Pac 12... 11... 10... 9... 8... 7...6...5...4... POOF!

Hello Friends. For those of you around the world, what follows may or may not be interesting. It is about the collapse of an American football college conference that had existed for more than 100 years. But I suppose it's also about the the state of the world in general, in some ways. I'm posting it here because I'm mad and disillusioned.


Post Mortem on the Pac
(An Angry Coug's Thoughts on the Demise of the Pac-12)
By Eric Johnson

What strange bedfellows they make, the University of Washington and their hated rivals, the University of Oregon, now forever linked in history as the shrewd duo that burned the Pac-12 Conference to the ground. Or, at the very least, threw the last match on its smoldering remains.
A picture emerges of ambiguous behavior, of knowing winks and crossed fingers behind the back, fronted by promises and pledges and vows of solidarity. Backchannel deals in the night, fueled by the kind of all-consuming ambition that isn't talked about in pep rallies and fight songs.

In December of 2022, once the shock wore off when USC and UCLA announced that they were leaving the Pac-12 and joining the Big 10, the question was obvious: what will Oregon and Washington do? That's because of power and money and national visibility, things those institutions have earned over time (in Oregon's case, thanks to a billion dollars from the founder of Nike).
For the longest time the silence from Montlake and Eugene was deafening. No announcements of solidarity. No "Circle the wagons" statements. At least not publicly.
Their silence was like chum into shark-infested waters.
And so we waited.
Make no mistake: the silence and the eventual abandonment of the Pac-12 was never about the well-being of student-athletes or academic considerations or the mission statements of institutions of higher learning. This was about something far more important. Money.
TV money.

Thursday, August 3. They had a deal. Ask WSU's President Kirk Schulz. Ask Dr. Michael Crow, ASU's longtime President. Or Oregon State's Athletic Director Scott Barnes. Ask any of them. They had a deal.
They'd agreed in principle to a media rights package with Apple. Pac-9 games (Colorado, by this time, had also abandoned the Pac) would be carried on a subscription streaming-based model, which is where sports programing is headed anyway, right?
Arizona State president Dr. Michael Crow described it this way: "We were offered a media contract by the Apple corporation that was really a technological, 23rd century Star Trek thing of really unbelievable capability that we were really very interested in."
Kirk Schulz, one of the longest tenured of any of the presidents involved, and who'd taken on a leadership role in negotiations, called it, "an innovative and forward-looking partnership proposal with Apple" that would "significantly grow the revenue coming into each school over the next several years."
It was not a garbage deal. It was forward thinking. It was an attempt to preserve the past by boldly venturing into the future. Various reports indicate it would have guaranteed schools between $23-$25-million per year early on, and that by year three, the deal would have eclipsed what Big-12 and ACC teams are getting.
Was it as much money as a school might get by forsaking everything and selling itself to the highest bidder? No, it was not.
But it wasn't garbage.

Schulz said, "We finished our board meeting on Thursday evening with a strong feeling of staying together, pursuing a new partnership with Apple, and moving forward with conference expansion."
One imagines a sense of unity in that last meeting Thursday night, a kind of collegial camaraderie. Pushed to the brink, they were pushing back. It must have felt good. ASU President Crow says, "We were the stalwarts fighting for the Pac-12, til the last inch."
Oregon State Athletic Director Scott Barnes put it this way: "(We were) literally hours away from a deal that everybody could embrace."
That night, the chair of the WSU Board of Regents, Lisa Schauer got an encouraging update.
"On Thursday," she says, "WSU President Kirk Schulz and Athletics Director Pat Chun presented to me an innovative media plan that would position the Pac-12 to lead the Power Five conferences into the future."

But there was another meeting. It was a 10:30pm closed door emergency meeting of the UW Board of Regents.
Maybe it was interrupted by a phone call from the Big-10. Or maybe that call came the next morning.

The rest of the league presidents and chancellors slept well. Why wouldn't they? They had banded together and saved the conference. Just a few signatures away...
John Canzano, a columnist and radio host in Portland who's been on the front edge of reporting on the Pac-12 for many years, says, "After they broke the meeting, as they went to bed they believed they were on the same page."

Canzano believes that it was early Friday morning that the Big-10 came calling. Again. It might have been as early as 5am.
They upped their offer. Washington and Oregon would get a 50% share of the Big-10 media rights deal with Fox/NBC/CBS for six years (about $35-million per year) and then when the NEXT deal came around, they would get full shares. Theoretically over $70-million per year.
What a grotesque Frankenstein monster we've created.

The Pac-12 (what was left of it) CEO group was scheduled to meet at 7am Friday morning to sign their deal with Apple.
Eight minutes before that meeting was scheduled to start, Kirk Schulz's phone vibrated. UW President Ana Mari Cauce had sent him a text message. She told him that the Huskies were leaving the Pac for the Big-10. Thanks for the memories.
Minutes later Oregon President John Karl Scholz informed the conference that his school was leaving for the Big-10.
Schulz said he was, "shocked."
"Stunned" was the word WSU Regents chair Lisa Schauer used.
Oregon State AD Scott Barnes said, "I'm furious."

They really fooled 'em all, didn't they? Snookered the whole lot. What a bunch of suckers.

Ana Mari Cauce got in front of a camera not long after. She pumped her fists when she talked about Washington's "very real excitement at joining the Big-10 Conference."
"This is a great move," she said.
She said something else, too. "In the end we had to do what was right."

And that was it.
Arizona and Arizona State were the next to fall, grudgingly. Together they'd pledged to stay in the Pac-12 unless the UW and Oregon bailed. They accepted an invitation to join the Big-12.
Utah left the same day.

Maybe I should grow up. Maybe I should have realized that the big guys always step on the little guys. That it's ALWAYS about money, stupid. Always. It's the way of the world.
See, my problem is I keep forgetting that the world works that way. Like a child, I keep believing in other things. Shame on me.

It's possible that none of it ever really meant anything. The rivalries, the history, the 108 years. The road trips and the tailgates and the trash talk. All that hugging and backslapping in the grandstands, the singing of fight songs and the little tears that formed in the corner of our eyes when we charged onto the field and jumped up and down like fools.
Maybe it's been a load of nonsense the whole time, all the way back to when my Dad drove me to Pullman to watch the great Jack Thompson slay giants. "The Cougs'll find a way, Pal, you just watch and see," he used to say.
Seems so silly now.
"It stinks," John Canzano says. "They did what was best for them. They did not do what was best for athletes or fans or tradition or rivalry. They did what was best for themselves."

UW President Cauce said something else the other day. She said with a straight face, "There is no question that the Apple Cup is a cherished tradition. And we want to continue our long history with the Cougars."
How laughable. How rich.

Budgets will tighten in Pullman and Corvallis, and maybe at Cal and Stanford too. Athletes will leave, jobs will be cut, traditions will die. Lives will be changed.

In the end, the most infuriating thing for the Cougar faithful is that when all was said and done, after 108 years of scrapping and fighting and believing, of slapping Husky hands away when they tried to pat us on the head, after all that, in the end, WSU's fate lay squarely in the hands of... the University of Washington.
But wait, that's not entirely true. Not entirely. Because the more we learn about what happened during the death throes of the Pac-12, the more we realize that it was Oregon pulling the wagon the whole time, and that the University of Washington was just along for the ride.
Says Canzano, "This was 100% Oregon driven." One principal player painted for him the metaphor of a bunch of cowboys at a table in a saloon, shaking hands with some of their guns drawn under the table. The biggest gun was green, not purple.
Canzano's sources tell him that Washington was never going to go it alone. Oregon might have, and it would've taken guts. But not the Huskies. For all of their Bow Down bravado and disdain for all things green and yellow, they were going to do whatever Oregon did. Just follow along.
Strange bedfellows indeed.

A long time ago, when baseball owners were wrestling with the concept of revenue sharing, George Steinbrenner famously said, "I own the NY Yankees, not the Seattle Mariners." In other words, to hell with the rest of them.
The University of Washington has certainly the right to say, "We're the U-Dub, not WSU." To hell with the rest of them.
But having the right is not the same as BEING right.
And what happened last week wasn't right. It never will be.
They'll make a lot of money. They'll be rich!
But do you know what I think? I think every time they cash one of those fat network checks there will be a little voice in the back of their heads, nagging at them, softly at first and then louder and louder, about something they'd like to forget.
They destroyed a thing that was beautiful.

 

I'm not at all surprised something like this would come from a Coug or Beaver.

There are bad feelings. I totally get it.

 

It doesn't make sense to me to blame the Ducks and the Fuskies for grabbing onto a life raft as the ship sinks to the bottom. USC caused this.

 

there's a giant load of bullshit there

I talked to someone who would know: Oregon, Washington, and Arizona were never on board with that deal. Any other PAC president who is saying they were is either lying or naive. The 3 schools would only have signed a GOR for a streaming only package if they had no other options. But they had options

and the bait & switch by Kliavkoff when he failed to inform the presidents that Apple was demanding that the conference pay all production costs would have killed the deal anyway Kliavkoff also said he had several potential linear TV partners. But Apple refused to allow that.

it was a totally shitty deal that arrived Friday morning

one other thing I was told, bot Oregon and Washington had told the other schools in the PAC for months they were trying to gain entry in the Big-10. None of them should have been surprised when it happened

 

I’m surprised a Coug or Beav even has ACCESS to electricity or modern technology in order to even create such a masterpiece. #BAM

 

My grandson just moved into his dorm today in Pullman, I hope they have electricity there!

 

I heard that Espn offered the pac12 30 mill per last year, after usc and ucla left. Oregon and washington said no thanks. if that is true, that was the end right there.

 

Half true...

ESPN offered $30m/team after USC and UCLA and the Pac12 (not just Oregon/Washington) said no thanks. One of the reasons being that the Pac12 presidents believed they were closer to the B1G in value than the ACC. They told the commish to tell ESPN we'll take $50m/team and ESPN responded "goodbye" and gave the offer to the Big12.

 

Yeah thats more accurate. Heard it on the radio the other day and i didn't paint a very good picture.
Still a monumental mistake to not take it.

 

Huge mistake for the schools outside of Wash/Oregon. I think ultimately, those two schools would be have realized in the 2030's that they needed to leave to have any chance to compete on the national level, so this may have only sped the process to getting them to full-share in what I believe will be one of the two power conferences. A $30m/year revenue gap makes it so difficult to recruit, compete with facilities, and retain quality coaches.

 

Not so sure though. All the increased travel is going to have an impact. Five to seven games back east vs west coast i think will have an impact on them. I think the best case would have been to keep the pac12 intact without any more departures.
I could be wrong but i think thos will make it much tougher for both schools to be a top team. A playoff contending team.
Im no college football guru though. Im a fair weather fan who roots for whatever nw team is doing well at the time and is ranked and i have little knowledge of the ncaa rules and all the details of all this.
Im the kid EVERYONE else hates because i have no alliance. Unless somehow green river community college entered the picture. Lol.

 

Couldn't disagree more.

I would much rather be a program flying an additional 10-15 hours per season, but have $30m-$40m extra to hire/retain elite coaches, build top notch facilities, fund support staff, be on linear TV, have increased money for NIL, be able to pitch to recruits you're in one of the top two conferences, etc.

Don't get me wrong; Oregon will be the conference champion far more infrequently now than they would've been had they stayed out West, but their ability to actually contend to win the national championship might've increased just as much.

 

Canzano’s reporting being used as a significant source of information to drive the narrative of ASU’s Michael Crow being some white knight for the PAC raises my red flags. All credit, no blame for him. A load right there. ASU jumped ship really fast … and it’s amazing they pulled that one off so amazingly quickly with the Big12 … no apparent, previous discussions … wow. Crow got that moving soooooooo fast. Calling shenanigans.

Arizona has been prepping their off ramp with Colorado. Utah? No blame coming their way. Just an innocent bystander that got pulled in by the Big12 because they’re good at football and have had some success at basketball … No one’s an innocent in this and neither are they necessarily nefarious.

The PAC12 botched it for years. Lack of actual leadership earned this. I feel bad for OSU and WSU and some fans and supporters, but that’s it.

 

Has he always dreamed of attending a Community College? #BAM







Sorry, I had to. #GoDucks

 

Totally agree. I'd rather of had it stay the same, but this is NOTHING but a positive for both the Ducks and that stupid Purple and Gold team up north.

 

That's what I told him....

 

Hmm im not so sure. I hope you are right, but I think UW and OU have alot of fair-weather fans on top of theirs diehards. Especially UO who has no local pro team to offset the casual football fans.
As @barfo eluded, If they dont start hot out of the gate, i think alot of the fans like me will become disinterested and not tune in.
I liked tuning into the west coast rivalries. It felt like UO and UU were building one and UU has been getting better.
I see all of that falling apart and this creating a void of interest in fans.
Also i wasn't just speaking of team travel but fan travel. Fans head to pullman, seattle, Corvallis, etc. they wont be heading back East.
So not only is the on the road, physical fan support diminished, but as we see Oregon play some East cost team again on the east coast, and they arent winning? I think many will be like me… who wont care and tune out.
College kids can afford a road trip to the next state. To the opposite coast or midwest? Not so much.
With the espn contract, from what i know, would have been the 30 mill per but also allow the teams flexibility to make money in other ways that are no longer attainable for them.

 

with a 9 game conference schedule, 3 of the games will be on the west coast for sure, leaving 6 games a year against the rest of the BIG. The 5 home games 1 year alternating with 4 home the next will flip-flop with the other west coast teams; one year the Ducks will have 2 at home against USC/UCLA/UofW, the next year 2 on the road

meaning that the Duck football team will only travel to 3 conference road games a year against the rest of the BIG. In fact, 3 games max in the eastern time zones was part of the agreement with the BIG when Oregon/Washington joined

furthermore, it's not like they will be flying to Europe. Flying to Ohio State or Michigan is around 2400 miles. But flying to Colorado or Arizona is 1300 miles. Salt Lake City is 800 miles. The only burden of those extra miles will be another hour or two on a jet. All the other components of travel: packing and getting to the airport; negotiating the airport prior to departure; negotiating another airport after arrival; traveling to a hotel and getting a room; getting meals; leaving a hotel and going to the game venue; playing the game; leaving the venue for the airport; once again negotiating departure and arrival airports; going home and unpacking....all of that will be the same whether traveling to Seattle or Ann Arbor

the travel burden for football player is being exaggerated. The travel costs, not so much, but again, the added costs are mostly from longer flights = more fuel

it will be tougher to win the conference, that's for sure. But that won't be because of travel

now, that's all for the football teams. It's going to be different and more challenging for the other sports teams. The BIG plays a 20 game conference schedule in men's BB and an 18 game schedule in women's BB. There is already some planning for longer road trips. It won't be like flying to Arizona or LA to play just 2 games. Teams will very likely fly back east for 10-14 days and play 5-6 games. But there will still be travel between venues back east, and the players will still have some scholastic responsibilities. It will be more challenging for the players in Olympic sports. For instance: women's softball. Now, those teams play a 55-60 game schedule every year. But BIG only plays a 23 game conference schedule. So, it's easy to see an added burden but it's also easy to see ways to mitigate

if Notre Dame said today they were ready to join the BIG, both Notre Dame & Stanford would be in the BIG by Tuesday. BIG presidents would love to add Stanford (academic prestige), but FOX won't kick in any extra money for Stanford like they did for Oregon and Washington. But FOX would add for Notre Dame + Stanford. Now there is already talk about a 10 game conference schedule. and it would probably go that way if it was a 20 team conference. But the formula would remain the same 4 games out west and 3 road games back east