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The Pac-12’s Demise Is Like the Extinction of Dinosaurs

A look at the financial numbers that led to the conference’s disappearance and the resulting analogies
Jake Curtis|
The Pac-12’s Demise Is Like the Extinction of Dinosaurs
The Pac-12’s Demise Is Like the Extinction of Dinosaurs

The sudden, surprising demise of the Pac-12 on August 4 gave rise to analogies:

The magician analogy: Now you see it, now you don’t

The warfare analogy: A bomb hit, destroying everything and sending fragments in all directions.

But the best analogy is the dinosaur analogy.

Dinosaurs had lived for millions and millions of years. Species changed over the years but they always adapted until a comet or asteroid that none of them saw coming hit the Earth, wiping out dinosaurs in an instant while a few animals, such as birds, managed to survive.

The Pac-12 existed for more than 100 years. Membership changed over the years but they always adapted until a comet or asteroid in the form of a one-day mass exodus nobody saw coming (at least nobody at Cal apparently) hit the Pac-12, wiping out the conference while a few members -- Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington -- try to survive amid the turmoil.

Of course, there are other theories regarding the dinosaurs’ disappearance suggesting signs of their demise came long before their extinction. Even the effects of the comet took a while to wipe out dinosaurs. 

So it is for the Pac-12, as we shall note here.

Respected West Coast sports reporter John Canzano claims the Pac-12 badly overplayed its hand a year ago:

With that avenue gone, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff went another direction, which led to this scenario just before the breakup, according to an Associated Press report, which included this excerpt:

A person familiar with the Apple deal told AP on condition of anonymity that it guaranteed yearly payouts of between $23-25 million to each Pac-12 member school, with escalators based on subscriptions to the Pac-12 package.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the deal have not been publicized.

If the service got to 2.5 million subscribers, the yearly payout would have jumped to $30 million, the person said, comparable with the Big 12's average payout of $31.7 million per school during the length of its agreed upon extension with ESPN and Fox.

If Pac-12 subscriptions approached 3.7 million, the payout would jump to about $50 million per school, the person said. That would have put the conference not far behind the Big Ten and SEC, and well ahead of the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference in annual media rights revenue.

The deal also did not guaranteed any games would be distributed to linear networks, though it was possible.

The lack of certainty about money and exposure ended up being too much to overcome.

So, like the dinosaurs, an extinction that appears to have occurred in an instant actually took longer to play out.

Cal is still trying to survive the destruction caused by that August 4 comet.

According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo the future of the four remaining Pac-12 schools depends on what Stanford decides to do. If the bid by Cal and Stanford to join the ACC falls through – and the latest reports suggest the ACC is unlikely to invite the Bay Area schools – then the Cardinal’s subsequent choice will determine whether the four teams stay together and try to rebuild the Pac-12 by adding teams, probably from the American Athletic Conference.

Apparently, at least one of the remaining four Pac-12 schools would like to rebuild the conference.

Cover photo by Taya Gray, The Desert Sun, USA TODAY NETWORK

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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