The Pac-12’s Time May Be Up

The Pac-12 may be no more. Like the once dominant Southwest Conference (1914-1996), 108-year-old West coast stalwart is facing an existential crisis.

Reports indicate that both the University of Washington and the University of Oregon have been unanimously accepted into membership in the Big Ten Conference. In the last 24 hours, the University of Arizona appears to have a standing invitation to join the Big 12 Conference. With the announced departures of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten in 2024-25, the Pac-12 has lost 5 of its 12 current members.

How did the Pac-12 get here? Simply, a series of events that can be blamed on the marketplace, leadership and fear. The marketplace has changed dramatically in the decade the Pac-12 Network has existed, and the revenue distributions once hoped for never materialized. The annual media payments each institution receives has fallen further and further behind their Big Ten and SEC counterparts, leaving a gaping hole of at least $30 million annually per institution. Over more than a decade, that adds up to at least $3.6 billion in lost revenue potential.

Much blame has rightly been laid at the feet of former Pac-12 Commissioner (and self-proclaimed television network executive) Larry Scott for banking on the novel idea of a conference 100% owning its own network, while not having a distribution partner to help with, uh, distribution, as the Big Ten, ACC and SEC have. The failure to secure a deal with Direct TV confounded the strategy even more.

Commissioner George Kliavkoff presented an Apple+ streaming deal to the presidents and chancellors on Friday morning. While no numbers were officially shared, reports said the contract may only have been for $20 million annually, for just 1-2 years. It appears that was not enough to keep Washington and Oregon in place.

It’s notable that the Pac-12 has experienced a high degree of turnover in the president’s office over that last several years. Stanford’s Marc-Tessier Lavigne, UCLA’s Gene Block and Cal’s Carol Christ have all announced their departures in the last several months. Oregon has had several leader in and out of the president’s office. Much of the leadership attention has fallen to Arizona president Robert Robbins, who because he shares a Board of Regents with Arizona State’s Michael Crow, may not be able to decide independently whether Arizona should leap immediately to the Big 12.

Colorado’s sudden departure to the Big 12 a few weeks back set in motion a ton of second guessing and FOMO-“fear of missing out” among coaches, presidents, boosters and fans. Would the Big 12 ultimately be a more stable place financially to land? Will all “Four Corner” institutions land there together?

There is still too much uncertainty to know what’s next. It is both sad and surprising that the Big Ten are (as of now) not considering taking Cal and Stanford (and the San Francisco/Silicon Valley market). It appears the days of the Big Ten and the Pac-12 holding their academic and research superiority over all the other Power 5 athletic conferences may be coming to an end. The silence around the futures of Washington State and Oregon State is deafening, although a few have suggested they could end up in the Mountain West Conference.

Where does this leave the Pac-12 and “West Coast Power 5” ideal? In this era of chasing television and streaming revenues, eyeballs and viewer data, Colorado football coach Deion Sanders told a press gathering, “Everybody’s chasing the bag”. It’s really about time zones and “Big Saturday” games. The days of regional alignment and similar academic philosophies and mission are in the rear-view mirror. When it comes to television exposure and access to the newly expanded College Football Playoff, all bets are off.