Until we meet again, Pac-12

The Pac-12 as we know it has concluded its run. Who knows if that sunny day back together comes anytime soon.

And just like that, it’s gone.

The Pac-12 as we know it will cease to exist at the end of the month. Something that seemed too big to fail has been gobbled up. Just like every facet of American life that was profitable but not profitable enough, the Conference of Champions was consumed by forces within and without of its control, and devoured whole.

The Pac-12 Network officially signed off earlier this weekend after the conclusion of its coverage of the Pac-12 baseball tournament. And with it, the end of an era.

We’ve gone over how the conference could’ve been saved many times. Larry Scott was a bad commissioner. The Pac-12 presidents were ignorant and incompetent, lauding Scott with bonuses and gifts rather than clearly analyzing the financial books. ESPN threw Texas a bag to keep the Pac-12 from becoming the superpower of the West. Texas chose its Longhorn Network and extra millions, instead of a larger enterprise that would’ve legitmizing the West. rather than building equity. The Pac-12 Network launched, garnered minimum viable coverage, and then…stopped. The presidents locked themselves into a long-term deal to kick the can down the road. The conference refused countless expansion opportunities that would’ve ended the Big 12 instead of themselves.

It was mistake after mistake after mistake.

I can’t help that the Pac-12 was doomed anyway, even if they did everything right. But the doom came faster, because all the mistakes compounded together to accelerate its destruction.

(I will not say L***y S***t’s name. It’s been pilloried enough everywhere. There are other factors worth examining.)

Doomed by its geography. As much as we all loved Pac-12 After Dark and the ratings it brought in, there was simply no way a conference that saw its marquee games conclude at 2 am Eastern would ever attract the love of business executives. The eyeballs were certainly there out west, but MBA suits see Oregon playing Washington State and wonder how much those numbers could multiply if they sub in Ohio State ahead for a primetime matchup.

Intraconference games can certainly return, but in our super college football leagues, they have to be mixed up somehow with the marquee contests to maximize it all. And there were too many non-starters in this conference that no TV network cared enough about to save. Hence why ESPN turned coat on the Pac-12 mid-decade, and Fox saw ready to gobble up the bigger properties into their more profitable Big Ten venture.

Doomed by its independent streak. The Pac-12 went on its own and created the Pac-12 Network to seize control of assets and distribution, which seemed revolutionary at the time. But the people in charge lacked business savvy, lacked knowledge of this sport, and certainly this go-it-alone approach eventually incurred the conference numerous enemies in the TV industry.

Fox and ESPN saw the Pac-12 Network as an existential threat, and soon flexed their industry muscle to prioritize the brands that played ball. The Big Ten shared ownership of the Big Ten Network with Fox, the SEC let ESPN take over and expand their distribution to newest scales. In college football, it was a who you know over what you know kinda game.

The Pac-12 went for the flush and ended up with a pair of twos in their hand. Distribution in Asia! Neat. More coverage from ESPN at a reduced fee? Rejected. An eleventh hour deal with Apple? Non-starter for too many.

The conference waited. And wilted.

Doomed by market forces. The cost of living has increased in the west so significantly in the last decade compared to the rest of the nation, that it’s become harder for even top programs with big enough bags to return the same level of investment to compete with top programs. Money that is going to additional swag and families for athletes are required to support the basic cost of living for an athlete leaving in a high quality West Coast city. Additionally, public universities have been constantly under scrutiny, forcing administrators to rely even more heavily on donations.

Only Oregon (with the top megadonor in the nation), Washington (huge donor fanbase backed up by an excellent AD) and Utah (in the most affordable city in the conference) have managed to produce elite level results in football on a consistent basis by taking advantage of their own situations. NIL might change the game, but even that world seems to be changing under our feet, so who knows what the future brings.

Doomed by our loyalty to Olympic sports. The Pac-12 produced the most Olympians for years, and those Olympians championed the academic values that the administrators cared the most about. They won the newspaper headlines, and every four summers the West Coast thrived. Getting hundreds of these events on TV and streaming seemed to matter the most, even while cable and satellite carriers depended premium football and basketball matches.

It’s 2024, and the verdict is in—these sports don’t make any revenue, and were being carried by the sports that matter. Viewership was minimal and never exposed by the Pac-12 Network, likely because the numbers were too embarrassing to post. By continuously prioritizing the wrong things, the conference and its programs fell behind its peers in terms of visibility and revenue.

Doomed by academic prestige. As the Pac-12 programs improved in academic standing and its top schools all became top in the world. they started acting more like Ivy League in their approach to things, as a university probably should.

But prioritizing getting top students from everywhere means the student body is less oriented in school spirit. They are less likely to care about sports. They are the kids who don’t know Cal and Berkeley are the same thing. They do not descend from legacies. They are the best and the brightest, but are more likely to spend Saturdays in the books or in other activities, rather than participate in the college football enterprise that consumes other parts of the nation.

This is no more apparent than in the California programs, which have seen declines in attendance in its revenue sports year over year. Even when UCLA and USC have shown promise in hoops and football, they struggle to sell out. Cal has seen the brunt as well, although partly due to less than promising results. These next few years will be telling, as further attendance drops could prove fatal.

Doomed by hubris. In the end, the university presidents and administrators were cut from a different cloth. With one or two exceptions, they were brought in to make sure their athletic departments didn’t blemish the prestige of its academics. They did not analyze the business case of a strong athletic department. They did not see how it could bring in fundraising and donations and admissions. They did not realize how prioritizing national distribution of the Pac-12 Network at a lower carriage rate or partnering with a TV partner would be beneficial in the long run, even if it meant less initial revenue.

They took the money they got from Scott and the conference, didn’t seem to ask any probing questions, and so there was no further initiative from Pac-12 leadership to really try.

Now the fans, the alumni, the players must all pay for their mistakes with more travel and bumpy futures ahead.

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I do not know what is to come. Changes that have been shouted at for years in the periphery of college athletics are suddenly coming swiftly and decisively, as megacorporations firmly take control of the sport, pushing it toward a conclusion that is very uncertain for schools like Cal. Consolidation is the name of the game, as ESPN and Fox aim more closely for NFL-lite on Saturdays, scooping up the brands that produce the most value. It’s safe to say that as of this writing, Cal is on the outside of that discussion. A few other Pac-12 programs aren’t exactly in peachy territory either.

But at the end of the day, when the dust settles, and the new age of college athletics beckons, AND if we all survive, I’m hoping we all end up back together. Yes, even those heathens from Troy.

The Pac-12 was our home. No matter how many fights we put up against the various trolly ACC fanbases, it will always feel like an odd chapter in our history whenever it concludes. As will the Arizonas in the Big 12, or the powers of the Pac colliding with the new Big Ten.

There is still a hope that the new order brings a version of the conference back together. There is far more travel for every conference. Perhaps a consolidated Big Ten West will include a bulk of the best schools of the Pac, because how many schools want to travel 3000 miles a week more than once a year?

But seeing these 12 programs together will likely never happen. And that we must mourn.

So for now, I mourn a conference that provided the Bears helped found and build up, that will now tread a new future with Oregon State and Washington State at the helm, and we should all wish them the best. They got the rawest end of this decade of errors, and there will be so much they will need to navigate to come out clean on the other side.

I hope when the dust settles, too big to fail is enough to keep most of our Pac-12 teams standing.

Then again, hope is a dangerous thing in college football,. It’s the most dangerous thing for a Cal fan.

And hope was indeed fatal for our bygone Conference of Champions.