Canzano: A sit-down with the Pac-12 Commissioner
Media rights, expansion... and coffee.
SALEM — The small, red building at the corner of Liberty Road and Hansen Avenue operated as a service station in the 1950s. The gas pumps are long gone. The garage where mechanics used to hoist vehicles and make repairs now serves as the kitchen and dining room for the ACME Cafe.
“From Scratch American Cookery,” the sign in the front window reads.
I met Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould here for breakfast on Saturday morning. She slipped into a quiet booth at the back of the restaurant. Her order: French toast and a side of bacon, “extra crispy.”
Later in the day, Gould would drive her dark blue four-door rental car sedan 40 miles south to Corvallis, where she’d watch Oregon State’s football team stun Washington State, 41-38, in classic “Pac-12 After Dark” fashion.
Saturday morning was a good time for a sit-down — columnist to commissioner, commissioner to columnist. There’s so much still up in the air for the Pac-12 and Gould is in the middle of it.
Gould has been on the job as commissioner for nine months. When she was promoted in February, one long-time conference staffer who had worked alongside Gould for years told me: “Teresa cares so much, I worry about the weight of what she’s taking on. If she can’t save the Pac-12, it’s going to leave a hole in her heart.”
I shared that with Gould on Saturday — her eyes got glassy.
“I still feel that weight,” she confessed.
The Pac-12 added Gonzaga, Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State, Fresno State, and Utah State via expansion. It needs to add at least one more ‘all-sports’ school before the summer of 2026. The Pac-12 hired Octagon to help with its media rights negotiations.
“The legacy and brand of the Pac-12 are important to a lot of people,” she said.
What’s the timeline for media rights? Will the conference bundle (or split) its football and basketball inventory? What factors will drive the Pac-12’s next bite in expansion? The conference and its TV network once had 179 employees. It now employs 33 full-time staff between headquarters and Pac-12 Enterprises. Does it expect to rehire and grow again?
“Coffee,” Gould said to the server, “and please, keep it coming.”