Pac-12 breakup: Ten worthy reads on the demise of the conference and what’s next

It’s a momen­tous day in col­lege sports and the sports world writ large, with the news that the Pac-12 as we’ve known it for decades is dis­solv­ing. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon have accept­ed invi­ta­tions to join the Big 10, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of USC and UCLA. Mean­while, Ari­zona, Ari­zona State, and Utah are fol­low­ing Col­orado to the Big 12 Con­fer­ence, leav­ing just Cal, Stan­ford, Wash­ing­ton State, and Ore­gon State in the Pac-12 (or make that Pac‑4).

ESP­N’s Adam Rit­ten­berg reports that the Big Ten, which start­ed the demise of the Pac-12 last year by poach­ing USC and UCLA, was con­sid­er­ing invit­ing Cal and Stan­ford in addi­tion to Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton, but ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to focus only on the North­west schools at this junc­ture in time.

The Pac-12 traces its ori­gins back to 1915, when the Pacif­ic Coast Con­fer­ence (PCC) was formed. The PCC orig­i­nal­ly includ­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley (now known as Cal), the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon, and Ore­gon Agri­cul­tur­al Col­lege (now Ore­gon State University).

With­in a few years, Wash­ing­ton State and Stan­ford joined.

The PCC last­ed until 1959. It was ulti­mate­ly replaced by the Ath­let­ic Asso­ci­a­tion of West­ern Uni­ver­si­ties (AAWU), fol­low­ing pay for play scan­dals. The AAWU renamed itself the Pac‑8 in 1968 and became the Pac-10 in 1978 when Ari­zona and Ari­zona State were wel­comed into the fold. In 2011, it became the Pac-12 with the addi­tion of Col­orado and Utah. Includ­ing the PCC era, that’s over a hun­dred years of tra­di­tion and com­pe­ti­tion between Left Coast schools.

Now, that’s com­ing to an end.

As Jon Wilner wrote in his col­umn The Hot­line:

Many details of the col­lapse have yet to be made pub­lic, but this much is cer­tain: The upcom­ing col­lege sports sea­son will be unlike any expe­ri­enced by the Pac-12, or any major con­fer­ence, in the mod­ern his­to­ry of col­lege athletics.

All 12 schools will com­pete for league titles and post­sea­son appear­ances, just as they do every year, know­ing this is the end of the con­fer­ence in a rec­og­niz­able form.

The Pac-12 was cre­at­ed in 1915 as the Pacif­ic Coast Con­fer­ence, took its mod­ern shape in 1964 as the Pac‑8 and grew into a 10-team league in 1978 with the arrival of the Ari­zona schools. In 2011, Col­orado and Utah made it an even dozen.

But abysmal lead­er­ship by the uni­ver­si­ty pres­i­dents and strate­gic mis­steps by the com­mis­sion­ers, Kli­avkoff and his pre­de­ces­sor, Lar­ry Scott, sent the con­fer­ence on a path of self-destruction.

“This has been a slow-mov­ing train wreck,” an indus­try source said.

Wilner cit­ed four par­tic­u­lar blun­ders that led to today’s events — two dur­ing the Scott era and two dur­ing the Kli­avkoff era:

1. Scott’s deci­sion to cre­ate the Pac-12 Networks
2. Scott’s rejec­tion of an offer from ESPN, in 2018, to take over con­trol of the strug­gling Pac-12 Net­works and sign the 12 schools to a long-term media contract
3. The conference’s refusal to expand in the sum­mer of 2021, short­ly after Kli­avkoff took charge, when the Big 12 was vul­ner­a­ble to poach­ing after the announced depar­tures of Texas and Okla­homa to the SEC
4. Kliavkoff’s lack of urgency in secur­ing a media rights agree­ment last fall and winter

We don’t write much about sports here on The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate — our pri­ma­ry focus is pol­i­tics, pub­lic pol­i­cy, and elec­tions. But this is a big deal and we’d like to take an oppor­tu­ni­ty to point our read­ers to some of the columns and com­men­taries we think are worth read­ing in the after­math of these events.

#1: Future WSU options aren’t glamorous, but a little Cougar pride can minimize today’s reality

Dave Bol­ing offered his take on the impend­ing breakup of the Pac-12 in a col­umn for The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, fea­tur­ing retired coach Jim Walden.

“Col­lege foot­ball has turned into a mon­ey grab,” for­mer WSU foot­ball coach Jim Walden (1978–86) said. “It’s kind of depress­ing that there’s no loy­al­ty, no appre­ci­a­tion for fight­ing togeth­er; you’d like to see them do the things they ask of their play­ers, stick­ing togeth­er and believ­ing in them­selves. That’s all gone.”

Where does that leave fans?

“I don’t want Cougar Nation feel­ing any less of them­selves,” Walden said. “They have noth­ing to be ashamed of. If the rest of the teams want to sell their souls for a few bucks, that’s their prob­lem, not ours.”

Read the col­umn here.

#2: Stop the madness! Save the Oregon-Oregon State rivalry before that is gone forever, too

Bill Oram wrote a pas­sion­ate col­umn for The Ore­gon­ian lament­ing the report­ed news of Ore­gon’s depar­ture for the Big 10 and how it will affect OSU.

Save me the lec­tures about there being more impor­tant things in the world than sports. Of course there are. This is about what is innate to us as Ore­go­ni­ans, some­thing primal.

Being a Duck doesn’t mean as much with­out hav­ing the Beavers as a pesky counterweight.

We should not so eas­i­ly sac­ri­fice the tis­sue that holds us togeth­er as a state. That gives us a bond with our neighbors.

The exis­tence of our two flag­ship state schools and what their ath­let­ic pro­grams rep­re­sent is part of the back­bone of this state.

Sell that down the riv­er for a few mil­lion? Sure, why not.

Read the col­umn here.

#3: George Kliavkoff did not have a good job interview with the Pac-12 CEO Group

Matt Zemek of Tro­jans Wire offered a deep dive into the events that led to schools begin­ning to bolt the Pac-12, start­ing with USC and UCLA last year. He concludes:

Is it Kli­avkoff or the Pac-12 CEOs who are most to blame? They are both huge­ly and cen­tral­ly respon­si­ble, but if you real­ly had to choose, which side bears more blame for this catastrophe?

If we’re being fair and accu­rate, it real­ly is a sit­u­a­tion in which both sides bear equal blame: The CEOs for not empow­er­ing their com­mis­sion­er enough, and Kli­avkoff for not under­stand­ing how impor­tant it was and is to be a deci­sive pres­ence who val­ued action over board meet­ings and results over process.

This was about sur­vival, not norms or pro­ce­dures. This was about get­ting stuff done, not about using the right method. No one in the Pac-12 seems to have under­stood that. The con­se­quences have been felt through­out the con­fer­ence and col­lege football.

Read the col­umn here.

#4: Sad day for my fellow Beavs and Cougar brethren

A Red­dit user offered a lengthy com­men­tary on the breakup of the Pac-12 and what it means for Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty and Wash­ing­ton State University.

For me though, the sin­gle great­est tragedy is see­ing the tra­di­tion I grew up with dying and know­ing I want be to able to share it with my kids like my grand­pa shared it with me. I know many will say, “where were you when it hap­pened to ________”. You’re right, I wasn’t there, I didn’t get it but now I do. It sucks the way TV mon­ey is tear­ing up every­thing that made us fall in love with col­lege football.

It cer­tain­ly feels like those is us get­ting cut our are the canary in the coal mine. I think two things are cer­tain in the future. Fox/ESPN will con­tin­ue to shave teams off until they’ve got their top 32. In the short term those teams will ben­e­fit great­ly finan­cial­ly. The oth­er truth that I’m pre­dict­ing is that once that comes to fruition and 90+ pro­grams have been cut out you’ll end up with an NFL Lite that many peo­ple won’t care about or watch.

Read the com­men­tary here.

#5: Enjoy Pac-12 football in what might be its last season, save anger for later

The San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle’s Bruce Jenk­ins sug­gest­ed focus­ing on the short term rather than what will hap­pen around this time next year.

Out of the awful crum­bling mess comes a reprieve. It’s a fleet­ing brand of the­ater, bare­ly trust­wor­thy, but the upcom­ing Pac-12 foot­ball sea­son is worth your time. Enjoy it while you can, before the mem­o­ries of glo­ri­ous West Coast foot­ball go com­plete­ly dark.

If you enjoy dwelling upon mis­ery before the fact, go ahead and ignore the sea­son — but I’ll throw out a dare right now: You won’t last. Not if you love the sport. Per­haps you’ll be in the Chee­rios crowd, grum­bling bit­ter­ly over break­fast but sur­ren­der­ing to the lure by Sat­ur­day afternoon.

Are we deal­ing with cat­a­stroph­ic devel­op­ments as the con­fer­ence falls apart? There are too many to count. Tra­di­tion, famil­iar­i­ty, the con­ve­nience of region­al trav­el and a great num­ber of long-stand­ing rival­ries are about to van­ish. There’s a sense of dread about women’s sports and Olympic-sports pro­grams get­ting crushed by the despi­ca­ble mar­riage of foot­ball and media rights.

Read the col­umn here.

#6: Don’t cry for the Pac-12. Just go on cheering for Utah or BYU, for your favored school.

Gor­don Mond­son, writ­ing for The Salt Lake Tri­bune, point­ed out this isn’t the first time that a con­fer­ence has bro­ken up, or that schools have moved around.

Don’t for­get that this has been going on for some time now. The Big 12 has had mem­bers tak­en away by the Big Ten and the SEC and the Pac in recent years, at one point threat­en­ing the Big 12′s sur­vival. The Pac‑8 took Ari­zona and Ari­zona State away from the old WAC more than 40 years ago. What­ev­er hap­pened to some of the schools in the old South­west Con­fer­ence? Did any­one mourn for the Moun­tain West when Utah and TCU were tak­en away?

It’s always been a world of eat or be eat­en. In col­lege sports, somebody’s or a group of some­bod­ies’ pock­ets have always been filled, been opened up to be filled at some­body else’s expense.

This is not the end, then, rather the con­tin­u­a­tion of what has hap­pened for decades now. Cer­tain schools, cer­tain asso­ci­a­tions of schools, look­ing to put them­selves in posi­tions of advan­tage against oth­er schools and oth­er asso­ci­a­tions. It’s gone on from the begin­ning, and it will con­tin­ue to do so in the form of super con­fer­ences. Every­one should have seen it com­ing. Some did.

Read the col­umn here.

#7: Don’t expect CU’s Deion Sanders to shed tear at Pac-12’s funeral. “Everybody’s chasing a bag,” he says.

Mark Kis­zla wrote a com­men­tary mix­ing his reac­tion to the news of the Pac-12 breakup with that of new Col­orado coach Deion Sanders, who is nonchalant.

The roots of the Pac-12 go deep, all the way back to 1915, when it began as the Pacif­ic Coast Con­fer­ence. The league’s sto­ried his­to­ry includ­ed tales of trail­blaz­ers as var­ied as base­ball pio­neer Jack­ie Robin­son and Olympic icon Dick Fos­bury, which has caused us all to hear hip­py-dip­py Bill Wal­ton to roar its prais­es as the Con­fer­ence of Cham­pi­ons until our ears bled.

Well, who’s going to speak the eulo­gy for the Pac-12? The bloom is off decades of tra­di­tion at the Rose Bowl, because every­body is chas­ing a pay­day. The math and the mon­ey no longer com­pute for a league that has lost five mem­bers since last year — and like­ly even more to fol­low. This ain’t your granddaddy’s idea of col­lege sports, when a quar­ter­back yet to throw a touch­down pass for the Buffs can dri­ve a $200,000 May­bach through the streets of Boulder.

Read the col­umn here.

#8: Arizona State’s Michael Crow must humble himself, fight for Pac-12 exit

Jere­my Cluff of the Ari­zona Repub­lic filed a piece look­ing at Ari­zona State’s future and exam­in­ing why Lar­ry Scott was put in charge for as long as he was.

In 2019, Crow made head­lines (which have resur­faced recent­ly amid fur­ther col­lege con­fer­ence expan­sion and realign­ment chat­ter) when he said this about the Pac-12 under for­mer Pac-12 Com­mis­sion­er Lar­ry Scott, of whom he was an ardent supporter:

“By my stan­dard, we’re on track, we’re doing well, we’re mak­ing progress and we’re posi­tion­ing our­selves for great­ness going for­ward,” Crow told The Ari­zona Repub­lic’s Jeff Met­calfe in an inter­view. “What some­body will be writ­ing about three years from now or four years will be, ‘How did the Pac-12 get ahead of us.’ ”

Oops. Talk about a freez­ing cold take.

Read the arti­cle here.

#9: Pac-12’s demise is story of 12 years of hubris, apathy, astounding mismanagement

Stew­art Man­del was inspired to write a lengthy piece for The Ath­let­ic that help­ful­ly traced the events of today back to the deci­sions made by Crow and the oth­er Pac-12 uni­ver­si­ty pres­i­dents in the 2000s and 2010s.

By all accounts, Kli­avkoff gen­uine­ly was blind­sided that Col­orado chose to leave when it did, days before he was set to present net­works’ final offers. He also gen­uine­ly believed he would go into the room Tues­day, present a unique offer from Apple — by which the mem­bers would make far more than their Big 12 coun­ter­parts if they met cer­tain sub­scrip­tion thresh­olds — and every­one would rush to sign a new grant of rights.

This was his sales pitch to a room full of schools that a dozen years ear­li­er let Kliavkoff’s pre­de­ces­sor sell them on over­ly opti­mistic Pac-12 Net­work sub­scriber tar­gets. It’s no won­der that with­in days, five of the remain­ing nine had accept­ed invites to con­fer­ences that could tell them exact­ly how much they’ll make.

Read the arti­cle here.

#10: Tired of nonstop realignment? UCLA’s Chip Kelly may have the common-sense solution

Ben Bolch of the Los Ange­les Times wrote an arti­cle that relayed Chip Kel­ly’s thoughts on putting an end to the mon­ey-dri­ven con­fer­ence hopping.

Chip Kel­ly has a solu­tion for all the crazy cross-coun­try trav­el, not to men­tion the century’s worth of rival­ries and tra­di­tion torn asun­der by cease­less realign­ment in col­lege football.

Are you ready for a dose of com­mon sense?

One con­fer­ence. Every team. Divi­sions are aligned by geography.

“Do it like the NFL, where there’s NFC West, NFC North, NFC South where it’s the same thing and then we all get togeth­er,” Kel­ly, who coached for four sea­sons in the NFL before com­ing to UCLA, said Fri­day morn­ing. “But I think there should be one con­fer­ence in all of col­lege foot­ball and just break it up like they do in the pro­fes­sion­al ranks. … That makes the most sense. There’s your trav­el ques­tion, there’s all those oth­er questions.”

Read the arti­cle here.

The future of the Apple Cup and the Platypus Trophy

UW empha­sized in a state­ment that it val­ues its rival­ry with WSU.

“We are proud of our rich his­to­ry with the Pac-12 and for more than a year have worked hard to find a viable path that would keep it togeth­er,” UW’s Ana Marie Cauce said in a state­ment. “I have tremen­dous admi­ra­tion and respect for my Pac-12 col­leagues. Ulti­mate­ly, how­ev­er, the oppor­tu­ni­ties and sta­bil­i­ty offered by the Big Ten are unmatched… Even with this move, we remain com­mit­ted to the Apple Cup and to com­pet­ing with WSU across all of our sports.”

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon said some­thing very sim­i­lar about its rival­ry with Ore­gon State — that it would “pri­or­i­tize the long-held tra­di­tions, includ­ing com­pe­ti­tion across all sports with Ore­gon State University.”

“Our goal would be to sched­ule Ore­gon State in every sport that’s pos­si­ble,” said Ore­gon’s Rob Mul­lens. “Foot­ball sched­ul­ing can be com­pli­cat­ed because of how far out it is and the dif­fi­cul­ty of play­ing non-con­fer­ence games lat­er in the year. But our goal would be absolute­ly to con­tin­ue to play Ore­gon State.”

Those state­ments prob­a­bly don’t count for much in Cor­val­lis or Pull­man right now.