By: Mayel Andres Tapia-Fregoso

2023 marks the end of the 108-year legacy of the Pac-12 athletic conference as we know it. One by one, the conference’s top athletic programs have abandoned the conference to secure their own financial futures after a decade of risky network gambles, scandals, and significant losses in revenue. 

The Pac-12 Cements its Power Five Status

In July 2009, the presidents of the Pac-12 (known as the Pac-10 until 2011) agreed to a 11-year contract with Larry Scott to serve as the commissioner of the Pac-10. Scott took control of the Pac-10 after presiding over a successful six-year run as the Women’s Tennis Association’s CEO. The Pac-10 hired Scott with the goal of boosting its national brand and securing a television contract comparable to those obtained by rival Power Five conferences, the most well recognized and highest earning athletic conferences in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). In 2008, another Power Five conference, the Southeastern Conference (SEC), had agreed to a $2 billion agreement with ESPN to exclusively broadcast football and men’s and women’s basketball over 15 years. Meanwhile the Big Ten conference, in partnership with Fox, launched the “Big Ten Network.” To capitalize on the rapidly growing market for college sports, the Pac-10 desperately needed to expand beyond the west coast to bring its content to viewers across the nation. However, Scott had an even more ambitious plan for the Pac-10: securing a lucrative television deal and starting the Pac-10 network, modeled after the Big Ten Network, but owned entirely by the conference.

 In 2010, the Pac-10 announced the additions of Colorado and Utah, the top athletic programs in the mountain states. Scott hoped these acquisitions would expand the conference’s reach across nine television markets and increase its annual television earnings. In 2011, the new rebranded Pac-12 agreed to a record setting 12-year, $2.7 billion television contract with ESPN and Fox, earning the conference approximately $225 million per year. Fox and ESPN split the rights to most of the Pac-12’s football and men’s basketball games. Scott preserved the remaining football and men’s basketball games, non-revenue sports and Olympic sports for his newly created Pac-12 Network. Unlike the Big Ten Network, who shared its ownership with Fox, the Pac-12 was the sole owner of its network. By choosing not to partner with a major network like ESPN or Fox, Scott relied heavily on his ability to sell the Pac-12’s limited product to cable providers like DirecTV and Comcast. After this deal, it appeared like the Pac-12 would become the nation’s next marquee conference.

Some Gambles Just Don’t Pay Off

When the Pac-12 agreed to the record-setting contract with ESPN and Fox, the Pac-12 jumped from fifth among conferences in television revenue to first. The Pac-12 Network even retained full ownership of its own network with the promise that it would deliver its sports content to subscribers across the nation and enhance the schools’ ability to recruit athletes at the national level.

When the Pac-12 Network launched in 2012, Scott asked cable providers to pay $0.80 cents per subscriber. All providers except one agreed to Scott’s terms. DirecTV, one of the nation’s largest television carriers with over 20 million subscribers, two million in southern California alone, refused to pay Scott’s asking price. At the same time, the SEC member schools began to reap the benefits of their significant investment in their football programs, resulting in seven consecutive national championships from 2006 to 2012. Building off their success, in 2014, the SEC partnered with ESPN to launch the “SEC Network.” The SEC’s success on the field and its partnership with ESPN also allowed it to charge providers like DirecTV $1.30 per subscriber. 

Meanwhile the Pac-12’s product, and with it, its leverage over DirecTV suffered. A Pac-12 school has not won a Football National Championship since USC in 2004 or won the NCAA college basketball tournament since Arizona in 1997. From 2017 to 2022, the Pac-12 schools spent an average of $681,404 on football recruiting expenses, behind the Big Ten and SEC who spent $798,122 and $1,176,055, respectively. To add insult to injury, several schools became embroiled in recruiting violations, and other scandals like the infamous Reggie Bush scandal, that led the NCAA to hand down numerous sanctions and postseason bans against Pac-12 schools. 

In 2014, the Pac-12 Network reached 11 million paying subscribers. In comparison, the Big Ten and SEC Networks reached 57 million and 67 million households, respectively. Without DirecTV subscribers, the Pac-12 could not compete with the other conferences within its own markets including the lucrative Southern California market, home to two Pac-12 schools: UCLA and USC. 

While the Pac-12 struggled, Larry Scott’s salary continued climbing, reaching $5.4 million in 2019, making him the highest-paid commissioner in the NCAA. During the 2018-19 season the SEC, in partnership with ESPN, distributed $45 million to its member schools. The Big Ten, in partnership with Fox, distributed $55 million to its schools while the Pac-12, without a partner, distributed $32 million to its schools. Despite all these troubles, the worst was yet to come. The Covid-19 pandemic had serious financial consequences for the Pac-12’s members. Schools like Arizona and Utah reported losses in excess of $60 million, causing sports programs to be discontinued, significant budget cuts, and layoffs. In 2021, amid these financial troubles, the Pac-12 parted ways with Larry Scott. With the current television contract expiring after the 2023 season and a breakdown in negotiations with DirecTV, the situation in the Pac-12 became dire. 

Abandon Ship!

It became clear to many member schools, especially those in the largest television markets, that remaining in the Pac-12 conference was no longer in their best interest. On June 30 2022, UCLA and USC, two flagship members of the Pac-12 conference for almost a century, announced they would be joining the Big Ten conference effective after the 2023 football season. With the loss of the Pac-12’s largest market, Southern California, it was only a matter of time before the conference collapsed. Oregon, Washington, California, Stanford, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State have all left the conference to join other Power Five conferences beginning in 2024. OSU and WSU are the only remaining members of the Pac-12. In response, OSU and WSU have filed a lawsuit against the Pac-12 to strip the 10 departing member schools’ voting rights, pursuant to the Pac-12’s bylaws. OSU and WSU hope to gain control of the conference’s remaining assets, valued at $42.7 million as of 2022, to prevent the departing schools from taking the Pac-12’s reserve funds on their way out. OSU and WSU hope to lure members of lesser conferences by offering them membership in Power Five conference and money from Pac-12’s remaining assets in hopes of rebuilding the gutted conference. However, a recent lawsuit, requiring the Pac-12 to pay $72 million to Comcast due to conference executives overreporting its subscriber numbers to Comcast, will likely exhaust most of the conference’s assets.

Larry Scott and the Pac-12 elected to launch its network, without a partner, in hopes of maximizing profits. Instead, the Pac-12’s legacy will be mired in scandal, greed, and failure to its schools, fans, and most importantly, its student athletes.