantee security. Delany believed changes in technology would cause live sports to only increase in value over time, so he bet on the possibility that the Big Ten’s best games would be worth even more. And then he made sure the league would be able to sell them again before the SEC, Pac-12 and Big 12 deals expired.

How much money are we talking about? In February, the SEC announced an annual revenue distribution of about $55 million per school. This year, Iowa received $57 million from the Big Ten. Those figures include television revenue, bowl revenue, College Football Playoff revenue and NCAA men’s basketball tournament revenue, and both figures will only rise thanks to new TV deals.

In May, Florida football coach Billy Napier said SEC projections shown to schools suggest the payout per school will increase to somewhere between the high $60 millions and the low $70 millions when the league’s new $300 million-a-year deal with Disney for the games CBS was broadcasting kicks in. Big Ten revenue distributions will top those numbers once these new deals begin next year. The gap between the Big Ten and SEC won’t be as wide as it is between the SEC and whichever league winds up No. 3, but it should be larger than it was before.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has never had a chance to sell all his league’s rights, and the SEC hasn’t had a chance since 2008 to use the leverage that comes with having all its inventory available. Sankey took over in 2015 for Mike Slive. At the time, the league was in the middle of a 15-year deal with CBS that paid $55 million annually so the network could broadcast the best SEC game each Saturday. Disney/ESPN owned the rights to the other games, but the terms of that deal had changed.

The original deal that Slive and consultant Chuck Gerber forged in 2008 called for Disney to pay the league about $2 billion over 15 years starting in 2009. The terms of that deal changed after the SEC added Missouri and Texas A&M. The SEC partnered with Disney to create the SEC Network. The new deal between Disney and the SEC would extend to 2034. Disney would pay a rights fee for games broadcast on its channels other than the SEC Network, and the league and the network would split network profits 50/50. That significantly increased the SEC’s revenue, and because the SEC Network is the best distributed of the conference networks and carries the highest subscriber fee, that figure continues to rise.

When Slive and Gerber redid that Disney deal, they tried the same tactic with CBS. But the network refused to pay any more money. The only change? Instead of CBS being guaranteed an exclusive window with no other SEC games on during the 3:30 game, the SEC Network was allowed to have a game kick off at 4 p.m. This infuriated SEC administrators and leaders at SEC schools, and it likely killed any chance CBS had of continuing to do business with the SEC following the conclusion of the current deal after the 2023 season.

For CBS, the reward probably was worth the hurt feelings and the possibility of losing the relationship. It had 10 more years of a premium property at a cost that would be pennies on the dollar compared to what it would be worth by the end of the deal.

Even though they couldn’t consummate the deal until 2024, Sankey and company decided to take those rights that CBS owned to market prior to the pandemic. Knowing networks were counting their pennies ahead of the next NFL media rights deal — which was finalized in 2021 — the SEC decided to see what its best game of each week might fetch. The answer? A reported $300 million from Disney in a deal locked down in 2020. In 2024, the best SEC game would move from CBS to Disney-owned ABC. By agreeing to the deal, the SEC cast its lot entirely with Disney and also re-synced its rights. For 2034, the SEC can put its entire rights package on the market.

That deal likely will reset the market, but that is a long time from now. How long? Because the Big Ten did seven-year deals with Fox, CBS and NBC, it will have sold its rights again before the SEC gets another crack.

If CBS really did pay more for its Big Ten package — which doesn’t include the choice of best game every week and includes only two Big Ten title games — than Disney paid for the SEC’s best game and every SEC Championship Game, did the SEC make a mistake by locking in its deal so early?

“One can always second guess timing, but with the deal ending with CBS in 2024, it was time to move,” said Greg McGarity, who was Georgia’s athletic director when that deal was made. “And the dollars were staggering.”

The pandemic might also have provided some motivation. At the time the SEC and Disney made the deal, it was unclear how much financial impact college athletics might take in successive years. “Think about at the time,” sports media consultant Ed Desser said. “You had enrollment issues, attendance issues, issues delivering games.”

There might have been one unplanned side effect of doing that deal when the SEC did that could help grow revenue in the future. The SEC doing its deal four years early inspired Big 12 schools to ask that league’s leadership to look into negotiating its next media rights deals to follow the current ones that expire in 2025. Disney and Fox declined to engage, telling the league in early 2021 that they’d rather wait until closer to the conclusion of the current deals.

Sources at Oklahoma and Texas have indicated that moment was something of a final straw for those schools. Afterward, both began seriously considering switching conferences. That came to a head in July 2021, when someone at Texas A&M leaked to the Houston Chronicle that Oklahoma and Texas were deep in discussions to join the SEC.

Industry sources have suggested that the SEC may be able to use the addition of Oklahoma and Texas to generate more revenue. While the league’s deal with Disney calls for a pro rata increase for additional members, it’s possible Disney could be willing to pay more to keep the relationship happy. After getting left out by the Big Ten, Disney needs the SEC more than the SEC needs Disney. And perhaps they could help one another. Maybe the league changes its scheduling model to create more high-quality inventory. (A change that was in the works before the addition of Texas and Oklahoma as schools tried to increase demand for season tickets.)

That could be worth a few more dollars under the correct circumstances. Further realignment also could change the math, but no one at the SEC has even hinted that the league is trying to add any new members at the moment. (Any new members probably would come from the ACC, which has a grant of rights agreement that lasts through 2036. No league would dare suggest any interest in an ACC school and risk litigation.) The SEC allowed ESPN to place one of each school’s home games on streamer ESPN Plus last year. Could the league allow more — for a price, of course? Sankey declined to comment on any specific plans to make more money for the league’s schools.

With Pac-12 and Big 12 membership potentially in flux, the SEC’s situation remains fluid. The plan at the moment is to bring in Oklahoma and Texas in 2025, but that could change. New Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has hinted at a willingness to make a deal if it works for all parties. That’s a departure from the previous administration.

Meanwhile, the SEC’s old deal and the Big Ten’s new one will collide in 2023.

CBS will carry only seven Big Ten games that season as it completes its agreement with the SEC. The next two seasons, with lame-duck CBS carrying the SEC’s biggest games, will be quite awkward. CBS analyst Gary Danielson, the former Purdue quarterback who previously had been painted as an SEC homer, will have every word parsed to see if he’s already favoring the conference his network is about to carry, and/or tweaking the SEC. (There have already been instances of carping behind the scenes, such as in 2017 when Kirby Smart seemed irked that Danielson broadcast something that was said in their standard Friday meeting.)

And in 2024, when that song plays, it will mean something entirely different. No pressure, Disney, but ABC had better have one hell of a theme song ready to replace it.



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[KChiefs1]

Where each conference’s TV deal stands heading into the fall

Let’s break it all down.

This past week, the Big Ten reportedly dropped ESPN as one of its television partners and brought CBS and NBC into the mix with FOX Sports. Many assume some combination of Peacock TV and Paramount+ will also be added to the mix for streaming partners.

But the best games of the day will be set up very similarly to the NFL. FOX will get the Noon ET kickoff. Then Big Ten fans would switch to CBS for a 3:30 p.m. ET game. Finally, you’d wrap up with a primetime game on NBC. It will be interesting to see how that coincides with any night games for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who have a deal with NBC as well.

All in all, it was a pretty big surprise as the Michigan Wolverines and other programs from the conference had been playing on ESPN for the last 40 seasons. After all the changes, let’s see where each conference currently calls home for their television rights.

AAC
Even though the four-letter network lost the Big Ten, they still have plenty to go around and that starts alphabetically with the American Athletic Conference. Back in 2019, the AAC reached a 12-year, and nearly $1 billion dollar contract with ESPN. However, a majority of the games are played on ESPN+ instead of broadcast television. That is mostly because of the network’s overall control over college football which we will see more of down the line.

ACC
The Atlantic Coastal Conference is also on ESPN. In 2016, a new 20-year deal began worth $4.8 billion. Each team in the conference takes home about $17 million a season with the 14 programs that currently reside in the ACC.

Big 12
After losing Oklahoma and Texas in 2025, the conference will likely take a hit in their television deal that ends in the same year. The Big 12 currently is set up very similarly to the Big Ten with broadcast rights going to FOX and ESPN. The current deal started in 2015 and was for $2 billion. Expectations are not going to be as high once the powerhouses depart.

Conference USA
A combination of Stadium, Facebook, ESPN+ and CBS Sports Network have the broadcast rights for C-USA until the end of the 2023 season. They are currently on the hunt for a new deal where I’m sure they would like to be closer to the AAC’s standards.

MAC
Through 2022-23, the Mid-American Conference will be on display via the CBS Sports Network. But the majority of the MACtion is on ESPN on weeknight matchups and on ESPN+ through 2026.

Mountain West
The Mountain West beat the Big Ten to the punch in cutting ESPN loose. In 2020, they added FOX as a partner while maintaining their relationship with CBS Sports. The deal runs through 2026 and the league is paid about $270 million.

Pac-12
On brand with the Big 12, USC and UCLA will depart for the Big Ten as soon as the TV deal ends in 2024. A 12-year, $3 billion contract with FOX and ESPN is set to expire, and many people are questioning where they will be headed without two of their historic programs.

SEC
The SEC is the main reason ESPN was okay parting ways with the Big Ten. Starting in 2024, ESPN will be the exclusive carrier for SEC football and men’s basketball. CBS was desperate to fill the void, and it appears the Big Ten will fill that.

Sun Belt
If you are a mid-major, you probably have a relationship with ESPN. The Sun Belt announced a deal with ESPN in 2020 that runs through 2031. There’s plenty of college football on that ESPN+ app.

College Football Playoff
So here is what it really comes down to. Right now, ESPN pays the College Football Playoff $470 million annually to broadcast the four-team playoff. That deal expires in 2026. Everyone who isn’t associated with ESPN (like the Big Ten and Notre Dame) are going to fight hard for other networks to get some of the games. Maybe even a rotation like what currently happens with the Super Bowl.

Many are concerned ESPN has too much power over college football, as nearly every conference has ties to the network. Many have feared the monopoly ESPN has hurts those who are not associated with it, and that may even dip into the rankings for the College Football Playoff.

As the Big Ten goes elsewhere, that has to be the conference's biggest fear. Kevin Warren and others will fight hard for potential expansion and movement away from just ABC and ESPN for the playoffs.

In total, here is what every major broadcast network has access to:

ESPN
College Football Playoff
SEC (Exclusively in 2024)
Big Ten (reportedly ends in 2023)
ACC
Big 12 (ends in 2025)
Pac-12 (ends in 2024)
AAC
Sun Belt
Mountain West
MAC
C-USA (ends in 2023)

CBS
SEC (ends in 2023)
Big Ten (reportedly, starting in 2024)
C-USA (ends in 2023)
MAC
Mountain West

FOX
Big Ten (reportedly extending in new deal)
Big 12 (ends in 2025)
PAC-12 (Ends in 2024)

NBC
Notre Dame (ends in 2025)
Big Ten (reportedly starting in 2024)
Basically, ESPN is fine with keeping all they have on top of becoming the exclusive broadcasters for the SEC.

Meanwhile, CBS is replacing the SEC with the Big Ten in that Saturday 3:30 p.m. ET spot while also keeping some Group of 5 games. FOX remains strong with the Big Ten and could re-up deals with the depleted Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences. Then, NBC is covering their own butts in case Notre Dame jumps ship in 2025 by bringing in primetime matchups with the Big Ten starting in 2024. Surely, they are hopeful Notre Dame just joins the Big Ten and stays on their network in a larger deal.



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[displacedinMN]

more commercials

[PHOG]

"I think what it does, it affords us the opportunity to make sure that we can continually do the things we need to do to take care of our student-athletes, to fortify our institutions, to build our programs," Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren told the AP.

LMMFAO LMAOLMAOLMAOLMAOLMAOLMAOLMAO

Translation: We're ALL going to make a TON of MONAY!!!

[KChiefs1]

Canzano: Pac-12 AD says conference is "Now at the plate... energized"

Unpacking the Big Ten media rights deal.

I did some calling around after the Big Ten Conference announced it had finalized its media rights packages on Thursday. I asked a South Division athletic director from the Pac-12 Conference how he felt about things.

He said: “Next up… now at the plate… energized.”

It’s the Pac-12’s turn to negotiate. Conference commissioner George Kliavkoff will need to be very good in the next couple of weeks. The landscape is tricky. The market has been disrupted. The conference is negotiating from a less-than-ideal position. Kliavkoff is going to have to be shrewd, creative and wise.

While we wait for the Pac-12, I had a few thoughts:

• The Big Ten’s deal was reported by some to be a total of $8.4 billion over seven years. That figure sounded inflated to those who work in the industry. I asked two media experts to crunch numbers and deconstruct the deal. They both came back with estimates that place the total value of the deal in the $7.5 billion to $8 billion range. One guessed that the involvement of the Big Ten Network, 60 percent of which is owned by Fox, may be causing the accounting discrepancy.

Regardless, it’s a massive windfall for members. As Dennis Dodd of CBS pointed out on Twitter, the last media rights deal for the Big Ten was a seven-year deal with a total of $2.64 billion.

• The Big Ten signed a seven-year agreement in this round of media rights. Why seven years and not eight or 10? Because it gets the conference back to market before the SEC. That was apparently important to Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren.

• Warren will appear on an episode of HBO’s Real Sports next Tuesday night. The promotional transcript of the interview includes host Bryant Gumbel asking Warren whether the Big Ten could foresee paying players.

Warren’s answer: “Yes. Yeah.”

Also, Gumbel asked whether Warren could foresee Big Ten expansion from 16 teams to 20 teams. Warren’s answer: “I could. Yeah. I could see perpetual and future growth.”

• The first year of the Big Ten’s new media rights deal won’t include USC and UCLA. It will just be 14 universities. That first-year figure is estimated by Bob Thompson, the former Fox Sports Network executive, to fall well short of the $1 billion-a-year figure that has been floated for months. The first year payout will more likely be around $700 million to $750 million.

• The annual distribution to the Big Ten jumps over $1 billion in 2024 with the additions of USC and UCLA. Then, the deal kicks up approximately four percent annually. This allows the media partners to start at a lower payment, then raise their prices for carriage and advertising over the length of the deal. Schools get a little more on the back end. Everyone wins.

• A lot was made of the Big Ten including an “escalator” clause in its newest deal. It raised speculation about Oregon and Washington and presumably left the door open for additional members to join the conference. But Thompson, who negotiated hundreds of these deals in his career, told me those clauses have been around since 2010.

“We started putting them in because schools were coming and going,” he said. “The thing is that there’s no set dollar figure. It’s basically just a requirement to negotiate in good faith on an adjustment to the right deal. I’ve never seen one actually be invoked.”

• A second Pac-12 AD told me of conference expansion and realignment, “It always starts with shock, surprise and frustration, then folks who weren’t invited start knocking on doors asking, ‘Why not us?’ Then, the dust settles and folks confront reality. This is when the work begins.”

• I’ve been thinking a lot about San Diego State and some others as Pac-12 expansion candidates. I am focused primarily on the television households and media rights value that the potential universities bring. San Diego has 1.1 million television households. Portland and Salt Lake City are both around 1.1 million TV homes as well, by comparison. San Diego is an intriguing fit and gives the conference a presence in Southern California.

• I think ESPN is going to get a very important vote on this subject. If the network wants to be in Southern California, I think the Pac-12 will expand. If it’s not as important, it won’t. Most of the time we talk about academic fit, geography, and the votes of presidents and chancellors, but TV executives are running the show right now.

• UNLV is in the No. 40 television market in the country. Las Vegas has 757,840 television households, but would the Pac-12 make a bet on the rapid growth of that region? The NHL won big in Vegas. The NBA and MLB will soon follow. Between the summer of 2020 and 2021, the Las Vegas metro population grew by nearly 20,000 people and is now more than 2.3 million total residents. There’s a lot of money in the desert, a line of potential corporate partners, and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff is well connected in Vegas. Keep that in mind.

• SMU is a little bit interesting. It brings a robust television market, but it has a tiny footprint in Texas. Beyond that, we’ve talked about Boise State (517,000 TV households), Fresno State (the giant of the Central California’s valley) or the potential that the Pac-12 poaches Big 12-bound Houston (2.45 million TV homes). The Pac-12 will only expand if it’s a no-brainer. I can’t be the only one having a difficult time finding can’t-miss expansion candidates for the Pac-12.

• I continue to hear enthusiasm within the Pac-12 about a “loose partnership” with the ACC. One Pac-12 university president whispered about this to me last month and it makes a lot of sense when you consider a partnership solves two problems for ESPN. One, it gives the network inventory in the Pacific Time Zone. Two, it creates an opportunity for ESPN to keep restless ACC members happy by sprinkling unexpected money on them.

• Neither Apple nor Amazon got in on the Big Ten media rights deal. The prevailing thought is the Pac-12’s Tier 1 rights will land on linear television. But I keep thinking there’s a place for one of the major streaming platforms when it comes to the Pac-12. Or maybe Amazon and Apple are just here to help create leverage for the conference. ESPN+ would probably love to absorb the Pac-12 Network content itself.

I’ll update this as more develops…



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[KChiefs1]

Canzano: Phil Knight talking with Big Ten? Meanwhile, Pac-12 and ESPN in "productive" talks

What I learned over the weekend...

• Talks between ESPN and the Pac-12 have been “productive” per a conference insider. “We’re still in the midst of positive conversations but haven’t reached a final offer stage,” the source said. “We’ve been much more engaged with George (Kliavkoff). We’re all in sync, we’re all in line. We’ve got some high level media consultants at the tables.”

• The Pac-12 has hired two consulting firms — one of them is Sports Media Advisors. SMA comes with a great reputation. Doug Perlman runs the shop. He attended University of Virginia law school with Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff. Perlman was the point person on the NHL’s television deals for years.

• I’m being told by multiple sources not to expect much in the way of Pac-12 media rights news before Labor Day.

• Brett McMurphy caused a stir when he tweeted on Monday that Oregon was kicking the tires in Chicago with the Big Ten to determine if the Ducks are compatible:

• No Michael Schill? No Rob Mullens? No Kevin Warren? McMurphy is a good reporter. I trust him. I was told early on that Phil Knight and Tinker Hatfield were interested in exploring some options. Sounds to me like the Nike contingent may be doing the heavy lifting.

• One source in Knight’s inner circle told me after USC and UCLA defected to the Big Ten: “The good news is Phil is working hard to determine the correct path forward and hopefully to determine one that is viable. My guess is, his aspirations aren’t practical or achievable. But try to tell that to the man that has won most battles in his life that seemed out of reach.”

• Oregon is a tentpole among the remaining 10 universities in the Pac-12. The prevailing sentiment among conference athletic directors is that UO shopped itself around significantly after USC and UCLA announced their departure, and learned it didn’t have great immediate options.

• The Pac-12 ADs continue to meet at least once a week. I asked a few of them if Oregon had expressed a desire for unequal revenue sharing or maybe even a shorter media rights deal. Said one AD: “Not at all. Oregon hasn’t been pounding on the table. They’ve made no demands in an open forum. I think, like the rest of us, they’re interested in seeing what comes of this media rights negotiation.”

• There has been ongoing conversation among some of the ADs about the role that Phil Knight could play in holding the Pac-12 together. If Oregon sticks around, could Knight come in as an equity partner? Said one North Division AD, “Knight’s involvement would be a game-changer.”

• A “loose partnership” between the Pac-12 and ACC is still very much on the table, but nobody is quite sure how much new money ESPN might be able to squeeze out of it — and the money is why you’d do it.

• Said one current Pac-12 North Division AD: “There’s some interest in that from our side. There are some great things that could happen… it’s not like we are going to go crazy playing a bunch of crossover games, but the two conferences could put together some matchups with value.”

• I spoke with Oregon first-year head coach Dan Lanning on Sunday. I asked him if he was ready to play a game. Lanning said, “My guys are ready to hit someone else and I’m sure ready to see them do that, but if you ask me, I’m always going to tell you I want one more week of practice.”

• I talked with former Oregon coach Mario Cristobal via FaceTime on Sunday morning. I wrote a column about Ducks’ linebacker Noah Sewell and Cristobal was happy to provide some background on the kid. Cristobal popped up on my phone wearing a University of Miami polo shirt.

• Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is currently on a “listening tour” and trying to visit all his conference universities. It’s a wise move and can galvanize a conference. Yormark gave the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal five minutes for a Q-and-A that I found interesting.

• In the piece, Yormark clarified the “open for business” comment he made at Big 12 Media Days. He told the newspaper, “‘Open for business’ doesn’t mean just expansion, where I think some people read into it that it was very much focused on expansion. That’s not necessarily the case. When I say ‘open for business’, it means that this conference is no longer going to be stagnant. We’re going to be very proactive. We’re going to explore and identify any and all opportunities that create value in every respect. Is expansion a part of ‘open for business’? A hundred percent. But it’s only a small piece.”

• I asked a South Division AD that I haven’t previously quoted about the Big 12. Is that conference actively trying to poach Pac-12 teams? He said, “I don’t know where all this stuff comes from. There have been no offers or conversations. I’ve been in no dark rooms. It’s insane.”

• I think adding San Diego State makes a lot of sense from an expansion standpoint by the Pac-12. It would get the conference back into Southern California and add 1.1 million TV households. Beyond that, though?

• UNLV? SMU? Fresno State? Boise State? I dunno. It feels to me like poaching a Big 12 team… or five… would be a better option for the Pac-12 than diluting the conference with a few less-than-ideal candidates. I’d rather have Baylor, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State and maybe 1-2 others. Then again, I’d rather that college football returned to a time before TV-money greed… you know, when geography and tradition dictated your conference affiliation.

https://www.johncanzano.com/p/canzano-phil-knight-talking-with


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[RetiredSeniorChief]

FOUR MORE PAC-12 SCHOOLS MIGHT BE BOLTING TO THE BIG TEN

https://www.outkick.com/pac-12-big-ten-oregon-washington-cal-stanford-big-12-collapse-speculation/

[Eleazar]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-should-the-big-ten-expand-next-we-crunched-the-numbers/

Nate Silver goes in on how the Big Ten should expand, describing 5 schools as no-brainers (Notre Dame, Oregon, Washington, UNC, Florida State), and 5 more candidate schools in a "let's make the Big Ten as big as possible" world (Clemson, Utah, Miami, Stanford, Cal).

(Missouri and Kansas are ranked in a fourth "reach" tier)

[RustShack]

The SEC will be taking some of those schools.

[htismaqe]

The SEC will be taking some of those schools.

All intrastate trash talk aside, what do you think happens with ISU?

[RustShack]

All intrastate trash talk aside, what do you think happens with ISU?

Probably have to stay in the current Big12 with a few passed on PAC and ACC schools. The Big12 to the P3 will be like the PAC of the current P5. Fans of the B1G and SEC will call it a P2.

I sounds like the “P2” is done raiding the Big12, but who knows what happens in 10+ years when the ACC is raided(unless they find a way to do it earlier), some Big12 schools could look more appealing by then. Someone has to win with Oklahoma gone.

[Hoover]

The ACC isn't going to live the length of its TV contract. It all blows up when ESPN wants Clemson to join the SEC.

I do think Oregon, Washington, and Stanford all join the Big Ten, not sure about Cal.

The big remaining domino is the ACC. Once it gets opened up look out. Florida doesn't want Florida State in the SEC, they probably feel the same way about Miami. I think the SEC takes one of them, lets say Miami. I think the Big Ten would love to take on a Florida State, which would really embrace their national footprint.

Notre Dame is interesting. I think they could become truly independent, but it would be the death of their program. I can's see the Big Ten allowing them to schedule 4-5 games a year vs Big Ten schools when you have 20 plus teams to schedule.

ACC survives like the Big 12.

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

The ACC isn't going to live the length of its TV contract. It all blows up when ESPN wants Clemson to join the SEC.

I do think Oregon, Washington, and Stanford all join the Big Ten, not sure about Cal.

The big remaining domino is the ACC. Once it gets opened up look out. Florida doesn't want Florida State in the SEC, they probably feel the same way about Miami. I think the SEC takes one of them, lets say Miami. I think the Big Ten would love to take on a Florida State, which would really embrace their national footprint.

Notre Dame is interesting. I think they could become truly independent, but it would be the death of their program. I can's see the Big Ten allowing them to schedule 4-5 games a year vs Big Ten schools when you have 20 plus teams to schedule.

ACC survives like the Big 12.

In the upcoming P2, being independent is a death sentence of irrelevance.

[KChiefs1]

Canzano: Big 12 commissioner speaks out

Brett Yormark, the former co-chief operating officer at Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, has emerged as a polarizing figure in the college football realignment discussions. The Big 12 commissioner been on a “listening tour” but this week he decided to do some talking.

Yormark was visiting the University of Cincinnati on Wednesday. Yormark told reporters that when it came to potential expansion targets, his conference wants to go “out west” in the fourth time zone.

“A program that has national recognition,” Yormark said. “One that competes at the highest level in basketball and football, stands for the right things, is a good cultural fit.”

The Big 12’s commissioner declined to get more specific. When he says “out west” is he talking about San Diego State? How about Fresno State? Or maybe Utah, Colorado, Arizona or Arizona State?

Said one “four corners” Pac-12 ADs: “I have no idea what he’s talking about. He just continues to throw stuff out to disrupt. Seems like some level of desperation.”

I’m fascinated by the 180-degree difference in strategy between Yormark and Pac-12 commissioner Georgia Kliavkoff. Outside of Kliavkoff’s spicy Media Day appearance in July, he’s remained silent.

In fact, the Pac-12 commissioner was in Atlanta for the Oregon-Georgia game and didn’t do interviews. Presumably because the Pac-12 is amid a media-rights negotiation. On the same day, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey conducted a lengthy impromptu news conference in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium press box.

The Big 12’s Yormark was also asked on Wednesday about his conference’s media rights negotiations. There’s some confusion about whether the Big 12 is — or isn’t — in the exclusive negotiating window.

“That process has started,” Yormark told reporters. “I met with ESPN last week... I’ll be meeting with FOX in the next week... My gut tells me that both FOX and ESPN would like to (negotiate early) but I’ll know for sure...in the next week.”

Some interesting semantics at play here. I bounced Yormark’s quote off two TV-industry insiders. They agreed that it sounds like all Yormark has is an indication from ESPN that they’d like to talk outside the exclusive-negotiating window. Per the contract, the Big 12 can only talk with ESPN and FOX at this point. The networks like it that way, too. If they’re not in an exclusive, 30-day negotiating window, there’s no ticking clock.



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[RustShack]

It’ll be interesting when the Big12 gets numbers, and if Fox is actually as interested as it sounds. Fox wasn’t even interested in giving the PAC a lowball offer like ESPN did, they said they had no interest in giving them an offer. ESPN will also be interested in overpaying for the Big12, in an attempt to get OuuT in 24.

It seems like the B1G isn’t done with adding from the PAC either. I’m guessing they have it on pause at the moment obviously trying to entice ND, but also so they don’t have to give the other PAC schools a full share right away like USC/UCLA is getting.

The new playoff format is fantastic, but I wonder how Notre Dame feels knowing they have a 0% chance at a first round bye as they won’t be a top four conference champion.

[BryanBusby]

The ACC isn't going to live the length of its TV contract. It all blows up when ESPN wants Clemson to join the SEC.

I do think Oregon, Washington, and Stanford all join the Big Ten, not sure about Cal.

The big remaining domino is the ACC. Once it gets opened up look out. Florida doesn't want Florida State in the SEC, they probably feel the same way about Miami. I think the SEC takes one of them, lets say Miami. I think the Big Ten would love to take on a Florida State, which would really embrace their national footprint.

Notre Dame is interesting. I think they could become truly independent, but it would be the death of their program. I can's see the Big Ten allowing them to schedule 4-5 games a year vs Big Ten schools when you have 20 plus teams to schedule.

ACC survives like the Big 12.
ESPN isn't touching that ACC contract. It's gonna take a handful of schools to grenade it all to end it early.

[sedated]

Apparently Big 12 and Gonzaga are in talks

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/34934063/sources-gonzaga-talks-big-12-joining-conference

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

If the Pac 12 wasn't run by idiots, they could have Gonzaga.

[GloucesterChief]

If the Pac 12 wasn't run by idiots, they could have Gonzaga.

Gonzaga doesn't play the full slate of sports the Pac12 requires.

[Hoover]

Basketball just doesn’t move the needle

[RustShack]

Gonzaga doesn't play the full slate of sports the Pac12 requires.

Same with the Big12, but apparently they are willing to change.

Basketball only is interesting, I wonder what type of a payment they would get. I’d assume it isn’t much of a bump for the rest of the schools, but obviously not taking money away either. I think it’s just an idea of getting more eyeballs on the Big12 brand.

That or just a little pressure on the PAC schools thinking about jumping.

[lawrenceRaider]

Basketball just doesn’t move the needle

According to whom?

[sedated]

While I think its a dumb road to go down (ie the Big East route) until the power conferences pull away from the NCAA and can keep the tournament money, if B12 adds Gonzaga they have to add another basketball only school, right? Why not Villanova, and why weren't they ahead of Gonzaga? Nova has been some level of power since the 80s, has multiple titles, and is in Philly.

[TribalElder]

According to whom?

everyone in the entire world except KU fans

[KChiefs1]

Basketball just doesn’t move the needle


Gonzaga even have a football team?


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[KChiefs1]

According to whom?


99% of college sports fans.


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[sedated]

Aww Mizzou fans don't like college basketball, total shock LMAO LMAO

[Pablo]

Aww Mizzou fans don't like college basketball, total shock LMAO LMAO

They’re a softball/rasslin school

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

While I think its a dumb road to go down (ie the Big East route) until the power conferences pull away from the NCAA and can keep the tournament money, if B12 adds Gonzaga they have to add another basketball only school, right? Why not Villanova, and why weren't they ahead of Gonzaga? Nova has been some level of power since the 80s, has multiple titles, and is in Philly.

Why would Nova leave the Big East for the Big 12?

[Pepe Silvia]

Basketball has always sucked.

[BWillie]

Apparently Big 12 and Gonzaga are in talks

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/34934063/sources-gonzaga-talks-big-12-joining-conference

Sooo they just won't play football?

[BWillie]

Gonzaga even have a football team?


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Undefeated since 1941.

[sedated]

Why would Nova leave the Big East for the Big 12?

Is this a serious question?

[RustShack]

Sooo they just won't play football?

I’ve heard basketball only. But it’s still early in the process so who knows if all sports would come or not, if any come at all. But yes, no football.

[lawrenceRaider]

99% of college sports fans.


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Nah, only ones from schools with crap basketball.

[lawrenceRaider]

everyone in the entire world except KU fans

So you really mean only Moo fans. That seems to be the contingent who says that. No one else takes you seriously.

[lawrenceRaider]

Did we talk about the new media deal for the Big 12 that pushes total comp up over $50mill per school? While not the $55 for the big two SEC/B1G, it clearly shows the Big 12 still has value without Texas or OU.

[TribalElder]

So you really mean only Moo fans. That seems to be the contingent who says that. No one else takes you seriously.

today I learned the entire world is Mizzou fans :doh!:

[TambaBerry]

Yeah, let's not talk about how 18.5 million turned into a cable tv station to watch the national championship.

[lawrenceRaider]

today I learned the entire world is Mizzou fans :doh!:

Figures that's what a Moo fan would think, or take from a comment that points out the world exists outside your tiny box.

[Coach]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Big 12 and its TV partners have reached an early exit agreement with Texas and Oklahoma, sources tell <a href="https://twitter.com/SInow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SINow</a>.<br><br>The schools will owe the league a combined $100 million in an exit fee, source says. They will begin play in the SEC in 2024 <a href="https://t.co/dTNlKT3EOL">https://t.co/dTNlKT3EOL</a></p>&mdash; Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) <a href="https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/1623842617145303040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[PHOG]

https://media1.giphy.com/media/pGP4c8488ioAp9phUa/200w.webp?cid=ecf05e47ki7h2vzs0kav7b8c70bhvfm8eerxj5g84np9726m&rid=200w.webp&ct=g

[WhawhaWhat]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Big 12 and its TV partners have reached an early exit agreement with Texas and Oklahoma, sources tell <a href="https://twitter.com/SInow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SINow</a>.<br><br>The schools will owe the league a combined $100 million in an exit fee, source says. They will begin play in the SEC in 2024 <a href="https://t.co/dTNlKT3EOL">https://t.co/dTNlKT3EOL</a></p>&mdash; Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) <a href="https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/1623842617145303040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Now official:<br><br>USC and UCLA will begin Big Ten play in 2024. <br><br>Oklahoma and Texas will begin SEC play in 2024.<br><br>AND the College Football Playoff will begin its 12-team format in 2024.</p>&mdash; Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) <a href="https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/1623845494408486912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Eleazar]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Big 12 and its TV partners have reached an early exit agreement with Texas and Oklahoma, sources tell <a href="https://twitter.com/SInow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SINow</a>.<br><br>The schools will owe the league a combined $100 million in an exit fee, source says. They will begin play in the SEC in 2024 <a href="https://t.co/dTNlKT3EOL">https://t.co/dTNlKT3EOL</a></p>&mdash; Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) <a href="https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/1623842617145303040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Last one out turn off the lights…

[RustShack]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Now official:<br><br>USC and UCLA will begin Big Ten play in 2024. <br><br>Oklahoma and Texas will begin SEC play in 2024.<br><br>AND the College Football Playoff will begin its 12-team format in 2024.</p>&mdash; Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) <a href="https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/1623845494408486912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

And there will probably be 2-6 PAC schools in the Big12 that year as well.

[chiefsfan987]

And there will probably be 2-6 PAC schools in the Big12 that year as well.

Doubt it. Pac 12 will just backfill like the Big 12 did.

[Coach]

Doubt it. Pac 12 will just backfill like the Big 12 did.

Maybe so, but there are rumblings that some schools aren't happy with the process, and they may or may not be shopping around to find a new home.

[RustShack]

Doubt it. Pac 12 will just backfill like the Big 12 did.

They for sure will after more leave.

[FloridaMan88]

February:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Joint statement from the 10 Pac-12 Conference Board Members:<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BackThePac?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BackThePac</a> <a href="https://t.co/NN5sk0TmMl">pic.twitter.com/NN5sk0TmMl</a></p>&mdash; Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) <a href="https://twitter.com/pac12/status/1625238421282394112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 13, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Now…

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Pac-12 TV update: The timeline for a deal is now &quot;late spring, early summer&quot; according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. <br><br>Several Pac-12 presidents had recently said a deal was imminent. The source said those comments were &quot;overly optimistic.&quot;</p>&mdash; Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) <a href="https://twitter.com/slmandel/status/1644068699442384896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

And the Pac 12 is desperately begging the CW for a new media rights deal… looks like their conference is on the brink of collapse.

Link: https://awfulannouncing.com/college-football/the-pac-12-is-now-chasing-a-tv-deal-with-the-cw.html

Two sources indicated there have been recent discussions between the Pac-12 and The CW, a national over-the-air broadcast network better known for scripted shows like “Gossip Girl,” “Supernatural” and “Riverdale.” Since purchasing The CW Network last year, parent company Nexstar Media Group has expressed interest in procuring live sports rights, announcing in January a deal with LIV Golf.”

[tredadda]

February:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Joint statement from the 10 Pac-12 Conference Board Members:<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BackThePac?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BackThePac</a> <a href="https://t.co/NN5sk0TmMl">pic.twitter.com/NN5sk0TmMl</a></p>&mdash; Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) <a href="https://twitter.com/pac12/status/1625238421282394112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 13, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Now…

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Pac-12 TV update: The timeline for a deal is now &quot;late spring, early summer&quot; according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. <br><br>Several Pac-12 presidents had recently said a deal was imminent. The source said those comments were &quot;overly optimistic.&quot;</p>&mdash; Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) <a href="https://twitter.com/slmandel/status/1644068699442384896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

And the Pac 12 is desperately begging the CW for a new media rights deal… looks like their conference is on the brink of collapse.

Link: https://awfulannouncing.com/college-football/the-pac-12-is-now-chasing-a-tv-deal-with-the-cw.html

That would be wild to see conferences like the Mountain West survive and the Pac-12 not.

[WilliamTheIrish]

I will laugh so hard



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Colorado holds &#39;substantive&#39; talks with Big 12 as Buffaloes consider leaving Pac-12 - <a href="https://t.co/Do0GY2YbwU">https://t.co/Do0GY2YbwU</a> <a href="https://t.co/svo5liLxnh">https://t.co/svo5liLxnh</a></p>&mdash; Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) <a href="https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status/1663597432276385797?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 30, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[WilliamTheIrish]

CU lost their collective asses leaving the conference. I’d prefer they were forced to go elsewhere. Sort of.

[BWillie]

CU lost their collective asses leaving the conference. I’d prefer they were forced to go elsewhere. Sort of.

U say you taken cuz if u do u get the 4corner schools

[FloridaMan88]

Miami is now an AAU member… come and get us B1G.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">AAU announced today Arizona State, Miami, Notre Dame &amp; USF are among its newest members. Finally, USF to the Big Ten!</p>&mdash; Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1664314416702078976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 1, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[displacedinMN]

Miami is now an AAU member… come and get us B1G.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">AAU announced today Arizona State, Miami, Notre Dame &amp; USF are among its newest members. Finally, USF to the Big Ten!</p>&mdash; Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1664314416702078976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 1, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Notre Dame?????????????????????????????????

[big nasty kcnut]

nuthook i thought it was a football conference.

[FloridaMan88]

nuthook i thought it was a football conference.

AAU status is the supposed pre-requisite to join the B1G... although they would have no doubt taken Notre Dame before the Fighting Irish officially became an AAU member.

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

nuthook i thought it was a football conference.

College presidents and networks decide conference realignment. Presidents treat conferences like country clubs. They want to hang out with like members. The Big 10 also provides billions in research money.

[RustShack]

I just like the guy & he is pretty in tune with the realignment stuff.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In tune he was not.

[ROYC75]

Gonzaga & UConn being courted by B12 ?

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/2024-nba-draft-10-players-returning-to-college-who-can-improve-their-stock-the-most-during-the-2023-24-season/

[RustShack]

Gonzaga & UConn being courted by B12 ?

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/2024-nba-draft-10-players-returning-to-college-who-can-improve-their-stock-the-most-during-the-2023-24-season/

I believe Yormark is interested in BBall only schools, but doesn’t have the full support of the conference presidents right now, so probably no Gonzaga. Sounds like UCONN is on the table for expansion, but I believe only if one more is needed. Sounds like Colorado could be making the jump back soon. A lot of people expect Arizona to come as well. So if only 1-3 of the “four corners” come UCONN would probably be the 2-4 addition.

[BWillie]

I believe Yormark is interested in BBall only schools, but doesn’t have the full support of the conference presidents right now, so probably no Gonzaga. Sounds like UCONN is on the table for expansion, but I believe only if one more is needed. Sounds like Colorado could be making the jump back soon. A lot of people expect Arizona to come as well. So if only 1-3 of the “four corners” come UCONN would probably be the 2-4 addition.

All of the four corner schools are coming to the Big 12 once Colorado ditches the Pac.

All of them.

Write it in stone.

[Mr. Plow]

I just posted this in the KU thread. Don't know how accurate.



Colorado & Arizona moving to Big 12? (https://www.outkick.com/colorado-arizona-big-12-pac-12-move-report/)

Radio host Greg Swaim, who is very plugged into the Big 12 landscape, reported over the weekend multiple sources have told him Colorado and Arizona are as good as gone from the PAC-12, but there’s no word yet on Utah or Arizona State.

Swaim’s reporting lines up with previous reports that the Buffaloes and Deion Sanders are getting ready to shock the college football world. However, the addition of Arizona getting ready to cut ties is new.

He also correctly noted nothing is final until the ink dries on whatever kind of media deal the PAC-12 might be able to scrounge up.

[RustShack]

All of the four corner schools are coming to the Big 12 once Colorado ditches the Pac.

All of them.

Write it in stone.

I think so too. But it’s sounded like for awhile that ASU and Utah think they are above the Big12.

[sedated]

I think so too. But it’s sounded like for awhile that ASU and Utah think they are above the Big12.

I heard an interview with a Utah guy that said Utah can't stand BYU (thinks of them the way we think about Texas) and they are very opposed to being in the same conference with them.

[BWillie]

I heard an interview with a Utah guy that said Utah can't stand BYU (thinks of them the way we think about Texas) and they are very opposed to being in the same conference with them.

Well for a 10 to 15 M difference per year I bet they will reconsider.

[RustShack]

I heard an interview with a Utah guy that said Utah can't stand BYU (thinks of them the way we think about Texas) and they are very opposed to being in the same conference with them.

I think that’s why UCONN is on the table. 2 or all 4 could come from the PAC, or if just 1 or 3 they have a backup option. The Big12 vetted a bunch of schools the last go round and went with the four of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF. Kind of like Gonzaga and any other basketball only add, just because they are doing their research and due diligence doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

So far I like this new commissioner a lot, he seems to be looking into every avenue and his previous good history and connections with ESPN and Fox was a plus as well.

[RustShack]

Well for a 10 to 15 M difference per year I bet they will reconsider.

Honestly I think it would be hilarious if Utah and ASU don’t join with the other two and then the Big12 only offers them partial shares for a number of years when they finally see the final PAC offer.

[FloridaMan88]

Big news coming?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fx-5S_1XwAEUUVJ?format=jpg&name=large

[RustShack]

Big news coming?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fx-5S_1XwAEUUVJ?format=jpg&name=large

So when they left the Big12 for the PAC, they had a special board meeting worded they way they did yesterday on a Tuesday, then scheduled a public meeting for Friday which they also did again for this Friday.

[Coach]

All of the four corner schools are coming to the Big 12 once Colorado ditches the Pac.

All of them.

Write it in stone.

I would be surprised. I'm not convinced ASU is coming, but never say never.

I can see U-Conn, Arizona, and Colorado for now. Just only a matter of who's the 4th one is, and I can't quite get a read on the 4th one yet.

[Coach]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sources: Colorado is in discussions about a move to the Big 12, and the school has just completed a board meeting and scheduled another for tomorrow to discuss the move. The Big 12 is also holding a presidents meeting tonight where there&#39;s expected to be an expansion update.</p>&mdash; Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) <a href="https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1684308770065641476?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Colorado just completed a board meeting of its regents and has scheduled a second one for Thursday, presumably around a potential move to the Big 12, sources tell <a href="https://twitter.com/YahooSports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YahooSports</a></p>&mdash; Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) <a href="https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/1684309203416932354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[tredadda]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sources: Colorado is in discussions about a move to the Big 12, and the school has just completed a board meeting and scheduled another for tomorrow to discuss the move. The Big 12 is also holding a presidents meeting tonight where there&#39;s expected to be an expansion update.</p>&mdash; Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) <a href="https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1684308770065641476?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Colorado just completed a board meeting of its regents and has scheduled a second one for Thursday, presumably around a potential move to the Big 12, sources tell <a href="https://twitter.com/YahooSports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YahooSports</a></p>&mdash; Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) <a href="https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/1684309203416932354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Looks like one of the prodigals might be coming home.

[Coach]

Looks like one of the prodigals might be coming home.

Perhaps. There's also a possibility of another one or two.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Colorado is likely to move within the next 48 hours.<br><br>Also, there&#39;s another school in the Pac-12 beyond the rumored four corners that will surprise people and is seriously contemplating a jump to the Big 12.</p>&mdash; Jason Scheer (@jasonscheer) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonscheer/status/1684311955580788738?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Respectfully,<br><br>Washington State and Oregon State aren&#39;t attractive enough for full Big 12 shares.<br><br>Stanford and Cal don&#39;t even know they have athletic departments.<br><br>Think elsewhere.</p>&mdash; Jason Scheer (@jasonscheer) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonscheer/status/1684331555697852416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[FloridaMan88]

Have to think Arizona or Arizona State is the other school.

[Coach]

Have to think Arizona or Arizona State is the other school.

It said "another school beyond the 4 corners."

So it wouldn't be Oregon State or Washington State because neither offer any value.

California and Stanford also isn't any good either.

So it's either has to be Washington or Oregon? :shrug: