For the last calendar year, the Big 12 has been looking at the Pac-12 the way Hannibal Lecter looks at dinner guests, and now it’s finally time to eat. The only question is whether there will be any flesh left on the bone once Brett Yormark, the brash Big 12 commissioner, is finished dining out on the incompetence of his competitors.
There’s no way to spin this: Colorado’s conference switch to the Big 12 is a crushing blow to the Pac-12 and its commissioner, George Kliavkoff. A league that once seemed stable at the very least is now thrust into an existential crisis with no certainty that it will even survive.
In a vacuum, it should not matter that much to lose Colorado, a football program that hasn’t been good in decades and does not have a huge national following. Excitement over first-year coach Deion Sanders notwithstanding, the Buffaloes are not some huge realignment prize.
But within the context of the turf war that has been simmering between the Big 12 and Pac-12 over the last couple of years, Colorado is the tipping point. The argument is effectively over.
Roaring back from its own brush with death in 2021 when Oklahoma and Texas accepted invitations to the SEC, the Big 12 will be justified in declaring total victory. In the current cable television environment, Yormark’s strategy to secure a media deal last fall and then become a realignment predator looks more and more like a stroke of genius.
Big 12 became the plunderer: The Big 12 was left for dead two years ago. Now, the conference has its swagger back.
For the Pac-12, though, the symbolism of losing Colorado is probably even more crushing than the value of its athletic programs.
Ever since USC and UCLA blindsided the conference a year ago by announcing they were bound for the Big Ten, the Pac-12 has been on shaky ground.
Sure, you can have a nice football league with Oregon, Washington and Utah and have Arizona basketball carry your banner in March. But is that really a power conference? The Pac-12 hasn’t had a representative in the College Football Playoff since 2016, and the cold reality is that UCLA and USC leaving has diminished the league in a way that it had no real chance to recover from.
The Pac-12’s only shot at stability was Kliavkoff locking down a television contract that kept the remaining schools in the game financially with the Big 12 and ACC. We all know that the SEC and Big Ten are miles ahead of everyone else, but being No. 3 is important. And being No. 5 leaves you incredibly vulnerable.
For months, the Pac-12 has promised a media deal that would be competitive in terms of dollars and exposure on major television networks. But Kliavkoff simply hasn’t delivered what he promised.
The Pac-12 was supposed to announce its media deal this spring. Then that deadline got delayed to the early summer while credible reporting suggested that neither ESPN nor Fox were interested in spending big money to buy the Pac-12’s rights. By last week, the story had changed again: The Pac-12 was trying to put out the message that waiting longer had brought new bidders to the table. Things were so rosy in Kliavkoff’s world, he declared that losing schools “is not a concern.”
Apparently Colorado wasn’t buying it. And who can blame them?
Kliavkoff came to college sports from the rough-and-tumble world of Las Vegas entertainment, but his Pac-12 tenure thus far has been marked by naïveté and squandered credibility. In the wake of Oklahoma and Texas going to the SEC, Kliavkoff signed the Pac-12 up to be part of a so-called “Alliance” with the ACC and Big Ten that was predicated on working together and calming the realignment waters.
When I asked what kind of document had been signed to formalize the alliance and whether it included any language that would prevent one league from poaching another’s members, Kliavkoff was almost dismissive of the question.
“There’s an agreement among three gentlemen and there’s a commitment from 41 presidents and chancellors and 41 athletic directors to do what we say we’re going to do,” he said. “There’s no contract. There’s no signed document and there doesn’t need to be.”
Months later, USC and UCLA were out the door.
In truth, Kliavkoff’s job became impossible once that happened. The Pac-12 just didn’t have a lot of value without the two schools in the nation’s No. 2 media market. It would have been hard for anyone, especially with the significant belt-tightening going on at ESPN and other cable entities, to go forward and secure a lucrative media deal.
But it also underscores just how badly Kliavkoff was outmaneuvered by Yormark and the Big 12, which beat the Pac-12 to the punch in getting a deal done. Furthermore, it included a clause that allowed the value to increase by a proportional share if future Big 12 expansion included other Power Five schools.
In other words, Colorado made the move knowing exactly how much it will earn in the Big 12 — a full $31 million annual share. As of this week, it had no assurance the Pac-12 would pay that much. Given those uncertainties and the fact that the Big 12 affiliation will get Colorado and Sanders back into the game in recruiting Texas high school prospects, it’s a no-brainer that everyone in the Pac-12 should have seen coming.
As for the rest of the league, it will be fascinating in the coming days and weeks to see what unfolds. The Big 12, which has coast-to-coast ambitions under Yormark, would obviously love to add other valuable properties. The Arizona schools, Utah and perhaps even Oregon have to be antsy and considering their options at this point. How many more defections would it take to end the Pac-12 altogether?
None of this is a great development for college sports. It’s almost unthinkable that the only West Coast-based conference in the Power Five could just disappear. But a series of unusual circumstances and bad decisions has rendered it a real possibility. Colorado might just be a canary in the coal mine.
