(09-12-2023 12:24 PM)esayem Wrote:  People can blame the Pac all they want, but it's obvious USC was sabotaging negotiations behind the scenes. When your most desirable program is leading everyone into the open market, you have to wonder how genuine they were being.

If we’re looking for blame, let’s blame TV partners, capitalism, or failed NCAA leadership. I doubt any team in Pac-12 would have left if the Big Ten and SEC were getting paid at the same rate.

(09-12-2023 10:40 AM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(09-12-2023 07:44 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  I think that, after all was said and done, we would probably have ended up in the same place. Even if Kliavkoff had done everything right and signed that $30m ESPN offer last fall, things still would have ended badly for the Pac. In 2029, UO/UW would have joined the B1G, and something similar to what has happened now would have happened then. Perhaps the ACC would have been more receptive to Pac refugees then, though I doubt it. It took watching the complete disintegration of the Pac to get the ACC to even squeak by to that 12th vote, I think that they'd have been just as reluctant to add Pac schools in 2029 as they were in 2022/23.

The last year of the media deal with FOX & ESPN will pay each school $26.7 million. Throw in the annual media revenue from the Pac-12 Network, which was $3.3 million per school in 2021-2022, and the revenue is at about $30 million per school. The ten remaining schools look at a $30 million dollar media deal per school and see revenue growth as flat at best.

The mistakes made by Scott in doing a 12-year media deal and the distribution issues with the Pac-12 Network led to where we are today. If the Pac-12 had done a 7-year media deal, they could have increased revenue and addressed the mistakes made with the Pac-12 Network. The original media deal was done in 2011 and too much had changed since 2011.

Because of the loss of USC & UCLA, Kliavkoff needed to explain to the leadership that there was a revenue ceiling on a new media deal and the importance of stability. The revenue ceiling was difficult for the Pac-12 leadership to accept, especially with what USC & UCLA were getting. They needed to be seen on television. They needed ESPN. They needed stability to better position themselves for whatever would have happened in 2029-2030.

Kliavkoff has put an emphasis on football since he became commissioner. That was never done under Scott. USC hired Lincoln Riley and Colorado hired Coach Prime. The Pac-12 has used the transfer portal to turn things around quickly. NIL has helped at some schools. This season shows the conference had value, but the leadership of the Scott era did a lot of damage and GK and the Presidents finished it off. Leaving the PAC increased travel for the ten departing schools, and only USC and UCLA are getting increases in media revenue.

You are confusing on field performance with value. Oregon State might from time to time have a good season but that's not enough to induce a media partner from paying more for them in a long term contract. Valuable programs draw eyeballs even when they aren't having a great season.

(09-12-2023 10:35 AM)Acres Wrote:  I think they can still salvage the conference. The magic number is $25 million, with espn or fox . If Kiakov can sell the networks into that figure with Stanford, Cal , the four corners, SMU and SDSU at lower shares, I think the President pause and think about it.

Four corners ultimate still want to align with Calford.

They may ultimately want to align with Stanford and Cal, but if the magic number was $25m, then the PAC would not have walked away from a $30m offer, and by the same token, if all that is on the table is $25m, the Four Corners don't want to align with Calford that much that they'll leave the greater income in the Big12 on the table.

So as much as you want to will this "revival just when all hope seemed to be lost" scenario into existence, there's no there, there.

(09-12-2023 07:24 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-12-2023 07:11 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  No not simply bad timing, years of criminal mismanagement and bad leadership, but the league should have never died.

I agree that the league shouldn’t have died. They made a lot of mistakes over the years and maybe they were destined to lose USC, but the complete collapse took a whole multitude of events. The bad timing wasn’t so much that the league is now great on-the-field, but rather the collective media industry freeze of spending money on content last fall in reaction to Wall Street that has continued to this day.

The Pac-12’s game plan wasn’t crazy: it was the same game plan for any sports league of any material value for the past 40 years of going out to the open market for bidding. The rules of the game changed in Fall 2022, though, and that compounded past mistakes that might have been given a reprieve or papered over just a few months earlier. The best example is the Big 12 itself: this was a league where absolutely no one trusted each other and seemed to destined to die for the past decade, yet got its act together and signed a deal just in time.

It should have died as soon an USCLA left. Most old timers here barely took realignment scenarios involving USC to the B1G seriously. It made no logical sense. Maybe a national Super League was the only thing that made sense for USC. The bottom line is, a pacific timezone conference without LA never had a chance to survive for than a nanosecond longer. The major media partners were intent on killing it as fast as possible. And while there was some drama from all powerful academics trying to stave things off, the timeline worked out exactly as it should have. PAC dead in ‘24. No LA = No PAC12.

Several contributing factors led to this:

The PAC 12 was in a competitive slump

Declining interest in collegiate sports on the West Coast

Broadcasting limitations for a West Coast league

Financial mismanagement on the commissioner’s part

Academic elitism, arrogance, and an inflated sense of value on the part of the university presidents

All of this occurring in an era when the networks, chiefly ESPN, were using financial incentives to get their strongest collegiate media properties to consolidate and expand, putting the top programs in fewer leagues. OUT to the SEC insured that FOX/the Big 10 needed to make a rebuttal—the Big 12 had already been stripped for parts, the ACC was mired in their GOR, and that left the PAC 12 open for a raid.

(09-12-2023 12:50 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-12-2023 10:40 AM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(09-12-2023 07:44 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  I think that, after all was said and done, we would probably have ended up in the same place. Even if Kliavkoff had done everything right and signed that $30m ESPN offer last fall, things still would have ended badly for the Pac. In 2029, UO/UW would have joined the B1G, and something similar to what has happened now would have happened then. Perhaps the ACC would have been more receptive to Pac refugees then, though I doubt it. It took watching the complete disintegration of the Pac to get the ACC to even squeak by to that 12th vote, I think that they'd have been just as reluctant to add Pac schools in 2029 as they were in 2022/23.

The last year of the media deal with FOX & ESPN will pay each school $26.7 million. Throw in the annual media revenue from the Pac-12 Network, which was $3.3 million per school in 2021-2022, and the revenue is at about $30 million per school. The ten remaining schools look at a $30 million dollar media deal per school and see revenue growth as flat at best.

The mistakes made by Scott in doing a 12-year media deal and the distribution issues with the Pac-12 Network led to where we are today. If the Pac-12 had done a 7-year media deal, they could have increased revenue and addressed the mistakes made with the Pac-12 Network. The original media deal was done in 2011 and too much had changed since 2011.

Because of the loss of USC & UCLA, Kliavkoff needed to explain to the leadership that there was a revenue ceiling on a new media deal and the importance of stability. The revenue ceiling was difficult for the Pac-12 leadership to accept, especially with what USC & UCLA were getting. They needed to be seen on television. They needed ESPN. They needed stability to better position themselves for whatever would have happened in 2029-2030.

Kliavkoff has put an emphasis on football since he became commissioner. That was never done under Scott. USC hired Lincoln Riley and Colorado hired Coach Prime. The Pac-12 has used the transfer portal to turn things around quickly. NIL has helped at some schools. This season shows the conference had value, but the leadership of the Scott era did a lot of damage and GK and the Presidents finished it off. Leaving the PAC increased travel for the ten departing schools, and only USC and UCLA are getting increases in media revenue.

You are confusing on field performance with value. Oregon State might from time to time have a good season but that's not enough to induce a media partner from paying more for them in a long term contract. Valuable programs draw eyeballs even when they aren't having a great season.

My point is that the conference has value. If teams win and they are playing entertaining football, they get on TV. See Week 4 of this season:

Colorado at Oregon 3:30 PM EST ABC
UCLA at Utah 3:30 PM EST FOX
Arizona at Stanford 7:00 PM EST P12N
Oregon State at Washington State 7:00 PM EST FOX
California at Washington 10:30 PM EST ESPN
USC at Arizona State 10:30 PM EST FOX

The Pac-12 has four OTA games, one ESPN game and P12N game in Week 4. It helps to win and be entertaining. That has value.

(09-12-2023 07:24 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-12-2023 07:11 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  No not simply bad timing, years of criminal mismanagement and bad leadership, but the league should have never died.

I agree that the league shouldn’t have died. They made a lot of mistakes over the years and maybe they were destined to lose USC, but the complete collapse took a whole multitude of events. The bad timing wasn’t so much that the league is now great on-the-field, but rather the collective media industry freeze of spending money on content last fall in reaction to Wall Street that has continued to this day.

The Pac-12’s game plan wasn’t crazy: it was the same game plan for any sports league of any material value for the past 40 years of going out to the open market for bidding. The rules of the game changed in Fall 2022, though, and that compounded past mistakes that might have been given a reprieve or papered over just a few months earlier. The best example is the Big 12 itself: this was a league where absolutely no one trusted each other and seemed to destined to die for the past decade, yet got its act together and signed a deal just in time.

If we assume GK was driving the bus, then a West Coast only league thought too highly of itself.

Nearly half the country lives in the Eastern time zone, where Pac 12 late games start at 11 PM and end on Sunday.

More people live in the Central time zone than Pacific and Mountain combined.

Now factor in the loss of Los Angeles.

The decision to forsake its longtime partner ESPN and go to market under that scenario was very risky.

When you are sitting at the poker table with pocket jacks, an Ace hits the flop and there is betting action, you gotta be able to understand the reality of your situation. Hope is not a strategy.

=========

But I am not sure GK was driving the bus. Oregon and Washington were never signing a GOR and agreeing to a new TV deal until the Big 10 got a new commissioner in place and that commissioner told them an emphatic No.

And so the lunatics were running the asylum once USCLA left...

On top of being in the least watched and least populated timezones in comparison to their other power brethren, PAC had plenty of opportunities to expand for the past few decades and couldn't get their act together, especially when it came to adding a homerun addition like Texas.