98 Comments

Hey UCLA and USC. 25 degrees this morning in Minneapolis for the women's Big 10 tournament. Layer up!

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“No leaks”

Hahaha. What exactly would they want to leak? Low ball offers from the network? Laughter at the other end of the line while back channeling interest from ND? Or Colorado to the Big12? (Legit rumor) This conference is quickly becoming a joke. I won’t be surprised if the Hallmark Channel and BET may become viable network partners. George K is a lame duck exec on a sinking ship. John you are a great writer and I don’t doubt you have a cache of very well positioned sources but the “trust me bro we will get a good media deal” vibes the conference sources have been sending you are going to turn out underwhelming

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When Mike Bellotti says he's worried and thinking the Pac can't get a deal big enough,

the corners are jumping, if/when that happens only then will the B1G come in for Ore / WashThat concerns me I think Mike knows more than we do

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The optimist in me says Kliavakoff is sly as a silver fox. He's in control by not responding to the 'uninformed'. I have no way of knowing but if SMU's public and passionate desire to join the PAC 12 is any indication, the ship is not sinking in fact many want to board!

You've drumbeat into our heads over these past months a couple of key principles and that is current member unity & the importance of media market size for new members.

I'm not worried. King Kliavakoff is court side and many important people are requesting an audience.

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Mar 3, 2023·edited Mar 3, 2023

He's smiling all the way to the bank.

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I'd like to see Larry Scott held accountable for helping ruin the Pac-10. The tv deal he negotiated as one of the first done by any league, turned out to be horrible. UCLA and USC are slated to get around 30 million dollars more each per year than any Pac-10 school. They are smart to jump off the sinking ship aka the Pac-12. Football pays for all the other sports via tv revenue. The live gate and selling hot dogs do not contribute that much, especially if a school has a small stadium like Reser. The SEC and Big 10 are miles ahead in football of the conference big Bill still calls the conference of champions.

It might take the Pac-12 teams around five years, if they are lucky, the compete in the final four. Only 2 schools, Oregon and Washington, have made it so far. The expanded college play-off is still over a year away. The rich get richer and the poor sink farther behind. Oregon has some of the best athletic facilities of any school, but their stadium is much smaller than the .big boys like Alabama and Georgia. Athletes can now be paid for college sports. Thanks again Mr. Scott. Hope you have the courage to show up at a football game in the future. You can use body guards if you are afraid, using some of the dollars you made as you ran the league.

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Logic would suggest that the reason for no report from Kliavkoff for this lengthy period is because he has no good news to report; no progress, no possibilities. He's still thrashing around trying to put something decent together while assuring the schools it's coming. Just hang together and be patient. Logic also suggests that more experienced league leaders have scooped up the good stuff while the PAC dithered.

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Like, Waiting for Godot?

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Hopefully this is a signal that UNLV is being seriously considered for an expansion target. Not because of the team/school/market they are now, but because of what all those areas will look like for them after they've had 5+ years in a P5 league. Long term UNLV is a decent decision.

So let's add SDSU, SMU, UNLV, and ???? not sure who else would fit with these other hypothetical partners. Based on John's recent interview this past week, geography, academics, and cultural fit are key factors. So there we have it.....

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I'm okay with the silent treatment. People don't understand at it's core why it's taking as long as it is, and anything that they share that does not come to be, will only hurt them.

Get it done the best way possible. We will all move on from there.

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John, this is a curious one. Decades of public affairs and crisis mgmt experience—lots of it in higher Ed—taught me to NEVER let others control a narrative. Its reasonable to wonder why that’s what Klavikoff has been doing.

However: every axiom has exceptions. And this may be one of those exceptional scenarios that demands different tactics. When the BIG10 ransacked USC and UCLA, it (obviously) put the conference on unstable, defensive footing. We may never know if, or how close, UO and UW came to splitting.

But given the deck Klavikoff has been handed, I’m unsure there’s been anything he COULD say while managing negotiations and keeping all of his constituents calm and at the table. (Forgive the mixed metaphors.)

Controlling your narrative requires that you have one to articulate. To this point, all he likely could offer is aspirational babble. Better, perhaps, to keep his cards and his story very tight to his chest while focusing on communicating *internally*. The absence of leaks suggests to me that he’s done exactly that, and done it well.

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'No news is good news'...I think that's being rewritten.

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John any chatter about just hitting the next year as PAC-10 ? Any legal reason it's not allowed ?

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Good stuff John! I’m fairly confident that you have to be burnt out on this topic by now!! I would be! I have always been a big believer in what drives enrollment... In my mind, is winning. More specifically football and to a lesser degree basketball. Call it the “Flutie effect” where applications went up 18.6 percent when a college program went from eh... to yeah! University President’s have to change their thinking. Like minds on education, inclusivity, blah, blah, are great and all the front running theory of comradely....but. The cocktail is education. But the straw that stirs the cocktail (education, educational facilities, professor salary’s, etc.... ) is enrollment by way of athletic’s. Now more than ever, money and thus media deals make or break universities. It’s dog eat dog and getting either a really good deal happens for the pac or it implodes, if not now, later for sure. Truth, we have to have the money to buy players to win going forward. Getting into the playoffs is wonderful, but is that the windfall of money equal to the normal take/cut the lowest performing members of the SEC and Big10 get annually. No. And once we get in the playoffs, how long will folks be thrilled with their programs being the number one seed out of their league but being beaten badly in the first round year after year? Hope spring is eternal, until it’s not. Adapt. Or die is the future.

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These are the actions, by Kliavkoff and the university ADs, of arrogant and isolated people. The Pac12 universities are almost all public (except for Stanford now that USC has flown the coop). The ADs and university Presidents forget who they serve, the public. If it is extrapolated a bit, this is the underlying story of the decay of the entire American university system and its lack of concern for the role it plays in our society, higher education and perhaps sports entertainment.

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"Thompson said earlier this week, “Give the Pac-12 credit; there haven’t been any leaks. They’ve kept things very tight.”

Uh, if there is little interest and no progress, there is nothing to leak.

Disney (ESPN) is cutting back on programming. Amazon announced today they are shelving their East Coast headquarters due to reduced revenue. If ESPN and Prime are not players, or want the Pac-12 on the cheap, then any potential "leaks" would be dismal.

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