Wow! The level of incompetence and / or sheer greed here is breathtaking. Can the PAC12 claw back the payouts to Larry Scott? There should be accountability here. Maybe he has enough in the bank to pay off the $50M obligation. That would be just desserts.
The benefit of the doubt? I have little or no doubt that Scott and his sycophant minions knew what was going on and the cover-up was on.
Audited by one of your best friends? You can't make this 'stuff' up.
The network should file BK. 1-year clawback for preference payments to 'insiders' would be a slam dunk and the one year could go back to when Scott and friends learned of this accounting 'error.' Add fraud to the equation and the clawback could extend from the date Scott et al learned about the overpayment to the time he was terminated.
Does someone need to take the gloves off? Hell yes! But are the Pac/10 conference 'leaders' willing to do so? I doubt it.
They'll bend over and ask the Pac-10 members plus SC and UCLA to refund the money owed. I'm mad as hell but I have no choice but to keep on taking it in the tailpipe.
One form of the B12 or the other is looking long term better and better.
Thank you John for helping to expose and following up on this chicanery.
Let’s look at the CEO group that oversees the conference. By and large, they’re purely academic types ill-suited to manage an athletic and media enterprise of this size and scope. Easily bamboozled by a salesman like Larry Scott. He saw hi$ opportunity and took it.
Have you spoken with Ed Ray? I like Ed, but it looks like he bought into the Larry Scott regime, hook, line and sinker? He was a big part of the conference keeping Scott on. Would love to hear what he thinks now? I'm sure he is wearing a muzzle.
Overpayment? Well this explains razor thin production budgets, layoffs, eliminating positions all together. The loss of Mike Yam and other quality on-air personalities. The adoption of remote broadcasts. Oh and the inability to provide stability to the Pac-12 CEO Group. It all makes sense now that the truth has emerged.
I don't feel like we know enough to know if Chief Financial Officer Brent Willman and Pac-12 Networks president Mark Shuken were complicit to the degree that they should be fired, or if they are indeed the scapegoats, because in the corporate world, someone has to be (and Larry Scott and Woody Dixon are long gone), or perhaps this is the convenient excuse to remove them, being holdovers from the Scott era, whether there is an actual reason other than this series of incidents, or just corporate infighting, which is also an all too common practice.
The feeling I continue to have following the seemingly unending series of small to large, and local to conference wide, sub-optimal developments is one of an operation that just doesn't have things buttoned up well at all at hardly any level (though there are occasional positives). A well-organized organization just doesn't have so many things go wrong, and when they do (and some problems are always going to crop up from time to time anywhere), they are addressed quickly and effectively.
Whatever other issues there were with Larry Scott, and therefore the culture of the organization he created and maintained, I've felt all along he was just so out of connect with anything and everybody involved in running the conference that the result has been an ongoing series of issues that just weren't seen coming (by someone), and then there was no clear vision of a correction moving forward.
Much has been made of the fact that Larry just didn't connect, and people from the inside and the outside didn't connect with him. That's a recipe for disasters, even if fully unintentional (which it wasn't always, it seems). Some don't even involve Scott, or Current Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff, for that matter. But perhaps they should.
The results are a long string of things that frequently leave me thinking "This just wouldn't happen in the SEC or B1G. Or the Mt West either, for that matter."
Better call Saul…..
Wow! The level of incompetence and / or sheer greed here is breathtaking. Can the PAC12 claw back the payouts to Larry Scott? There should be accountability here. Maybe he has enough in the bank to pay off the $50M obligation. That would be just desserts.
I'm sure Lavish Larry developed a sudden case of amnesia when that interview occurred.
Going to need a bigger shovel.
It is the Bald-Faced Truth - thank you John
Keep digging. Lots more to uncover.
The benefit of the doubt? I have little or no doubt that Scott and his sycophant minions knew what was going on and the cover-up was on.
Audited by one of your best friends? You can't make this 'stuff' up.
The network should file BK. 1-year clawback for preference payments to 'insiders' would be a slam dunk and the one year could go back to when Scott and friends learned of this accounting 'error.' Add fraud to the equation and the clawback could extend from the date Scott et al learned about the overpayment to the time he was terminated.
Does someone need to take the gloves off? Hell yes! But are the Pac/10 conference 'leaders' willing to do so? I doubt it.
They'll bend over and ask the Pac-10 members plus SC and UCLA to refund the money owed. I'm mad as hell but I have no choice but to keep on taking it in the tailpipe.
One form of the B12 or the other is looking long term better and better.
Thank you John for helping to expose and following up on this chicanery.
John, pretty sure you're not on Larry's Christmas card list anymore!
I'd be suspect around the existing relationship between the Pac 12 and their law firm. Time for a change?
Let’s look at the CEO group that oversees the conference. By and large, they’re purely academic types ill-suited to manage an athletic and media enterprise of this size and scope. Easily bamboozled by a salesman like Larry Scott. He saw hi$ opportunity and took it.
So does this mean I get a rebate on my Comcast bill for the last 10 years?
John,
Have you spoken with Ed Ray? I like Ed, but it looks like he bought into the Larry Scott regime, hook, line and sinker? He was a big part of the conference keeping Scott on. Would love to hear what he thinks now? I'm sure he is wearing a muzzle.
Overpayment? Well this explains razor thin production budgets, layoffs, eliminating positions all together. The loss of Mike Yam and other quality on-air personalities. The adoption of remote broadcasts. Oh and the inability to provide stability to the Pac-12 CEO Group. It all makes sense now that the truth has emerged.
This mess is sleazier than an episode of Succession. Wher'd the $50m go? Follow the money.
Larry is a true snake in the grass in my humble opinion
I don't feel like we know enough to know if Chief Financial Officer Brent Willman and Pac-12 Networks president Mark Shuken were complicit to the degree that they should be fired, or if they are indeed the scapegoats, because in the corporate world, someone has to be (and Larry Scott and Woody Dixon are long gone), or perhaps this is the convenient excuse to remove them, being holdovers from the Scott era, whether there is an actual reason other than this series of incidents, or just corporate infighting, which is also an all too common practice.
The feeling I continue to have following the seemingly unending series of small to large, and local to conference wide, sub-optimal developments is one of an operation that just doesn't have things buttoned up well at all at hardly any level (though there are occasional positives). A well-organized organization just doesn't have so many things go wrong, and when they do (and some problems are always going to crop up from time to time anywhere), they are addressed quickly and effectively.
Whatever other issues there were with Larry Scott, and therefore the culture of the organization he created and maintained, I've felt all along he was just so out of connect with anything and everybody involved in running the conference that the result has been an ongoing series of issues that just weren't seen coming (by someone), and then there was no clear vision of a correction moving forward.
Much has been made of the fact that Larry just didn't connect, and people from the inside and the outside didn't connect with him. That's a recipe for disasters, even if fully unintentional (which it wasn't always, it seems). Some don't even involve Scott, or Current Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff, for that matter. But perhaps they should.
The results are a long string of things that frequently leave me thinking "This just wouldn't happen in the SEC or B1G. Or the Mt West either, for that matter."