Pac-12 conference officials were ‘naïve’ about conference realignment

Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff just recently said that he wasn’t worried about further subtractions from the league during the recent conference realignment wave. Well, that estimation was off as Colorado became the third Pac-12 school to depart the conference in the last year and the first to deflect to the Big 12.

After that move, which apparently shocked the conference, On3’s Andy Staples and Pac-12 columnist John Canzano criticized the league for its lack of awareness about the current realignment situation.

You can watch their back and forth on the issue right here via the On3 YouTube channel, or read their comments in full below.

Staples and Canzano assess Pac-12 approach to conference realignment

“Do the Pac-12 presidents not realize that when some someone’s mouth is moving in realignment times that they’re probably lying to them?” asked Staples to Canzano, who had some stark criticisms of leadership throughout the Pac-12.

“I think there’s some of that naive sentiment,” claimed Canzano. He went on to explain that the league still hasn’t realized just how vitally prominent and profitable college athletics have become in the modern age.

“I do think it occurs in that room and some of it is due to the fact that… I think, you know, prior to maybe 10 years ago, when the media rights money started to explode, that world was very much about ‘hey, we just want athletics to be self-sustaining’ and it was viewed as kind of the toy department. Like, you know, anybody who’s worked at a newspaper knows that the sports section was always viewed as ‘oh, the leisure section’ and ‘that’s the toy department over there, they’re just covering games and having fun!’

“When now suddenly you have billion-dollar TV deals involved, you have cut-throat business people who are leading these conferences, there’s no longer the, you know, the Greg Sankeys of the world who came up running the intramural department at Ithaca College. You know, those guys don’t exist.”

Staples butted in to comment, “the Southland Conference? It’s a long way from that.”

Canzano replied “100 percent,” issuing a warning to the remaining Pac-12 teams: “So I think there is a little bit like… if they’re not tuned into it now after Colorado, they’ll never get tuned into it.”

He says those teams could be making progress on that front right now.

“But yeah, I’m told they’ve met several times in the last few days. They’ve closed ranks a little bit. I think the early part of this next week is going to be really interesting, because I think they need to show some action internally.”

The laissez-faire attitude of the Pac-12 over the last several months towards their TV deal and conference realignment might finally shift — because at this point, they need to.