Nearly three years ago, the Pac-12 was looking for a new commissioner. Before it settled on MGM Resorts International president George Kliavkoff, the name Burke Magnus was kicked around.
As we sit here in 2023, staring at a conference called “the Pac-12” but only containing 4 teams, I cannot help but wonder if not hiring Magnus away from ESPN was the signature on the death certificate.
For Magnus, things worked out great. In 2021, when his name emerged, he was Executive Vice President of Scheduling and Programming at ESPN. Today, he is the President of Content, overseeing nearly everything that goes out over the Worldwide Leader’s signal. Say what you want about how the changing media landscape has affected ESPN, it is still a hell of a job that comes with a lot of influence in the sports world.
Kliavkoff inherited a mess. Whoever succeeded him as Pac-12 Commissioner was going to be taking over an entity behind the eight ball in terms of media rights deals and overall performance. It may be called “The Conference of Champions,” but none of those championships were coming in the sports that mattered.
I don’t need to tell you that television drives the bus in college sports. That has been clear ever since the SEC added South Carolina and Arkansas specifically to create a conference championship game it could sell to a network. What has become abundantly clear over the course of the last two years though, is that “television,” in this case, really means ESPN and FOX.
There are two ideal paths to leading a college athletics conference: TV executive or coming up through the ranks of the conference’s infrastructure to learn everything you need to in order to do the job well. Kliavkoff is not devoid of that experience. He worked for NBCUniversal, Hulu and Hearst Communications before making a move into the gambling world. That experience is valuable, but it wasn’t the right experience and knowledge for the job facing whoever got hired.
As the Big Ten was getting its network out of the ground and the SEC was laying the ground work to do the same, Kliavkoff’s predecessor, Larry Scott, decided the Pac-12 should do the same. The difference was that while the Big Ten partnered with FOX and the SEC partnered with Disney, Scott was busy alienating not only media companies but also the cable and satellite giants he needed to distribute the network. The Pac-12 Network is wholly owned by the Pac-12 and boasts what has been described as the most elaborate studios sitting on some of the most expensive real estate int he country. If Scott’s philosophy was “you’ve gotta spend money to make money,” then he certainly thought he did his part. The result though was a Pac-12 Network that people inside the Pac-12 footprint could not watch. It was a mess.
So that is the whole whoever was hired in 2021 would have to dig out of. I dug up Pete Thamel’s tweet that revealed Magnus’s name among other candidates.
Look at who else is on that list. It’s all athletic directors. There was only one person with the power to unscrew the biggest screw up in college sports history and the league didn’t hire him.
Hiring George Kliavkoff was a bet on the future. It is the same problem the Pac-12 had with Larry Scott. The league wants to be ahead of what’s next without addressing the problems in front of them.
Burke Magnus would have given the Pac-12 a bridge to a better media deal. Hiring him would have sent a message to USC and UCLA that the league gets where it stands in the pecking order and it’s serious about changing that. He certainly wouldn’t have let the Big 12 leapfrog the conference in the media rights negotiations schedule. Moreover, it would have had someone that understands the thinking of the people the league would have been negotiating with in order to build a stronger future.
I truly believe that not only would the Pac-12 be alive and well today if it hired Burke Magnus, I believe it would be the one gobbling up new schools to strengthen its position. Remember, the guy didn’t just come up through the ranks at ESPN, he established himself as a force to be reconed with inside the company by securing media rights to a number of leagues, including the five college football power conferences and the College Football Playoff. He doesn’t just get how the game is played. Burke Magnus wrote the rule book college sports is playing by in 2023.
For all I know, the Pac-12 tried to hire Magnus and Magnus chose to stay with ESPN. The only fact I have is that he was reported to be a candidate in early 2021 and he did not end up with the job. In August of 2023, it is clear that the hire it did make was not equipped to deal with the really BIG problems the Pac-12 was facing – problems that all happened to be in the field where Magnus is both an expert and incredibly influential.
Could hiring him have saved the Pac-12? How can you come to any conclusion other than yes?
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
