The Pac 12’s Leadership Needs To Ink A New Media Deal Then Start ACC Merger Talks.

By Jim Williams

Last week in a show of solidarity the Pac 12 conference presidents issue a statement saying a new media rights deal will be out soon and no one is leaving. Arizona, Arizona State, Cal, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Utah. Washington and Washington State are sticking together as they watch USC and UCLA head off to the Big Ten in 2024.

The statement on the future of The Conference of Champions was short and to the point:

“The 10 Pac-12 universities look forward to consummating successful media rights deal(s) in the very near future,” the statement says. “Based upon positive conversations with multiple potential media rights partners over the past weeks, we remain highly confident in our future growth and success as a conference and united in our commitment to one another.”

Now Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff goal is to work with Amazon, ESPN, and a few potential mystery partners in the hopes of beating the Big 12 deal done with Fox and ESPN that pays about $31.7 million per school for the next six years. At the moment new Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has not hidden his plans to expand west and look at the possibility of adding some Pac 12 members.

Meanwhile, it is expected that sometime perhaps no later than April San Diego and SMU will be invited to join the Pac-12 For now two seems to be where the Pac-12 will stop and then take time to consider other potential members.

But the Big 12 targets are Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah making up what the media has dubbed “The Four Corner Schools,” which Yormark would like to add to his conference. The question is those four schools are far more valuable to the Big 12 than the few million dollars they might get for moving so why move?

“The answer is there is no reason for any of the Pac 12 members including the “Four Corner Schools to leave the conference at this point,” says Florida-based media consultant Jeff Edwards. “What the conference needs is to stay together and quickly ink a new four- or five-year media rights deal as we see how the college realignment saga plays out. I think that staying together and using that time to engage the ACC in talks about a future merger or alliance is in the best interest of both conferences. The chance to join the Big 12 will be there four years from now.”

Last summer, the ACC and Pac-12 had detailed conversations about a partnership, involving a championship football game between the two conferences, as well as other basketball and Olympic sports events that could land both leagues a better media rights deal as UCLA and USC left for the Big Ten. At the time there were too many moving parts to go further plus the ACC rights deal that pays each school 36 million dollars through 2036 seemed a massive obstacle.

It was actually the ACC and more to the point the University of North Carolina that brought up the idea. Andrew Carter of The News & Observer, last summer reported that university leadership at North Carolina floated the idea of a “super conference” between the ACC and Pac-12

“Should we explore a partnership with the Big 12 or Pac 12[?]” UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham texted university chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz.

“We could have a super conference both athletically and academically,” Guskiewicz responded. “Probably would need to be called the Atlantic-Pacific Athletic Conference (APAC). Maybe that’s crazy, but if it would get us a better TV deal, it may be worth considering,” he continued.

“We need to think about what outcomes we want? What are our priorities? Do we want to maintain all teams in the ACC? Is this a new league? Do we want to have the same number of teams at each school? Should we play a national schedule or regional schedule?” Cunningham questioned..

There remains an open channel between the ACC and The Pac-12 about ways they can work together in the future. Merger talks are not a dream or a media hyped story there is clearly room for some serious conversations.

The two coastal conferences are a far better fit than joining the Big 12. The name floated by the North Carolina president rebranding of the two leagues as the Atlantic-Pacific Athletic Conference makes sense on both an academic and athletic level.

An Atlantic-Pacific Athletic Conference could offer media partners some outstanding big-name college sports brands in all four time zones starting at noon on the East coast, heading into the Central, Mountain, and ending the night on the Pacific coast. We are talking Boston College, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse in the East, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, and North Carolina in the South, for now, SMU in the Central, Colorado, and Utah in the Mountains then it is Arizona, Arizona State, Cal Oregon, Stanford, and Washington out West.

That is a mega-conference with the star power and the media markets to land a big media deal. This would take four or five years to work out, but it would be time well spent if it could be pulled off.

At present, the grant of rights buyout is estimated to be $120 million per school if you want to get out of the ACC but now Disney the parent company of ESPN is doing some serious cash cutting. The next big sports contract prize coming up soon will be the NBA contract and ESPN along with TNT want to keep the contract.

But there will be plenty of competition and that could work to the advantage of both the Pac-12 and the ACC.

According to CNBC- NBCUniversal executives have informed the NBA of their potential interest, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. NBC Sports wants a package that would include playoff games to air on NBC’s broadcast network. Some regular season games could be exclusive to NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock. The NBA could also decide to force media companies to simulcast all games on streaming to increase.

The window on the NBA negotiations doesn’t open until 2024 but ESPN besides their numerous college rights deals, they are paying Major League Baseball, the NHL, NFL, international soccer, and F-1. Perhaps they might be willing to work with both the ACC and the Pac 12 to rework the contract to allow for other bidders for the new conference so that others could be part of the new conference.

This is a very ambitious plan, and many things have to go right a Pac 12 and ACC merger, but key people on both sides think that it is worth exploring. So, Pac-12 needs to sign a new media deal and start being creative with the ACC to see what comes next for both leagues.