SAN DIEGO — We’ve seen this movie before.
Spoiler alert: It doesn’t end well.
In December 2011, San Diego State held a triumphant news conference in an athletic department auditorium to announce it was joining the Big East as a football-only member starting in the 2013-14 season, calling it “a very historic day in our history.”
Two years later, SDSU was holding another news conference in the same auditorium — this one to, gulp, say they were slinking back to the Mountain West Conference as the Big East collapsed.
A decade later, the university is on the verge of an invitation to the Pac-12, the Holy Grail for a proud institution that has largely operated on the fringes of college athletics, a panacea for a century-old inferiority complex among its fans, a ticket to the big time, a very historic day in its history.
And it might all happen.
But here’s the thing: It might not.
History tells us that. Logic should, too.
The question is less whether the Aztecs will be invited to join the Pac-12 (they will) but whether there will be a Pac-12 left to join, and the frustrating part is they’re powerless to do anything except wave their pennant on the sideline and wait, and hope, and pray.
The problems started last summer, when the elephants walked out of the zoo and the zookeeper didn’t notice they were gone. A year on the job, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff was so dialed in with his conference that he was on vacation in Montana in an area with little cell service when news broke that USC and UCLA were bolting for the Big Ten starting in 2024.
The next move should have been to immediately secure a new media rights deal — and by extension, grant of rights agreements binding the remaining 10 members to the conference — instead of whining about who was leaving and trying to compel them to stay. Lock the gates first so the Wildcats, Ducks, Buffaloes and Huskies can’t escape before searching for the elephants.
UCLA was never coming back, not on its own volition or someone else’s. Enlisting Gov. Gavin Newsom and the University of California Board of Regents was a futile gesture that merely delayed media rights negotiations into October, then November, then December and now February.
It also allowed the Big 12 Conference to jump the line and finalize a five-year, $2.3 billion deal with ESPN and Fox Sports. The roughly $32 million per school per year is perhaps a tick under expectations. But it was made with linear TV partners (albeit with limited streaming on ESPN+) and has beat what some industry insiders project as a market bubble bursting.
And it leaves a Pac-12 minus its anchor schools scrambling, with money from viable linear networks rapidly drying up and the inevitable — and unenviable — pivot to streaming services like Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.
Even if the Pac-12 cobbles together a deal with ESPN and a streaming service that approximates the Big 12’s $32 million per year, the issue is less economics than exposure. Maybe in another decade or two, fans will willfully consume major live sports via a streaming app as opposed to flipping through TV channels on their couch and seeing what’s on, but the numbers are not there yet. Not even close.
If softball and tennis are on a streaming service, fine. If football and men’s basketball games are, that’s a problem. Kliavkoff will present a proposed deal to his presidents, who will ask their athletic directors, who will ask their football and men’s basketball coaches, who will swallow hard and say heck no.
Major League Soccer is giving it a go. It couldn’t get what it wanted from linear TV, so the league is gambling with Apple TV+, requiring a $99 per season pass ($79 if you already subscribe to Apple TV+) to see most games and team content.
But MLS’ demographic skews younger and may be more amenable to consuming games via a streaming app. College sports fans are typically much older — particularly the boosters who buy season tickets and bankroll the athletic department through donations.
Plus, MLS teams don’t have to recruit.
As Chris Vannini of The Athletic wrote about the Pac-12 and reports of courting Apple TV+: “A move to heavy streaming would dramatically decrease game viewership and threaten to speed the conference into irrelevancy. In a sport based around recruiting and donors, people need to find your games easily.”
Which brings us back to the movie screening before our eyes.
Will Arizona and Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, Oregon and Washington, stick with the Pac-12 and gamble on streaming? Or will they jump to the safe harbor of linear TV with the Big 12?
The Pac-12 is so convinced of its unanimity that it felt compelled to issue a statement last week telling us, explaining that they’ve had “positive conversations” on a new media rights deal and “remain highly confident in our future growth” and “united in our commitment to one another.”
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark reads this, hears this, sees this … and laughs.
He’s simply waiting for Kliavkoff, a former Las Vegas hotel executive, to flip over his cards when the new Pac-12 media rights deal is complete. Then he’ll try to poach schools and dismantle his avowed rival.
If it’s for less money than the Big 12, it’s over. If it’s for similar money but has a significantly larger streaming component than the Big 12, it’s over. Even if it’s for slightly more money but still with a large number of games stuck behind a paywall, it still might be over.
Yormark had expansion provisions written into the Big 12’s contract. ESPN, which holds 63 percent of the rights, reportedly has agreed to pay full shares to new members coming from existing power conferences like the Pac-12 (but not Group of Five conferences like the Mountain West), or about $20 million per school per year. If Yormark can convince Fox to do the same, he could offer full shares.
The so-called Four Corners schools make sense from a geographical standpoint. Arizona and ASU deliver the Pacific time zone for part of the year as well as the Phoenix media market. Colorado used to be a member of the Big 12. Utah provides a natural rival and travel partner for newcomer BYU, which joins the Big 12 later this year.
But the biggest fish might be in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon and Washington have designs on following USC and UCLA to the Big Ten, but there’s speculation that Yormark can offer them lucrative TV money with an out clause if the Big Ten comes calling — which could happen if Notre Dame leaves the ranks of independents and spurs another round of conference realignment.
All it takes is one or two to swallow Yormark’s bait. Lifeboats will be in the water quickly.
Meanwhile, SDSU waves its pennant on the sideline and waits, and hopes, and prays.
