Canzano: After the Pac-12 goes dark ... and other Monday Mailbag questions
Canzano: After the Pac-12 goes dark ... and other Monday Mailbag questions
Oregon football, Caitlin Clark, Track, TV, goats and more...
The Pac-12 Conference as we knew it ended on a called third strike at 12:33 a.m. ET on Monday in Kentucky.
Oregon State’s baseball team outlasted its Pac-12 peers. The final breath of the 108-year-old conference was taken in the blasted Eastern Time Zone by a university now faced with the climb of its life. In a twist of irony, the Beavers played beyond every other Pac-12 team competing in every other sport.
What were your first thoughts after the final out?
Mine included Pac-12 greats such as Jackie Robinson, Bill Walton, John Elway, Jim Plunkett, Reggie Bush, Ronnie Lott, Marcus Mariota, Dan Fouts, Steven Jackson, Terry Baker, Sabrina Ionescu, Sonny Sixkiller, Napoleon Kaufman, Cam Rising, John Olerud, Drew Bledsoe, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and a host of others.
I also thought about lousy leadership, rotten governance, the nauseating influence of media companies, greed, gluttony, arrogance, a gaggle of inept university presidents, and bumbling commissioners Larry Scott and George Kliavkoff.
I also thought about geographical bias, population density in the United States, and what that has to do with conference consolidation. Let’s face it, when it came to shuttering one of the Power Five conferences — five shrinking to four — it should be no surprise that the Pacific Time Zone got the shaft. That’s not new.
Never mind that the Pac-12 has more NCAA titles than any other conference. Never mind that it produced more Olympians. Never mind that it had attractive TV markets (see: LA, Bay Area, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, etc.). The forces working behind the scenes sniffed out the vulnerability in the ecosystem and systematically went to work.
An athletic director at one of the “Four Corners” schools messaged me in August, just 48 hours before the conference’s implosion: “Peers from other conferences are trying to take the league along with TV executives trying to own it all.
“Not healthy.”
The Big Ten had already snatched the Los Angeles TV market and, in the eleventh hour of the Pac-12’s overcooked negotiation, Fox added the two brands it coveted in the Pacific Northwest. The Big 12 and ACC picked over what was left, or at least what their media partners agreed to pay for.
Still, here was Oregon State baseball on Sunday night, a three-time national champion, fighting for one more inning of life. That called third strike slammed the door, not just on the OSU baseball season, but on what was at its core, a beautiful conference with some problematic leadership issues.
I’ve written several columns in recent months about the “lasts” in the Pac-12. The last football season. The last championship game. The last baseball tournament and final Pac-12 Network broadcast. Sunday marked another last.
The last… last?
Because now, we’ll get some firsts. First Big Ten and Big 12 football games for some schools. First ACC games for Stanford and Cal. And the first official day of a new quest for WSU and OSU.
I spoke with the Cougars interim athletic director, Anne McCoy, last week. She said something new as she talked about a possible Pac-12 rebuild or maybe a merger of some kind or maybe even one day joining another conference.
McCoy told me: “It’s time to turn the chapter and to be excited for where our future will lie.”
Thanks to all who submitted questions to this week’s mailbag. If you are a paid subscriber, thank you for your support. If you’d like to share my work please consider a gift subscription for a friend or family member. And thanks to all who donate subscriptions to seniors on fixed budgets.
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