DALLAS — The fact that Big 12 and Pac-12 officials conducted their supposed merger talks on Zoom calls tells you just how disingenuous the entire exercise was. Zoom is for booster boards and fantasy football drafts, not billion dollar, generational transactions. Who could keep a straight face pretending to be serious? Brett Yormark, the new Big 12 boss, probably never came out from behind his avatar.
Now that the preliminary niceties are out of the way, a game of chicken ensues.
Can George Kliavkoff really get Oregon/Washington to sign a long-term grant of rights?
Will the Pac-12 fall apart if they don’t?
And which pieces would the Big 12 pick up?
First things first: Forget reports that the Pac-12 teams still standing are all for one and one for all. Remember the last time Kliavkoff took somebody’s word? The vaunted three-league Alliance didn’t even last a year. Nothing’s official until Kliavkoff gets autographs. He needs them soon, too, because he’s already negotiating the league’s media rights package, which expires in 2024.
Bad enough for the Pac-12 that its new deal was expected to take a substantial hit without the services of USC and UCLA. No one’s giving Kliavkoff anything until he knows for sure who’s all in. Pretty much all of the Pac-12 schools left in the wake of USC and UCLA would like to follow them to the Big Ten, but only a handful — Oregon, Washington, Stanford, maybe Cal — have a shot.
Oregon, in particular, is practically beside itself. The Ducks, with a College Football Playoff track record and all that Nike money, can’t believe they’d get left out of the Super Two. Frankly, I have a hard time believing it myself.
But the Big Ten apparently is in no particular hurry to annex another section when it has a better candidate right under its nose. The league reportedly awaits a decision from Notre Dame. The wait dates back decades. The Fighting Irish are in no hurry, either, because of a security blanket from NBC and a potential road to the playoffs as an independent.
Which reminds me: Ever wonder why Greg Sankey, SEC commissioner, has been on board about expanded playoffs and against automatic qualifiers? Sure, it means the potential for more SEC teams. But it also provides a route for Notre Dame, thus keeping the Irish from thinking too hard about accepting that standing Big Ten invitation.
While the Big Ten waits on the Irish, Oregon waits on the Big Ten and Kliavkoff waits on the Ducks. Good luck, George. Do you see Oregon re-upping with the Pac-12 for six or 10 years if it thinks there’s a chance the Big Ten could come calling? Me neither.
The indecision could spur Arizona State, Arizona, Utah and Colorado to leap at the opportunity reportedly available to join the Big 12, effectively gutting the Pac-12.
Could the Big 12 then swoop in to pocket Oregon and Washington, too? Certainly the best-case scenario. Yormark’s league would effectively become the third wheel of the superconferences. A couple steps down from the Big Ten and SEC, obviously, but still a force to be reckoned with.
Just the same, I don’t see that happening. Oregon is a player, and I find it hard to believe the Big Ten would allow such a lucrative partner to slip away to a rival league. They couldn’t afford to leave the Ducks dangling.
Other developments might also splinter the Pac-12 and help the Big 12′s cause in the process. Jon Wilner, the San Jose Mercury News reporter who broke the USC/UCLA defection, has promoted San Diego State as an expansion project for the Pac-12 to fill the vacated presence in the Southern California TV market.
“One reason for the Pac-12 to take SDSU,” Wilner tweeted Thursday, “is to keep the Big 12 from doing so. With the B10 planted in LA and B12 in SD, conference might as well give up.”
For the record, I’m hearing San Diego State isn’t an imminent target for the Big 12. But it’s not a bad idea.
No possibilities should be dismissed out of hand. As Yormark said at Big 12 media days last week, his league is “open for business.”
“We could maybe be the hunter this year,” Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor told reporters last week. “We all feel that way. With a new commissioner, we are just trying to figure out the best way to go about it.”
Maybe nothing happens. All it would take to put this talk to rest is if Oregon and Washington sign their grants of rights over to the Pac-12. Surely the rest of the league would fall in line, right? Unless Arizona and Colorado force the issue, as has been reported. Either way, the preliminary work has been done. A token merger proposal was considered and rejected. Time to sit back and see what falls in the Big 12′s lap.
