The Pac-12 Conference didn’t die this week.
It perished 13 months earlier.
On June 30, 2022, the departures of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten became official. And the future of the league they’re leaving behind — the same one University of Arizona sports became synonymous with beginning in 1978 — became precarious.
My colleagues and I discussed the situation on the “Wildcast” podcast the very next day. We all agreed: The Pac-12 is kaput.
Not much actually happened over the ensuing year-plus — a bad sign for the conference, despite Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff’s ridiculous assertion last week that the longer the conference waited, the better its media-rights deal would become — until Wednesday. That’s when the Big 12 approved the addition of the University of Colorado, paving the way for the school and conference to get back together. The Colorado Board of Regents unanimously endorsed the move Thursday afternoon.
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It’s not the first domino to fall. Nor will it be the last.
This move by the Buffaloes and bold Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark isn’t just about Colorado. It’s about weakening and further raiding what’s left of the Pac-12.
Yormark wisely recognizes that college sports is in a go-big-or-go-home phase. The only chance to compete for dollars and eyeballs with the ever-expanding Big Ten and SEC is to join forces and form some version of a rival “super conference.” The Pac-12 and Big 12 could have done that — a merger that would have required foresight and vision, two elements lacking in the reactive, rudderless so-called Conference of Champions — and maybe that’s more or less where we end up.
Because if Colorado, despite its lack of football success for most of the past 20 years, is viewed as an attractive addition for the Big 12, so should Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. Those three and CU form what everyone’s been calling the “Four Corners” schools. Once USC and UCLA said they were leaving, those four became the most logical expansion targets for the Big 12, which already had offset the losses of Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC by reeling in BYU (a huge brand that should have been the Pac-12’s top expansion target), Cincinnati, Houston and UCF.
Of course, this assumes geography is any sort of relevant criterion. Based on the additions the Big Ten and Big 12 recently have made, it clearly isn’t.
(Brief tangent: I think I speak for most Pac-12 fans that none of these developments bring joy or make sense [if you take money out of the equation]. USC and UCLA playing in the Big Ten will never not be stupid. College conferences should be based on geography for myriad reasons, with rivalries — the best part of college sports fandom — atop the list. Even if football splintered off and became its own entity, divisions would be created along geographical lines. That’s really where this whole thing is headed, by the way. But that’s another argument for another time.)
UA president Robert C. Robbins repeatedly has said that Arizona will wait to see the media-rights parameters before making any decisions about the school’s future. To which I say: What are you waiting for?
If Kliavkoff had a viable deal, he would have presented it already.
Robbins is also in charge of a university with an appealing athletic program. Yormark purportedly is a big basketball advocate. Aside from UCLA, Arizona, even 25 years removed from its NCAA title, has the biggest men’s basketball brand on the West Coast.
Arizona coach Jedd Fisch speaks at Pac-12 Media Day on July 21 in Las Vegas.
The UA’s football program is ascending — and, frankly, has a better path to long-term success if you believe coach Jedd Fisch is in this for the long haul. Does anyone think NFL-great-turned-college-coach Deion Sanders, who has made Colorado interesting again, will still be in Boulder five years from now if he’s able to instantly elevate CU football?
Arizona also boasts a rising women’s basketball program and baseball and softball programs that have won multiple national championships. All of those sports are thriving and popular in the Big 12, whose fans, overall, are more passionate about athletics than the Pac-12’s.
Arizona isn’t a good fit for the Big 12; it’s a great fit.
ASU has to come along for the ride to preserve the Territorial Cup rivalry and bring in the burgeoning, if blistering, Phoenix market. And no matter what the preseason football media poll said, Utah has had — and still might have — the best football program in the Pac-12.
Would the Big 16 be on par with the Big Ten and SEC? No. But third place is probably the best-case scenario. As Robbins said regarding the would-be media deal, “If we win a bronze medal, I think we’d all declare victory.”
Brett McMurphy of Action Network reported Wednesday that Colorado will receive a full share of Big 12 media revenue — approximately $31.7 million from ESPN and FOX — and that any Power Five school would get the same. If Kliavkoff — who is threatening to unseat previous Pac-12 boss Larry Scott as Worst Commissioner Ever — had anything in that ballpark, the Buffs likely wouldn’t be bolting.
Could Kliavkoff complete a Hail Mary and save the conference? I suppose it’s possible. Swapping San Diego State for Colorado would be a one-for-one, maybe even an upgrade in certain respects. Other expansion candidates that have been discussed — SMU, Tulane, UNLV, Gonzaga — would expand the Pac-12’s footprint and make the league more eclectic. But it wouldn’t be what it was — or should I say is.
That’s the real shame in all this: The Pac-12 might be the most exciting, interesting football league in the land this year. All the big-time, big-name quarterbacks came back. As many as six Pac-12 teams could be ranked in the preseason AP Top 25.
This is the best chance the league has had to break back into the College Football Playoff. Also, quite possibly, its last.
Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff delivers his opening address and takes questions from media on hand in Las Vegas Friday, July 21, 2023 as part of Pac-12 football media day. Video courtesy Pac-12
Contact senior sports reporter/columnist Michael Lev at mlev@tucson.com. On Twitter: @michaeljlev
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