LAS VEGAS—The Pac-12 really wants to talk about football during media day. It’s easy to understand why. The league has inarguably the best depth at the quarterback position in the sport with Heisman trophy winner Caleb Williams, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr., Oregon’s Bo Nix, Oregon State’s DJ Uiagalelei, Arizona’s Jayden de Laura, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Washington State’s Cam Ward. To kick things off, they played a sizzle reel hyping up their teams voiced-over by John Elway, Aaron Rodgers and Carson Palmer. Playoff dark horses Oregon and USC will have to get past two-time conference champion Utah. For the first time in a long time, the football should be coming first in the league. And yet, two elephants in the room, or more accurately not in the room, loomed large.
First, as commissioner George Kliavkoff acknowledged in his opening statement, there is the media rights deal that is still not done. The hope within the league, according to multiple sources, is that at some point before the football season starts a rights deal will be signed and announced.
“The longer we wait, the better our options get, and I think the board [of directors] realizes that,” Kliavkoff said.
