My Thoughts on the Current State of the PAC-12

The PAC-12 is on a downward spiral. Anyone who pays attention to college sports can see that. On July 27, 2023, Colorado announced that it would leave the PAC-12 to return to the Big 12 in 2024. With UCLA and USC already announcing that they will join the Big 10 in 2024, the PAC-12 realistically became the “PAC-9”. One week later, Arizona announced that it will be joining Colorado in the Big 12 to make it the “PAC-8”. The next day Oregon and Washington announced they will go to the Big 10 and hours later Arizona State and Utah announced they will go to the Big 12. Now the PAC-12 will be down to the “PAC-4” in 2024. Forget remaining a “Power 5” conference. This once great conference is struggling just to survive. How did the PAC-12 get into its current position? There are many legitimate factors, rumors, and reasons that are not public. As the old saying goes, the more I learn, the more I realize I didn’t know about the situation. A lot of what I do not know a lot about what the previous commissioner, Larry Scott did, I learned that he left the PAC-12 in a horrendous position. According to ESPN, the PAC-12 lost so much money with its current television deal that it cannot pay exit fees for many Mountain West schools. While it may or may not be able to pay for one or two schools, the conference has at least four spots to fill to have any sense of adequacy and eight spots to fill if it wants to live up to its name of the PAC-12. The current commissioner, George Kliavkoff, had a chance to add schools like San Diego State, Boise State, SMU, Tulane, and possibly poach a Big 12 school and he failed to act for various reasons. Now, in my opinion, the PAC-12 is in such an abysmal state that if I am any one of those schools, I do not leave where I am at even though they are currently in “inferior conferences”. Finally, some schools lost money from COVID-19. During the height of the pandemic, college sports were canceled and when they were allowed to return, fans originally were not allowed to attend the games. In some cases, teams had to travel to play their “home games”. For example, some of Stanford basketball’s home games were in Arizona and New Mexico. For UCLA and USC, joining the Big 10 will allow them to recover lost funds quicker since the Big 10’s television revenue deal is better than the PAC-12’s. While UCLA and USC are not hurting for money, the schools have a right to do what is best for them. As previously mentioned, current commissioner, George Kliavkoff, had a chance to replace UCLA and USC when they bolted for the Big 10. The current wave of realignment began with Oklahoma and Texas leaving the Big 12 for the SEC. That move led the Big 12 to take schools from the American Athletic Conference (AAC), and the AAC took schools from Conference USA, and there have been and will be other moves outside that specific chain. The motive behind the majority of the moves was to find new markets to extend the brand of the conference. The SEC is short for Southeastern Conference. I wouldn’t call Texas and Oklahoma the “Southeastern” section of the United States. Los Angeles is definitely not in the Midwest. With Rutgers, in the New York market, already in the Big 10, the conference will have the two largest markets in the United States. The search for larger markets is not exclusive to the “Power 5” conferences. One school the AAC added was Rice University. It is true that Rice is an excellent academic institution, but outside of baseball, the school has not been successful in sports. Originally, the AAC adding Rice was a questionable move, but Rice is located in Houston, Texas. To bring this discussion back to the PAC-12, it had a chance to regain the Southern California market (San Diego State), to add the Las Vegas market (UNLV), add the Dallas market (SMU), and maybe even add the New Orleans market (Tulane). Instead the conference took a gamble and tried to stay with ten teams. It lost. The concept of the “Power 5” will soon be the “Power 4”. There is no rule that says there has to be a “Power 5” and even if there was, either the Mountain West or the AAC would soon take over the PAC-12’s spot. When there was talk of a “Power 4” or “four superconferences”, it was originally thought the Big 12 would be dissolved. No one could imagine a few years later that it would be the PAC-12 that would be all but dead. On a side note, the PAC-12 once had a chance to expand its brand to Texas and Oklahoma and get Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State. At the time I was happy the deal did not happen. Knowing now what I didn’t know then, I wish it would have happened. The PAC-12 is now fighting for survival. I have an idea of how it can survive. I will be the first to admit that it is not a pleasant one, nor would anyone who makes the decisions actually go for it if they heard it. However, I do not think that the conference will survive in its current state. I am going to share my idea, anyway. I almost wonder if the PAC-12 should rebrand itself as a FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) conference. Being a FCS conference actually gives the conference a better shot of being on ESPN, albeit on ESPN+. According to ESPN, the PAC-12 is about to have a television deal with Apple TV. I’m sorry, but not many people will subscribe to Apple TV to see Stanford vs. Oregon State. Even if the PAC-12 took everyone who showed even remote interest in leaving its current conference to join the PAC-12, UNLV and South Florida (yes, South Florida) are not going to get people to subscribe to Apple TV. Part of me thinks dropping down to the FCS level and getting on ESPN will give the conference a better chance to survive. Let the remaining schools (California, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington State) go where they will and grab eight to twelve new schools. The brand and the history will likely attract many schools. I will have a list of possible schools at the end of the blog, but I would start with the Big Sky football associate members, Cal Poly and UC-Davis. My idea is not unprecedented. The Southern Conference once had Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, and LSU among others. When they left in 1932, the Southern Conference added who it could when it could. The conference that once had Alabama is now a FCS conference. I am not suggesting that the PAC-12 necessarily go with this idea, but whatever it does, it needs to think outside the box, which is what I believe my idea does. My idea of the FCS PAC-12 (current conference in parenthesis). Cal Poly (Big Sky for football/Big West for others) Eastern Washington (Big Sky) Montana (Big Sky) Montana State (Big Sky) North Dakota State (Missouri Valley for football/Summit for others) Portland State (Big Sky) Sacramento State (Big Sky) San Diego (Pioneer for football/WCC for others) South Dakota State (Missouri Valley for football/Summit for others) Southern Utah (WAC) Chicago State if it gets football (I am only half-joking with that one) If these schools would be willing to move up from Division II, I would also add Central Washington, Western Oregon, and Simon Fraser if it got football back. If the conference is open to non-football schools it could add Denver (Summit) Grand Canyon (WAC) Long Beach State (Big West) St. Mary’s (WCC) Seattle (WAC)