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BackDoor's avatar

According to a later column in the Tucson paper, Arizona had a Big12 deal in hand from the day before. They had permission from the Big12 commissioner to listen to the Pac12's latest offer before signing with the Big12.

There was no signed deal for the Pac12 before the Friday meeting. It was all verbal, while Arizona also had the verbal agreement with the Big12 from the day before.

After UW announced they were leaving, then confirmed next by UO also, the meeting proceeded with the "reveal" which was streaming only and $25M.

Arizona immediately contacted the Big12 to confirm their deal. Then Utah and ASU asked for reconsideration by the Big12.

Unfortunately at the time, OSU, WSU, Cal and Stanford did not have those options.

You would be naive to believe UW and UO didn't know what Commissioner K was bringing on Friday while they were talking to the Big10 after midnight the night before. Especially UW knew that the deal was not going to be enough with UW's budget running a deficit so they bailed. UO quickly followed.

In retrospect UW and UO probably accepted too little from the BigTen but the only other option for negotiations was a skimpy offer from the Pac.

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BackDoor's avatar

Tucson: "Big 12 officials met Thursday to approve the addition of Arizona as its 14th member, per reports, paving the way for a new era of UA athletics. It’s not just Arizona that’s leaving the Pac-12 behind, though. Arizona State, the Wildcats’ chief rival, and Utah were approved by the Big 12 Friday."

The BigTen had witnessed Colorado leaving and knew about Arizona on the same Thursday. Nothing was secret. They then moved to finalize UW and UO to the BigTen.

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BackDoor's avatar

Tucson: “The keys were the $23 million a year per school and no games on linear access,” Arizona's Robbins said. “I think those were the two things that were problematic for people when they were evaluating the long-term sustainability of the contract. And, of course, that it was subscription-based.”

Beginning in 2025, the Big 12’s deal with ESPN and Fox is worth a reported $31.7 million per school. The financial gap and visibility were hard to ignore.

The $23 was later "sweetened" to $25M but it would be contingent on streaming subscriptions which were deemed difficult to sell at the subscription price being proposed.

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BackDoor's avatar

Bottom line for Arizona was $31.7M or a $25M maybe. Bottom line for USC, UCLA, Colorado, UA, ASU, Utah, UW and UO was $$$. Bottom line later for Cal and Stanford was stability.

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Quackman's avatar

Thanks for sharing. This is all why It’s ridiculous that Beaver fans are mostly just blaming the Ducks. I’m not a psychiatrist, but there is something about a human need to lay blame and target just one person/group/school. There is also a lot of misinformation and rumors that people cling on to because it’s what they WANT to believe.

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