Pac-12 lifts OSU’s hope for league realignment
Multiple choice question: George Kliavkoff is: A) The U.S. Open tennis co-favorite, now that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have pulled out; B) Director of the blockbuster “Black Widow.”
C) The landscape architecture legend who designed Scissortail Park. D) The man who holds OSU’s athletic destination in his hands.
If you said D, you win. If Kliavkoff says expand, OSU wins.
Kliavkoff is the first-year Pac-12 commissioner and got the job just as the wheels came off college sports. The surrender of the NCAA’s administration role. Athletes’ uprising, with both transfer freedom and Name, Image, Likeness reform. And now conference realignment, with OU and Texas headed to the Southeastern Conference and the rest of college football scrambling to find its footing.
And while Kliavkoff has joined with
See TRAMEL, Page 4B
'Every decision we make at the conference is up for discussion.” Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff
Berry Tramel
Columnist The Oklahoman USA TODAY NETWORK
MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP
https://oklahoman-ok.newsmemory.com...nableUniversalLinkSplash=1&docMode=BackCompat 8/22/21, 9:18 PM Page 1 of 4
Tramel
Continued from Page 1B
the commissioners of the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast conferences and apparently will announce some sort of alliance among the three leagues worried by the SEC’s power play, the Pac-12 leader also has dropped some hints that give OSU hope a life preserver could be tossed.
“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I wasn’t listening to schools that wanted to go in the Pac-12, and we’ve had a lot of them reach out,” Kliavkoff told the Las Vegas Review-Journal a few days ago. “We have taken initial meetings with everyone that has expressed an interest.”
That list has to include OSU.
Journalist Zach Miller produced a list of the most valuable college football programs, based on home attendance, market size/share, the Wall Street Journal’s 2020 valuation of what each program would be worth on the open market and social media following.
OSU ranks No. 31on that list, ahead of all but four Pac-12 schools: No. 23 Southern Cal, No. 25 Washington, No. 26 Oregon and No. 27 UCLA.
The Cowboys, and their Big 12 brethren, can make the case that Central Time Zone members would enhance the Pac-12 television contract, which comes up for renewal in a couple of years.
“Since we have the only Power 5 teams in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, when we play a night game, we get paid handsomely for doing that because we’re filling a time slot no other Power 5 conference can fill,” Kliavkoff said. But “our audience is limited compared to a nationally televised game because a lot of the East Coast is already asleep or will be asleep by halftime.
“You also have AP voters and Heisman candidate voters who may not be able to see all of that game. So we’re getting paid more for that game, but it costs us in national exposure and perhaps a
https://oklahoman-ok.newsmemory.com...nableUniversalLinkSplash=1&docMode=BackCompat 8/22/21, 9:18 PM Page 2 of 4
competitive advantage for getting into the (College Football Playoff). We’re going to have to balance all of that, but all media-rights negotiation is a balancing act.”
Kliavkoff a few weeks ago told the New York Times that his member schools had redefined their priorities.
The playoff matters. Matters more than ever, whether it’s a four-team model, as has been staged for seven years and will be again in 2021, or the proposed 12-team playoff.
Kliavkoff said the Pac-12 will make “football-related decisions with the combined goals of optimizing CFP invitations and winning national championships.”
That’s been a standard in the SEC and really the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC, too. But the Pac-12 still holds onto traditions like the Rose Bowl and widespread success in many sports.
Kliavkoff said football success will become the Pac priority.
“The conference can be influential and helpful,” Kliavkoff. “I think those primarily come down to a few issues like scheduling.
“Do we make scheduling decisions late in the season that highlight the teams or give preference to teams that have the best shot of making a playoff invitation happen? Do we rethink how we construct our divisions so we don’t have a three-loss team playing against an undefeated team in our championship?
“Every decision we make at the conference is up for discussion. There are no sacred cows. The athletic directors all individually signed off on walking away from parity and focusing on invitations to the playoff and championships, even understanding that their individual schools might be disfavored in that in any particular year or any particular week.”
That’s fantastic news for OSU. No sacred cows. That could include the Pac-12’s snobbish academic attitude, by which it tends to look down on landgrant schools in the middle of the country. But the Pac was going to hold its nose and take OSU and Texas Tech back in 2011, had OU and Texas agreed to join.
Could the Pac-12 now take the further leap and invite the likes of the Cowboys and Red Raiders without the Sooners and Longhorns? Who knows? But Kliavkoff himself said it. No sacred cows.
He said a “working group” within the conference is working to make a recommendation, and Kliavkoff said he expects a decision within a few weeks.
The television networks, at least Fox, will be heavily involved in such decision- making.
Kliavkoff came to the Pac-12 after almost three years as president of entertainment and sports for MGM Resorts International. Cirque du Soleil, magic shows, A-list concerts, boxing and MGM’s
https://oklahoman-ok.newsmemory.com...nableUniversalLinkSplash=1&docMode=BackCompat 8/22/21, 9:18 PM Page 3 of 4
WNBA team, the Las Vegas Aces. Now he’s charged with making Oregon State-Colorado and Washington State-Cal appeal to the masses. Tough gig.
“The opportunity to revisit (expansion) following Texas and Oklahoma has certainly presented itself,” Kliavkoff told the Review-Journal. “I am not actively poaching any school or convincing anyone to leave their existing conference, but ... I don’t think it’s good for college athletics given the vibration that’s going on as a result of the Texas and Oklahoma news. The quicker we can dampen that vibration, the better.”
The Pac-12 is OSU’s best option at keeping its economic base. A Big 12 without OU and Texas will pay out far less money than to what conference members have become accustomed.
I would not say that the Pac-12 needs OSU as much as OSU needs the Pac-12. But from a marketing and competitive standpoint, the Cowboys would help the Pac-12. No Pac-12 program has more wins the last five seasons than OSU’s 43. The only Pac-12 program with more wins than OSU’s 93 the last decade is Stanford, with 96.
The Pac-12 was willing to take OSU a decade ago. Could the same offer come now, since Kliavkoff has persuaded his league that there are no sacred cows?
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman. com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
Multiple choice question: George Kliavkoff is: A) The U.S. Open tennis co-favorite, now that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have pulled out; B) Director of the blockbuster “Black Widow.”
C) The landscape architecture legend who designed Scissortail Park. D) The man who holds OSU’s athletic destination in his hands.
If you said D, you win. If Kliavkoff says expand, OSU wins.
Kliavkoff is the first-year Pac-12 commissioner and got the job just as the wheels came off college sports. The surrender of the NCAA’s administration role. Athletes’ uprising, with both transfer freedom and Name, Image, Likeness reform. And now conference realignment, with OU and Texas headed to the Southeastern Conference and the rest of college football scrambling to find its footing.
And while Kliavkoff has joined with
See TRAMEL, Page 4B
'Every decision we make at the conference is up for discussion.” Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff
Berry Tramel
Columnist The Oklahoman USA TODAY NETWORK
MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP
https://oklahoman-ok.newsmemory.com...nableUniversalLinkSplash=1&docMode=BackCompat 8/22/21, 9:18 PM Page 1 of 4
Tramel
Continued from Page 1B
the commissioners of the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast conferences and apparently will announce some sort of alliance among the three leagues worried by the SEC’s power play, the Pac-12 leader also has dropped some hints that give OSU hope a life preserver could be tossed.
“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I wasn’t listening to schools that wanted to go in the Pac-12, and we’ve had a lot of them reach out,” Kliavkoff told the Las Vegas Review-Journal a few days ago. “We have taken initial meetings with everyone that has expressed an interest.”
That list has to include OSU.
Journalist Zach Miller produced a list of the most valuable college football programs, based on home attendance, market size/share, the Wall Street Journal’s 2020 valuation of what each program would be worth on the open market and social media following.
OSU ranks No. 31on that list, ahead of all but four Pac-12 schools: No. 23 Southern Cal, No. 25 Washington, No. 26 Oregon and No. 27 UCLA.
The Cowboys, and their Big 12 brethren, can make the case that Central Time Zone members would enhance the Pac-12 television contract, which comes up for renewal in a couple of years.
“Since we have the only Power 5 teams in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, when we play a night game, we get paid handsomely for doing that because we’re filling a time slot no other Power 5 conference can fill,” Kliavkoff said. But “our audience is limited compared to a nationally televised game because a lot of the East Coast is already asleep or will be asleep by halftime.
“You also have AP voters and Heisman candidate voters who may not be able to see all of that game. So we’re getting paid more for that game, but it costs us in national exposure and perhaps a
https://oklahoman-ok.newsmemory.com...nableUniversalLinkSplash=1&docMode=BackCompat 8/22/21, 9:18 PM Page 2 of 4
competitive advantage for getting into the (College Football Playoff). We’re going to have to balance all of that, but all media-rights negotiation is a balancing act.”
Kliavkoff a few weeks ago told the New York Times that his member schools had redefined their priorities.
The playoff matters. Matters more than ever, whether it’s a four-team model, as has been staged for seven years and will be again in 2021, or the proposed 12-team playoff.
Kliavkoff said the Pac-12 will make “football-related decisions with the combined goals of optimizing CFP invitations and winning national championships.”
That’s been a standard in the SEC and really the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC, too. But the Pac-12 still holds onto traditions like the Rose Bowl and widespread success in many sports.
Kliavkoff said football success will become the Pac priority.
“The conference can be influential and helpful,” Kliavkoff. “I think those primarily come down to a few issues like scheduling.
“Do we make scheduling decisions late in the season that highlight the teams or give preference to teams that have the best shot of making a playoff invitation happen? Do we rethink how we construct our divisions so we don’t have a three-loss team playing against an undefeated team in our championship?
“Every decision we make at the conference is up for discussion. There are no sacred cows. The athletic directors all individually signed off on walking away from parity and focusing on invitations to the playoff and championships, even understanding that their individual schools might be disfavored in that in any particular year or any particular week.”
That’s fantastic news for OSU. No sacred cows. That could include the Pac-12’s snobbish academic attitude, by which it tends to look down on landgrant schools in the middle of the country. But the Pac was going to hold its nose and take OSU and Texas Tech back in 2011, had OU and Texas agreed to join.
Could the Pac-12 now take the further leap and invite the likes of the Cowboys and Red Raiders without the Sooners and Longhorns? Who knows? But Kliavkoff himself said it. No sacred cows.
He said a “working group” within the conference is working to make a recommendation, and Kliavkoff said he expects a decision within a few weeks.
The television networks, at least Fox, will be heavily involved in such decision- making.
Kliavkoff came to the Pac-12 after almost three years as president of entertainment and sports for MGM Resorts International. Cirque du Soleil, magic shows, A-list concerts, boxing and MGM’s
https://oklahoman-ok.newsmemory.com...nableUniversalLinkSplash=1&docMode=BackCompat 8/22/21, 9:18 PM Page 3 of 4
WNBA team, the Las Vegas Aces. Now he’s charged with making Oregon State-Colorado and Washington State-Cal appeal to the masses. Tough gig.
“The opportunity to revisit (expansion) following Texas and Oklahoma has certainly presented itself,” Kliavkoff told the Review-Journal. “I am not actively poaching any school or convincing anyone to leave their existing conference, but ... I don’t think it’s good for college athletics given the vibration that’s going on as a result of the Texas and Oklahoma news. The quicker we can dampen that vibration, the better.”
The Pac-12 is OSU’s best option at keeping its economic base. A Big 12 without OU and Texas will pay out far less money than to what conference members have become accustomed.
I would not say that the Pac-12 needs OSU as much as OSU needs the Pac-12. But from a marketing and competitive standpoint, the Cowboys would help the Pac-12. No Pac-12 program has more wins the last five seasons than OSU’s 43. The only Pac-12 program with more wins than OSU’s 93 the last decade is Stanford, with 96.
The Pac-12 was willing to take OSU a decade ago. Could the same offer come now, since Kliavkoff has persuaded his league that there are no sacred cows?
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman. com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
