PAC-12 Chaos

[ZooCougar]

With the reports that the schools wanted $50m each, it's definitely possible that the demise of the PAC was an inside job much like the big East

It’s all of the above. Incompetent Commish and a bunch backstabbing.

 

[That Guy]

The fact that we didn’t may mean something.

I'm pretty sure the fact we didn't is due to the obvious horrible geographic issues. It would just never be a fit for us.

 

[WestCoastHusky]

And didn’t the Big East vote to decline a more lucrative Media Deal with Pitt and Cuse basically months away from announcing they were leaving? Hazards.

Yep. Pitt president was head of the media negotiation committee. He was working with ESPN on the media deal while negotiating with the ACC to leave the Big East. He led the charge to turn down Big East's media deal, which eventually led to demise of the Big East.

It is shocking this dirty sneaky SOB never got called to the carpet for his work.

 

[ZooCougar]

Yep. Pitt president was head of the media negotiation committee. He was working with ESPN on the media deal while negotiating with the ACC to leave the Big East. He led the charge to turn down Big East's media deal, which eventually led to demise of the Big East.

It is shocking this dirty sneaky SOB never got called to the carpet for his work.

Unreal

 

[ctchamps]

Yep. Pitt president was head of the media negotiation committee. He was working with ESPN on the media deal while negotiating with the ACC to leave the Big East. He led the charge to turn down Big East's media deal, which eventually led to demise of the Big East.

It is shocking this dirty sneaky SOB never got called to the carpet for his work.

He couldn’t recuse himself obviously since ACC negotiations were secret. But he definitely was the one that killed that contract. Don’t blame Pitt or any of the universities in leaving for better financial opportunities but that action to kill the deal was disgraceful.

Definitely shocking many people don’t even know about it never mind get called out about it.

 

[WestCoastHusky]

He couldn’t recuse himself obviously since ACC negotiations were secret. But he definitely was the one that killed that contract. Don’t blame Pitt or any of the universities in leaving for better financial opportunities but that action to kill the deal was disgraceful.

Definitely shocking many people don’t even know about it never mind get called out about it.

The lesson learned is you never ever trust anyone during these realignment talks. It is every school for itself.

These old Big East schools never ever supported UConn in the ACC either. They looked at us as a threat to their recruiting etc., and they wanted to keep us down. Pitt, Cuse, BCU,. Miami etc. are all part of it. Despite all this, we got 5 men's national championships while Cuse has 1. BCU is a non-factor in anything. Their actions did diddly despite the fact they are in the ACC and we are not.

The only schools in the ACC that supported us are the NC schools (Duke, UNC, Wake, and NCST) along with Virginia. I won't mind being in the same conference as them if there is an opportunity someday.

 

[ctchamps]

The lesson learned is you never ever trust anyone during these realignment talks. It is every school for itself.

These old Big East schools never ever supported UConn in the ACC either. They looked at us as a threat to their recruiting etc., and they wanted to keep us down. Pitt, Cuse, BCU,. Miami etc. are all part of it. Despite all this, we got 5 men's national championships while Cuse has 1. BCU is a non-factor in anything. Their actions did diddly despite the fact they are in the ACC and we are not.

The only schools in the ACC that supported us are the NC schools (Duke, UNC, Wake, and NCST) along with Virginia. I won't mind being in the same conference as them if there is an opportunity someday.

Read this post: My take on joining North Carolina and Virginia

Don't think Pitt or Case tried to stop us. Miami and BC definitely.

 

[CoastAtlantic]

How Oregon and Washington might have fooled George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12

Was @Ducks_Wire playing the “long con” the whole time with Kliavkoff and the #Pac12? Let’s talk. #GoDucks #B1G

trojanswire.usatoday.com

 

[jostar1]

How Oregon and Washington might have fooled George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12

Was @Ducks_Wire playing the “long con” the whole time with Kliavkoff and the #Pac12? Let’s talk. #GoDucks #B1G

trojanswire.usatoday.com

Some good points in that story.

"Kliavkoff’s central job was to keep the Pac-12 alive and stabilize the situation until the next media rights deal was negotiated several years from now. Survival, not supremacy, was the first priority. He wasn’t supposed to get a great media deal; he was supposed to get a media deal which kept the conference together. The urgency attached to that task never really seemed evident in Kliavkoff’s modus operandi, and recent comments from Pac-12 insiders about feeling no “timeline pressure” fed into that."

 

[ec33]

How Oregon and Washington might have fooled George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12

Was @Ducks_Wire playing the “long con” the whole time with Kliavkoff and the #Pac12? Let’s talk. #GoDucks #B1G

trojanswire.usatoday.com

Whether or not this is true - Oregon flirting with the Big XII (XIV/XVI) certainly puts the B1G in a position where they need to make a decision.

 

[Figurehead]

Whether or not this is true - Oregon flirting with the Big XII (XIV/XVI) certainly puts the B1G in a position where they need to make a decision.

So it may be in everyones best interest down the line that realignment plays out this way.

 

[jostar1]

 

[Rufus]

The problem isn’t just money. It’s distribution. If the majority of games are on Apple TV and the top players are getting little to no national exposure, there will be a mass exodus into the transfer portal.

 

[jostar1]

Canzano: Things and thoughts for your Saturday

JOHN CANZANO
JUL 29

— The Pac-12 held a one-hour zoom call with presidents, chancellors and the nine remaining ADs on Thursday at 5 p.m..

What was the tone?

How did it go?

I asked one of the athletic directors on the call.

“Meeting was fine. I think we are pretty solid,” the person said. “Waiting to early next week. League needs to deliver something soon and good. Excellent communication between ADs. Seems we are strongly committed to wait and see the deals.”

The “early next week” part jumped out to me.

— Colorado’s departure to the Big 12 doesn’t help move things along quickly or make that wait easy. I asked the same AD source how the current economic climate in the media world is affecting the Pac-12’s negotiation. How much, if any, of the delay is on Commissioner George Kliavkoff? The slow-moving presidents/chancellors?

Other factors?

“Just taking far too long,” the source said. “But the climate is terrible. And peers from other conferences are trying to take the league. Along with (Fox) trying to own it all. Not healthy.”

— Fox has USC and UCLA as part of its Big Ten contract and also has the Mountain West Conference. The network doesn’t “own it all” but it has a foothold in the Pacific time zone. It isn’t motivated to help the Pac-12 get a good deal. In fact, you could argue that Fox benefits from the destabilization of the Pac-12 (see: USC, UCLA, Colorado).

I’ve been told, on and off during the last six months, that Fox was still at the table with the Pac-12. How aggressively? Not sure. I’ve wondered if the network wants anything more than a few FS1 Thursday/Friday games, if that.

Meanwhile, ESPN currently doesn’t have anything west of the Big 12 footprint when it comes to college football. It needs the 10:30 p.m. ET window filled and the Pac-12 offers that. Also, Apple remains a potential partner. I wonder if Apple would just take an equity stake in ESPN and gobble up the entire Pac-12 package in one giant linear/streaming bite.

I had a Pac-12 CEO Group source tell me two weeks ago “it will be worth the wait.” I don’t think the person was blowing smoke. But that ‘wait’ needs to end soon. How’s next week for everyone? Work for you?

— I’ve been thinking a lot about the health of the ecosystem and the role that television plays in it. College football essentially shut out the entire Pacific Time Zone with the four-team playoff. The playoff expansion to 12 teams elicited cheers from a lot of college fans, but most notably those in the Pacific Time zone.

Last October in a podcast conversation with SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, I asked about whether the major conferences care about the health of the landscape.

Sankey said: “If the College Football Playoff stayed at four, we’d be fine given what’s happened since it was implemented. That is not the perspective offered by everyone else over time. One of the motivating factors from our perspective is the need for football to be relevant on a national basis.

“That’s important for us all.”

— Is the regional health of college football important to media companies? You’d think so. They do lucrative business in the space. But the companies also have shareholders, profits to worry about and a fiduciary duty to generate a pile of revenue.

I know lots of good, smart, conscientious people who work in the media-rights world, but it doesn’t feel like a holistic game right now. It looks more like pirates playing a game of chess.

 

[NE Football]

The ACC is unstable because they have major brands that want to move to the P2 and have options to do so. The only question is does that happen in 2036 or earlier? The Big 12 is a group of schools that really don't have P2 options. As for the ACCN, the ACCN will see peak revenues very soon as it is a linear cable network with cord cutting reducing the number of subscribers over time. That is the same issue that is impacting ESPN. Can the ACCN drive revenue growth through streaming? I don't think so as the ACC is made up of too many small private schools with limited fanbases.

And that’s what worries me about us being attractive to any P5 conference. We are a small state university with a very limited fan base.

 

[hardcorehusky]

And that’s what worries me about us being attractive to any P5 conference. We are a small state university with a very limited fan base.

Why are you talking about UMass? Because UConn isn't a small state u and has a large fan base

 

[NE Football]

We don’t have 40,000 students on our main campus and our fan base is small, just look at our football attendance. We’re not playing in a 80,000 seat stadium, heck we don’t even get anywhere near 60,000. It stinks, but those are the numbers.

 

[superjohn]

And that’s what worries me about us being attractive to any P5 conference. We are a small state university with a very limited fan base.

Stop pretending you're a Uconn fan.

 

[NE Football]

Grow up and get your facts straight. Our football team needs to have a 9-10 win season to help us overcome our shortcomings.

 

[ctchamps]

Spoke to my neighbor yesterday who is a Cal graduate and he is devastated that the PAC is imploding. He’s a big football fan.

 

[UConnJim]

We don’t have 40,000 students on our main campus and our fan base is small, just look at our football attendance. We’re not playing in a 80,000 seat stadium, heck we don’t even get anywhere near 60,000. It stinks, but those are the numbers.

Fan bases are built. UConn football was building a fan base until the hiring of PP, Diaco, and RE 2.0. Virtually every college football program would have experienced significant attendance declines if they went through UConn's poor seasons. If UConn is playing a good schedule, is competitive, and has an occasional really good season, the fan base will be built.

Look at Penn St. In 1959, their field had a capacity of 30k. By 1972, the capacity was 57k and today it is about 107k. That is what winning does to a college fan base.

 

[Patman]

We don’t have 40,000 students on our main campus and our fan base is small, just look at our football attendance. We’re not playing in a 80,000 seat stadium, heck we don’t even get anywhere near 60,000. It stinks, but those are the numbers.

there's a LOT of major state Us without 40k students

 

[ScottVib]

We don’t have 40,000 students on our main campus and our fan base is small, just look at our football attendance. We’re not playing in a 80,000 seat stadium, heck we don’t even get anywhere near 60,000. It stinks, but those are the numbers.

40,000 / 80,000 seems like a fairly arbitrary number, but for the record here are the Big XII conference enrollments (per wikipedia):

School - enrollment / capacity bold indicates they hit the "target"

UCF - 71,948 / 45,301
Texas - 51,892 / 100,119
Cincinnati - 47,914 / 38,088
Houston - 47,090 / 40,000
Texas Tech - 40,666 / 60,682
Brigham Young - 34,390 / 63,470
Iowa State - 30,708 / 61,500
Oklahoma - 28,052 / 80,126
Kansas - 27,685 / 47,000
West Virginia - 25,474 / 60,000
Oklahoma State - 24,660 / 55,509
Baylor - 20,626 / 45,140
Kansas State - 19,722 / 50,000
Texas Christian - 11,938 / 47,223

Others
Colorado - 36,430 / 50,183
Arizona - 49,471 / 50,800
Arizona State - 79,232 / 53,599
Oregon - 23,202 / 54,000
Utah - 34,900 / 51,444
Washington - 49,165 / 70,083

UCONN - 32,669 / 40,000

UCONN's numbers are very much inline with much of the conference membership.. most of which (along with most of the potential contenders) do not hit those "targets"

 

[CL82]

And that’s what worries me about us being attractive to any P5 conference. We are a small state university with a very limited fan base.

We?

 

[WestCoastHusky]

We don’t have 40,000 students on our main campus and our fan base is small, just look at our football attendance. We’re not playing in a 80,000 seat stadium, heck we don’t even get anywhere near 60,000. It stinks, but those are the numbers.

You seriously need to examine your takes on UConn. UConn has way more upside than you think.