In a wide-ranging 50-minute interview Wednesday, Arizona President Robert C. Robbins said he expects the Pac-12 to finalize a media rights deal “within the next couple of weeks,” and that he believes the dollar figure will be “better” than the Big 12’s recent extension with ESPN and Fox worth $31.7 million per school annually.
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“None of us aspire to win a bronze medal,” Robbins said, “but I think we solidly got a bronze medal in this thing. I think we’ll be the third-best deal out of the (Power) 5 leagues.”
Robbins’ comments are notable because he’s a president of one of the “Four Corners” schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado — that Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has been targeting since USC and UCLA announced their departures to the Big Ten last summer. Robbins, who said he has spoken with Yormak and multiple presidents in the conference, did not conclusively say his school will remain in the Pac-12. Rather, he’s waiting on commissioner George Kliavkoff to deliver the official deal in writing.
“Until we see it in a contract, we don’t really know,” he said, “but we’ve got a pretty good soft circle number.”
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Robbins disputed various reports over the past several months that suggested the Pac-12 would move most or all of its games to a streaming service.
“The majority,” he said, will remain on a linear platform. ESPN is believed to be the primary bidder among traditional media companies.
Robbins, a 65-year-old Mississippi native and cardiac surgeon by training, became Arizona’s president in 2017 after spending 24 years at Stanford and becoming CEO of Texas Medical Center in Houston. An avid sports fan, he shared thoughts on several topics related to TV rights and conference realignment.
(Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.)
On perceptions that the Pac-12 is on the brink of collapse:
I think Brett (Yormark) is a heck of a salesman, and Endeavor (a Hollywood agency working with the Big 12) is a good PR firm, and they’re working it. And you (the media) are buying what they’re selling.
I tell Brett this all the time, and I’ve got really good friends over the years who are presidents now in the Big 12 schools, I love you guys, but if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t expect any of you to leave the Big 12 if you didn’t know what deal you were getting there. We’ve got to see what deal we’re getting, and then I’ll be able to make an informed decision.
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Until then, it’s all speculation and people fear-mongering and saying, “You don’t want to be the last, because there might not be a seat for you.” Well, I’m not buying into that. I haven’t seen anyone else jump and run. It’d be a problem if enough people did, obviously, and that’s what Brett and the Big 12 are banking on. If you can get Arizona and Colorado to say yes, then the whole Pac-12 — what’s left of it — blows up.
We’re at the end of this thing, even though I’ve said, “Why don’t we just wait and see what happens, see how many horses we can get in the race?” But people are starting to feel the pressure, and all the rumor and speculation that Oregon and Washington are going to leave any day and go to the Big Ten — I mean, that’s not what I’m hearing from people I talk to in the Big Ten.
On the Pac-12’s media rights negotiations:
What I think is going to happen is within the next couple weeks, we’re going to have a deal, and then we’ve got to decide: Is it good enough for us to all take?
I’m still very confident. Back last summer, I was even more confident than I am now because there’s a lot of stuff that’s happened. ESPN/Disney has laid off some people, the economy is not going great, some of the tech companies laid off some people, so I don’t think (the climate) is as good as it probably was back in the summer. I’ve been a lone voice saying: “Why don’t we wait a little bit longer? What’s really forcing us to make this decision right now?” Maybe there are other people who will come into this market who will have an appetite for getting into college football. But (his counterparts) want George to bring the best and final deal as soon as possible, and let’s get this out of the way because it’s a drag on people. And I understand that.
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On the appeal of the Big 12 for Arizona’s men’s basketball program:
They’re kind of the dominant powerhouse basketball conference right now, and that’s why the Big 12 is attractive. I heard (Kansas coach) Bill Self say we’d love to have Arizona come over here. I think our coach (Tommy Lloyd) would say the same thing. I don’t know, I haven’t asked him. It’d be kind of fun being in the Big 12 because geographically, we’re not that far off for the Texas schools and the Oklahoma schools. It’d be an exciting league to be in for basketball.
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But you know as well as I do, the thing that’s driving this is football. That’s what the media companies care about.
On his push for the Pac-12 to add Big 12 schools in 2021:
The day that Texas and Oklahoma announced they were going to the SEC, I started pushing the narrative of, why don’t we take the other eight (Big 12 schools) right now? I wanted to call (former Big 12 commissioner) Bob Bowlsby and say, why don’t you just come on over here? Make it the Big Pac-20 or whatever you want to call it. Maybe it’s not as big a deal as the Big Ten or the SEC, but that would have been a pretty good deal, and that would have avoided all this poaching and maneuvering.
I think that was our best shot because Bob probably would have retired, George would have been the commissioner of the Big Pac-20 or whatever it would have been called, and we would have been having a different conversation today. But that didn’t happen.
On how many other Pac-12 presidents supported his idea:
Zero. (Laughs.)
On the Pac-12’s potentially adding San Diego State and SMU:
We really haven’t had enough time for discussions about expansion. My personal opinion is we need to expand, and I think San Diego State and SMU are two good schools with two good teams that we should give strong consideration to, but we can’t do that until we get a deal. Once we get the deal, get everyone to sign their Grant of Rights, then we can start talking about expansion. But I think both of them would be targets of the Big 12, but maybe not SMU, because they already have the (DFW) metroplex. San Diego State is attractive to the Big 12 because it gets them out into California. But San Diego, as you well know, is not the L.A. market.
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On the importance of getting into Texas:
I think it’s really important because I’m looking beyond just sports recruiting. I’m looking at Texas being our next California for regular students. That’s been our biggest growth area for students coming to the U of A. It’s been very purposeful on our part as a strategy to try to go get those students. So if we got to play games there — wow. That’d be huge.
(Photo: Chris Coduto / Getty Images)
