Larry Scott boasted five years ago that the Pac-12 Conference would be able “to adapt, react and take advantage of this new world media order that’s coming in a way others can’t.”
As it turns out, Scott’s statement instead ended up reflecting what rival conferences and commissioners did.
Scott didn’t have a chance to negotiate a second Pac-12 media deal. He stepped down as commissioner in 2021 and his successor, George Kliavkoff, didn’t land the deal the conference needed.
Last week’s Pac-12 collapse, which saw five of the remaining nine members announce they were leaving the “Conference of Champions” for either the Big Ten or the Big 12, drove home in a dramatic way two points: Football drives college athletics, and there are limits to what the media market will pay for content.
“I think this was a factor of timing and potential media partners not being willing to provide the right fees that the conference and the institutions wanted,” said Tag Garson, senior vice president of properties for Wasserman, a media company that represents broadcasters, coaches and executives and also consults with teams and leagues. “It’s also about the changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics, and making sure that schools are set up for the most success possible in the long term.”
Media rights have far surpassed ticket sales and donor contributions as the main revenue driver for athletic programs.
According to a database run by the Knight Commission and Syracuse University, 19% of the Pac-12’s revenue in 2012 — the year after Utah and Colorado joined the conference — came from media rights, NCAA conference distributions and bowl games ($123.08 million). Donor contributions led the way (26%, or $168.55 million) followed by ticket sales (20%, $134.63 million).
In 2022, that figure jumped to $399.89 million, or 35%, which was more than ticket sales and donor contributions combined (32% or $370.90 million).
Many speculated a new Pac-12 rights deal would be done by this year’s basketball tournament, but when that didn’t happen, concerns about the conference’s future began to ramp up.
During football media day on July 21, Kliavkoff said media rights negotiations were going well and that no announcement was made to keep the focus on the field.
The league did eventually come to a proposed deal with Apple that was similar to the one MLS signed with the tech giant last year. In that case, MLS covers most of production costs.
A person familiar with the Apple deal told AP on condition of anonymity that it guaranteed yearly payouts of between $23-25 million to each Pac-12 member school, with escalators based on subscriptions to the Pac-12 package.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the deal have not been publicized.
If the service got to 2.5 million subscribers, the yearly payout would have jumped to $30 million, the person said, comparable with the Big 12’s average payout of $31.7 million per school during the length of its agreed upon extension with ESPN and Fox.
If Pac-12 subscriptions approached 3.7 million, the payout would jump to about $50 million per school, the person said. That would have put the conference not far behind the Big Ten and SEC, and well ahead of the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference in annual media rights revenue.
