Last July, weeks after USC and UCLA’s stunning Big Ten announcement, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff made a bold realignment prediction: “No Pac-12 school is going to the Big 12.”
Eight months later, we may finally learn whether his confidence was justified or false bravado.
Kliavkoff is facing pressure to deliver a new media rights deal to his members by the end of the month. If the dollar figures or the details are underwhelming, March may be the moment when the Big 12 finally strikes. Sources briefed on the discussions say the conference has been in recent contact with the so-called Four Corners schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah — which has renewed optimism that convincing them to join is possible.
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Brett Yormark has eyed westward expansion since the day he was hired as the Big 12’s new commissioner last summer. Yormark has never been shy about his interest in expanding the Big 12 into the “fourth time zone” to establish a truly national conference and boost the value of his league’s media rights. The arrival of BYU this summer will get the Big 12 into the Mountain Time Zone. Yormark wants more, though he has always said any additions need to be additive and not dilutive.
“I don’t think any of us are trying to dismantle the Pac-12,” Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades told SicEm365 on Tuesday. “If there’s opportunity, and whenever their TV media deal comes to fruition and if those institutions decide that it’s not good for them, then the Big 12 will be ready. And that probably is as simple as I can say it.”
Yormark is also deep in discussions with Gonzaga, but sources involved in the process indicated he wants clarity on the Pac-12’s situation before making that move.
Since these expansion courtships began last summer, Yormark has been confident he can convince his targets that the future is brighter in the Big 12. He ramped up the pressure by jumping the Pac-12 in line and reaching an early extension with ESPN and Fox in October that will make his members more money than they do now with Oklahoma or Texas. That agreement will bring in a reported $31.7 million annually for each Big 12 member, setting a measuring stick for the Pac-12’s deal.
As The Athletic reported last month, Kliavkoff has been met with lukewarm interest in the marketplace. ESPN, Amazon and Apple are the only known suitors, and any deal will likely put the majority of the league’s events on an over-the-top streaming service. The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch reported there’s interest from Amazon in a weekly Friday night Pac-12 game but that the two sides were “far apart” in February. And the Pac-12’s timing couldn’t be worse. Just since last summer, networks have committed billions in future rights fees to the Big Ten and Big 12, and Disney’s cost-cutting CEO Bob Iger said in February that “we’re simply going to have to get more selective” in sports bidding.
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Still, the sports consulting firm Navigate’s modeling projects the Pac-12’s average annual value at $31 million per school, barely less than the Big 12’s new deal. Although the Big 12 has larger fan bases, Pac-12 games on ABC, Fox, NBC and CBS averaged 20 percent higher ratings than comparable Big 12 games (excluding both leagues’ departing members) from 2014 to 2021, according to data provided to The Athletic.
Multiple people familiar with the Pac-12’s board members expressed doubt that their schools would switch conferences unless it’s for a substantially better deal. School presidents, not ADs, authorize realignment decisions, and the Pac-12’s prioritize academic and cultural fits more than most. Washington State president Kirk Schultz and Oregon State president Jayathi Murthy have both attempted to defuse the various rumors in recent interviews.
“There’s lots of reasons for us to hold together. The different members of the Pac-12 understand it,” Murthy told John Canzano. “All this talk about people running off and joining the Big Ten and Big 12 or whatever is just talk.”
Motivating those presidents to expand the Pac-12 has also been a challenge. They have not yet reached a consensus about inviting San Diego State, SMU or other expansion candidates, sources briefed on the discussions said. Two summers ago, in the wake of the SEC adding Oklahoma and Texas, the Pac-12 board had a chance to welcome any number of current Big 12 schools — and passed on all of them.
But circumstances have changed. Those sources believe if Yormark can convince the leadership at two Pac-12 schools to join the Big 12, that might be all it takes to land all four and pull the conference apart.
Yormark would need to get Fox to be an equal share partner in expansion. CBS Sports previously reported that the Big 12’s new rights contract includes an agreement with ESPN on a pro rata clause but that Fox has not committed to one. ESPN got 63 percent of the new TV deal with the Big 12, sources briefed on the agreement confirmed. Fox would have to sign off on the Big 12 adding Pac-12 schools as full-share members.
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Yormark strongly believes basketball is undervalued in these TV rights talks. He has dropped hints about an interest in unbundling it from football and selling those rights separately when the Big 12 next hits the market in 2030-31. That’s one motivation behind the Big 12’s continued talks with hoops powerhouse Gonzaga. Joining as a non-football member would mean a smaller revenue share for the Bulldogs, but they’d be an inarguably valuable addition. Arizona, a top-10 program with more Pac-12 titles than every school but Big Ten-bound UCLA, would similarly boost the best conference in men’s college basketball and its long-term ambitions.
“I think we have an opportunity to monetize basketball in a way that hasn’t been done before,” Yormark said in an appearance on the Wilner & Canzano podcast last month. “It’s certainly something I’m thinking about. So if the opportunity ever exists where, within the construct of what makes sense for expansion, as part of that, we could double down on basketball and further cement our leadership position, it’s certainly something that I’m willing to consider.”
On the Pac-12 side, a critical moment in this process could come next week, at the conference’s men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in Las Vegas. The ADs in attendance are going to want clarity and hard numbers. Kliavkoff took these rights to the open market in October. Nearly five months have passed. On Feb. 13, Pac-12 presidents released a joint statement emphasizing their unity and vowing a deal would be consummated “in the very near future.”
There’s no official deadline, but each day this negotiation process drags on cranks up anxiety and, perhaps, vulnerability. As the adage goes in the sales world: Time kills all deals. What ultimately matters is the deal Kliavkoff can deliver for his members in the weeks ahead. If it’s inadequate, Yormark and the Big 12 are poised to pounce.
(Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)