Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff, who was so dialed into his conference that he was off the grid in Montana when his two marquee members announced plans to leave for the Big Ten, was recently asked his concern level about any more defections.
“It’s not a concern,” Kliavkoff said July 21 at media day in Las Vegas. “Our schools are committed to each other and to the Pac-12. We’ll get our media rights deal done. We’ll announce the deal. I think the realignment that’s going on in college athletics will come to an end for this cycle.”
Six days later, Colorado left for the Big 12.
Realignment has not come to an end.
The ripples have been felt across the Pac-ahem-9 as well as the Mountain West, where San Diego State is (patiently) awaiting an invitation that is looking less like expansion than frantic replacement, less like strategic growth than mere survival. Is Colorado it? Could others follow the Buffalo trail to the Big 12? Is the Big Ten picking over the yard sale?
Here are some questions and answers about the Pac-12’s sudden existential crisis and how it impacts SDSU, with the caveat that the sands shift quickly in the capricious world of conference realignment.
Is Colorado’s departure good or bad for the Aztecs?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is, it depends.
The Buffaloes stampeding out of town eliminated one nightmare scenario for SDSU, which was the 10 remaining Pac-12 schools sticking together and then voting against expansion. The Pac-12 requires a super majority for expansion, or eight of 10 votes, and there were reports that Oregon and several other schools were opposed.
As a Pac-9, it has little choice, and SDSU is the most logical No. 1 option.
The problem becomes if the beleaguered league wants SDSU for 2024, which a source told John Canzano that it does. That would require a $34 million exit fee to depart the Mountain West with less than 12 months’ notice — and don’t expect a reduced fee given their recent, publicized spat that resulted in SDSU paying $96,000 of the conference’s legal expenses.
That either means the cash-strapped Pac-12 would have to chip in, or SMU, which has deep-pocketed boosters and would come yesterday, could jump to the front of the line.
When would SDSU leave?
This might get tricky. It costs $34 million to leave in 2024, and $17 million for 2025 or anytime after that. The Mountain West’s current media rights contract expires in 2026, but conference members don’t sign a binding Grant of Rights, so the exit fees apply whenever they go.
SDSU officials have said they can’t afford $34 million and seem content to stay in the Mountain West for two years, if necessary.
One report Monday speculated the Pac-12 might help defray the exit fees of expansion candidates, but they’d start at only a half share and gradually increase over the length of the contract. If the value of the new media rights deal is in the $20 million to $25 million range per year, as many expect, a half-share could be as little as $10 million, or only about $4 million more than SDSU gets now from the Mountain West. (The Big 12 deal is worth $31.7 million per year with a far larger linear TV component on ESPN and Fox.)
The Pac-12 deal also is expected to be predominantly streaming via Apple TV, and SDSU is known to require significant upgrades to its on-campus broadcast capabilities that have been estimated between $10 million and $15 million. According to one conference source, SDSU currently ranks last in the Mountain West in that department.
If you pile an additional $17 million on top of that for leaving early from the Mountain West, any increases in annual distributions from the Pac-12 quickly are eaten up.
And it’s not just the Aztecs. If the Pac-12 plucks anyone else from the Mountain West, they’ll face the same financial conundrum.
When will the Pac-12 decide on expansion?
There have been cries for the conference to immediately and aggressively replace Colorado. That makes sense from an emotional, knee-jerk standpoint. It doesn’t make sense from a logistical one.
Say the remaining nine presidents vote to extend invitations before finalizing a multiyear media rights deal and signing Grant of Rights agreements that bind them together for its duration. Who’s paying an eight-figure exit fee with no assurances the league will still be there when they arrive?
And how can current members vote on future expansion if there’s no guarantee they’ll still be around in a year? Until a new Grant of Rights is signed, the remaining nine members are all free agents in 11 months.
The Pac-12 has been steadfast in the sequence of events: media rights deal, GOR, expansion. It reiterated that in a statement addressing Colorado’s departure:
“We are focused on concluding our media rights deal and securing our continued success and growth. Immediately following the conclusion of our media rights deal, we will embrace expansion opportunities and bring new fans, markets, excitement and value to the Pac-12.”
When might that be? Kliavkoff reportedly will present the basics of a deal as soon as Tuesday. If it exceeds expectations or he unveils an unexpected linear TV partner, that might be enough stabilize a teetering wagon. If not, the wheels come off.
In other words: It’s a big week.
Will the Pac-12 survive?
To be determined, but this much we now know: Oregon and Washington might control its fate.
Arizona reportedly could be next into the Big 12 lifeboat (and a Board of Regents executive session was ominiously scheduled for Tuesday afternoon). Arizona State and Utah must be getting nervous, questioning whether their public loyalty to the Pac-12 may mean going down with a sinking ship. Stanford and Cal no doubt have wandering eyes. But Oregon and Washington appear to be the true power brokers here.
The conference’s Northwest pillars can play all three sides:
1. Talk to the Big 12, which would be foolish not to offer them full $31.7 million annual shares (or perhaps more), knowing their acquisition gets them into the Pacific time zone and amounts to a kill shot for the Pac-12;
2. Use a Big 12 offer as leverage with the Big Ten, their desired destination that has been noncommittal on further western expansion after USC and UCLA come aboard next year;
3. Tell the Pac-12 they will consider staying and keeping the conference together … if it agrees to unequal revenue sharing, giving them larger distributions because they are the most valuable brands with the most successful football programs.
The alternative? They leave, and the Pac-12 goes poof.
What are folks in the Pac-12 saying?
Not much, except for Oregon State. The university quickly issued statements from both the president and athletic director after Colorado’s announcement.
“Oregon State University joins with other Pac-12 members in reaffirming our commitment to the long-term strength and vitality of the conference,” President Jayathi Murthy said. “We are united by our shared values, our passion for the highest level of intercollegiate athletic competition, our leadership roles as Tier 1 research universities and our support for student-athletes’ academic and athletic excellence.”
We’ll offer a translation: We’re petrified of playing in the Mountain West a year from now, trying to balance an $87 million athletics budget with $35 million less per year.
Where does the dust settle?
The ideal scenario for SDSU: The remaining nine Pac-12 members somehow stay together, the Aztecs join sometime in the next couple years, the conference stabilizes and everyone lives happily ever after.
The less-ideal scenario: Enough of the Pac-12 stays together and the Aztecs get an invite, but they join a conference that no one wants to be in and the house of cards collapses in five years when the next round of media rights deals triggers another spasm of conference realignment.
The more realistic scenario: The Pac-12 ultimately implodes, and the Aztecs are swept up in Mountain West 2.0, an amalgamation of the bottom of the former and top of the latter that commands a fraction of what the SEC, Big Ten or even Big 12 do in media rights. There’s still a path to the College Football Playoff, and men’s basketball will be solid, but no one will mistake it for a power conference.
Think: Oregon State, Washington State, maybe Cal, maybe Arizona State and Utah if Oregon and Washington go to the Big 12 instead. SDSU, UNLV, Boise State, Colorado State and Fresno State. Maybe Air Force and New Mexico make the cut. Maybe you add SMU and Memphis to extend your reach eastward. Maybe you pull in Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s for basketball.
When and how it happens is the interesting part.
One possibility is for the Mountain West to gobble up the Pac-12 leftovers in 2024, but is Cal going to stomach being in a league with San Jose State? Another is for a breakaway group of Mountain West schools to join the Pac-12 remnants, but that requires them to each fork over exit fees of $34 million to start in 2024 and $17 million to start in 2025. Another is for the two conferences to form some sort of merger that would eliminate exit fees, but that means the awkward task of thinning the Mountain West herd.
The good news is the Aztecs are probably going somewhere and taking a step up in conference quality. The question, though, is how big a step.
