Why could the Pac-12 never secure a new television deal? According to Andrew Marchand, the television industry never bought into the idea that the conference could rebuild without USC and UCLA.
“The likeliest outcome I heard from my TV sources throughout this process was that the feeling the PAC 12 was not going to make it,” the New York Post reporter wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Friday morning.“Sad ending.”
USC and UCLA informed the conference last summer that they were leaving to join the Big Ten. That began a scramble to find a new TV deal. Burke Magnus, ESPN’s President of Content, said that he was hoping they could get a deal done, but told BSM’s Derek Futterman “We never really got close, and I think that was more of a factor of their expectations than not matching up with our analysis, and frankly others’ analysis.”
The next domino to drop was Colorado moving to the Big 12. Shortly after that, Oregon and Washington announced they were joining the Southern California schools in the Big Ten and Utah and the Arizona schools announced they were also headed to the Big 12.
Friday’s news that California and Stanford are headed to the ACC essentially puts the nail in the conference’s coffin with only Oregon State and Washington State remaining.
Throughout the process, the Pac-12 was rumored to have taken meetings with Ion, Amazon, and the CW among others.
A deal that would have made Apple the primary distributor of the conference’s games was on the table earlier this month. Kirk Schulz, President of Washington State University insinuated that FOX enticed some of those schools with the promise of a new, more stable home if they rejected the Apple offer.
“I do think if I was FOX and ESPN, I’m not sure I want Apple in the marketplace, frankly. I don’t want somebody with pockets that are that deep as a rival if I can afford it,” he said last week.
