Twelve days after the Pac-12 crumbled with the defections of six members in a thunderclap of conference realignment triggered by Oregon and Washington heading to the Big Ten, Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes has gone from being “furious” at the dismantling of the league to figuring out where the Beavers’ athletic enterprises go from here.
Advertisement
“At some point those emotions sort of settled down, and folks start to understand that we’re going to find a path forward,” Barnes said Wednesday. “And that’s not soon enough. We’re in this spot where I think the waters are less murky than they were a few days ago, but they’re not completely clear. So we’re waiting for the waters to clear and that’ll help us understand that path forward.”
There may be one emerging end to that path, as Barnes expressed a desire to rebuild some version of the league that just fell apart. And, more importantly, a level of belief that the four teams left behind – Oregon State, Washington State, Cal and Stanford – could be the driving forces behind it, instead of taking an every-school-for-itself mentality.
“A real shot, but it won’t be without difficulty,” Barnes said. “But yes, I do emphatically believe that four of us, as foundational members, can build something back that is real, tangible, and sets the course for the future.”
Barnes spoke to The Athletic on Wednesday about his thoughts on Pac-12 leadership, its role in the conference disassembling, the future of the Civil War rivalry with Oregon and more.
(Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.)
What have the main questions been that you’ve been dealing with? And how hard are the answers to come by?
Well, I think a lot of folks wonder how it happened. How did this all unravel, in a lot of ways, so last minute? And then what’s our plan? What’s the path forward? Are we going to remain in the Power 5?
We talked a lot about our priorities, which is to keep the Pac-12 together. If there’s a path forward there with four of us as a foundation, retaining as many or all the assets there and working on a new deal, and remaining at the Power 5 level with a (College Football Playoff) bid. And so those are all things we’re working towards.
Advertisement
How did this happen? How did this unravel? Or why?
I think that in our careers, we’re all dealt a bad hand from time to time. But effective leaders figure that out. The Pac-12 was dealt a bad hand in a lot of aspects. They didn’t figure it out. And that’s difficult to swallow, right? And what makes it even more painful is that we thought we had it figured out almost to the very end. And then it fell apart. To dissect all the things that went wrong in the process would be in hindsight, and you could look at a lot of different things. But, ultimately, the leaders did not deliver in getting this right. And that is it in a nutshell.
But if you’re choosing the main reasons that drove this, what would those be? What’s the inflection point?
When you’re in a leadership position, and you report to a board, and you report to others, you need to understand on a daily basis how people are feeling and what they’re feeling. And sometimes you have to be strategic enough to pull that out of folks. Because sometimes that information doesn’t come readily.
I don’t think Pac-12 leadership was in touch with how folks felt. Look, we can talk about the pause and waiting later to do a (media rights) deal, the climate change, the bottom fell out of media companies and tech companies for a bit, you could talk about the UCLA decision was late, should we have gone sooner. There’s a lot of things we could talk about. But, ultimately, you need to be in tune with your members and understand the landscape very, very well. To do that, you need to be out in front of it and you need to be connected to media partners, to your board, to others, to really understand and know, at a personal level, where things sit. And I I don’t think that work got done, in my opinion.
It sounds like you lay a little bit less of this at the feet of Oregon and Washington, and more the conference overall. Am I hearing that correctly? Or is there enough blame to go around?
It’s all the above. There’s some fundamentals, and I shared those with you. And then at the end, when you’re making a decision that I would call a knee-jerk decision – because hours before you locked into staying, and then you change your mind – how informed is that decision in the long run?
With all the things that went wrong, we still had an opportunity – and look, I’m going back to the defection from the start, that started with UCLA, USC and continued to build. But at the end of the day, there was another opportunity to salvage this. And we could have salvaged this. And that’s when, for whatever reason, those final schools made their decision. And that was the house of cards.
Advertisement
From what I can tell, the messaging from the Pac-12 leadership is we want to help figure things out for the other four. How is that possible, if there’s been an undermining of trust?
I don’t know if it is. And I think that’s something that we’ve got to decide on – the role of Pac 12 leadership. That’s something that needs to be determined in terms of this final year. And I don’t have an answer, other than to say that that I think Pac-12 leadership and the remaining board will certainly want to have that conversation, on what the role of leadership looks like in the last 10 months or so.
So essentially when you guys are trying to figure out what Oregon State is going to do, it is Oregon State trying to figure it out. It doesn’t sound like you’re making calls to the Pac-12 office to get help.
That’s correct. But we’re not an island. Obviously, we’re working really closely with the remaining schools and understanding where they sit and our path forward. And that’s where I say, I think the waters are less murky. They’re not entirely clear yet, but we’re getting there. And I’m hopeful that we’ll understand that soon, very soon. And if we do, then we can go to work in earnest on rebuilding the Pac-12. That’s certainly our goal. I have been personally in touch with the other schools to ensure that we’re talking and meeting and moving the ball up the field.
Can you shed any light on what the options are? What’s out there for you guys?
For us, our priority, again, is keeping the Pac-12. We think it’s in the best interest of our student athletes and our fans to build back the Pac-12. We have inserted ourselves in every conceivable conversation, every feasible conversation at the Power 5 level. And I would say that our best option is rebuilding the Pac-12.
Obviously, (Group of 5) options are out there. But that’s not our priority.
Just in terms of where you’re going to be on TV, where you’re going to be seen – I assume that’s the next part, that comes after figuring out if the Pac-12 is salvageable?
I’ll put it this way – it’s thinking through the governance structure of the NCAA and the Pac-12, understanding our rights assets we hold very soon, securing a media consultant to assist in navigating that landscape. And, at the same time, simultaneously thinking about continuing to discuss potential expansion partners.
Can you guys right now talk to TV executives? Can you talk to the networks? Can you talk to nonlinear entities and try to start figuring this stuff out? Or again, do you have to wait on that?
Yeah, we’re going to wait till we have more answers on the things I’ve mentioned. The assets we retain. The membership that we have. And then immediately move to that phase.
How soon do you realistically think you’ll have these answers?
I think very soon we’ll know about the fate of the four and then we can go from there.
Advertisement
If you want to look down the line farther, the other things that we’ve got to focus on are the practical things, which are putting a schedule together for our programs. Football, as you know, many of the games that we scheduled are locked into the mid 2030s. We are doing all that background work right now on availability of games, understanding sports-sponsorship applications for other sports as we align ourselves potentially with other partners, all those things. All those things are being sorted out and we’re seeking answers to questions while we’re waiting for the waters to clear. (Laughs) I’ve said that way too many times.
Obviously, there has been chatter out there about Cal and Stanford and the ACC. How confident are you that they actually are aligned with you and Washington State to rebuild this thing?
When I say the waters are clearing, that’s certainly one aspect of what I’m talking about directly. Very soon, we’re hopeful that there’s finality to whether or not that’ll happen. That in and of itself gives us clarity on moving forward. That really is a key question that needs to be answered.
Do you have a feeling on that one way or the other?
My feeling is that we’ll know very soon. I’m cautiously optimistic that we can move forward together.
Probably almost making a statement rather than asking a question here, but it’s got to be just the biggest deal in the world to make sure that you’re still getting the amount of money that you need to support all of your athletics. We’re not just talking about football. You have to worry about a soccer team, too.
Whatever those (media rights) dollars are, the reality is they’ll likely be less than what we’re making currently. Now, that could grow over time. But we could be likely dealing with less annual revenue from all aspects of conference revenue streams. So we’ve got to be prepared to fill those gaps. Because what we do want to do is continue to invest in our student-athletes and retain coaches. And so those are things that are also being viewed, and it’s all a TBA. We don’t know, ultimately, what the revenue streams will be. So scenario planning on all of that is another item that we’ve been doing.
What’s at stake in filling those gaps, and finding a way to do that?
We want our student-athletes to have an excellent experience here at Oregon State. And they have. In many ways, that’s why they tend to stay here, and coaches tend to stay here, because of this special place and the culture and the facilities and, yes, the resources. So our primary focus is making sure that we have the funds available to meet the needs of our student athletes and the experience we deliver to them. And it’s a holistic experience. It’s in the classroom, it’s in the community and it’s on the fields of competition. And that costs money. It is our priority that we find a way to continue to fund that at a high level. And that we find the highest and best competitive opportunities for them.
I believe you used the word “furious” to describe how you felt in the first few hours after this. Where are you now?
Any of the success I’ve had was in part due to the fact that my highs aren’t too high and my lows aren’t too low. So we moved immediately towards solution-based (thinking). All of our energy is in finding solutions to our problem. We could dwell, and continue to be furious. We’re channeling that energy towards solutions.
In the category of, it’s easy for them to say, Washington wants to preserve the Apple Cup. Oregon wants to preserve the Civil War. Is that possible? Is there a way forward to maintain that rivalry across the board?
To be determined.
Advertisement
Are relationships irreparably damaged here – or is irreparable never a thing, as long as there’s enough time involved?
Nothing’s irreparable. I believe that. Anything you’re dealing with in life, you need to move on from it. As it relates to scheduling, we’re going to look at (putting) our best foot forward in terms of our student-athletes and fans, and that’s the priority. Oregon’s not a priority. It’s our fan base, it’s our student-athletes and putting them in the best position for future competitions. So whether that includes Oregon or not has yet to be determined by us.
(Photo: Ali Gradischer / Getty Images)
