WCC’s Stu Jackson on losing Gonzaga to the Pac-12: 'We just need to keep finding ways to enhance our brand'

Two years ago, as the newly appointed commissioner of the West Coast Conference, Stu Jackson addressed media members by emphasizing the league's strength with regard to Olympic sports, namely men's basketball.

Admittedly it's been quite some time since Bill Russell's San Francisco squad won back-to-back NCAA championships in the 1950s. But in the 21st century, the league's top two contenders, Gonzaga and Saint Mary's, have burst through to the national limelight. The WCC has ranked among the top 10 conferences in the country in six of the last seven seasons, according to KenPom.com, and has been a multi-bid league in each of the last five NCAA Tournaments played.

The WCC's historically been solid on the pitch as well, boasting five NCAA championships in men's soccer, and continues to improve in other sports like baseball, tennis and women's basketball. But without the luxuries and flexibility of having Division-I football, men's hoops is the WCC's main source of revenue and national exposure. It's helped secure separate media rights deals with ESPN+ and CBS Sports Network.

Fast forward to present day and Jackson, sitting at the same media podium he was two years ago inside the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, is explaining how the WCC plans on growing its brand after the league's top revenue generator, Gonzaga, leaves for the revamped Pac-12 conference in 2026. The Bulldogs will bring affiliate members Washington State and Oregon State with them, dropping the WCC's future membership to nine once Seattle U joins as a full-time member in 2025.

"As we look forward to the West Coast Conference and our future, we see real value in the national recognition of our brand and telling our story, which we have to do a better job of telling that success is part of our story as well as our history," Jackson said ahead of Monday's WCC semifinal games. "We're grateful in recent months to see the increasing number of former student athletes helping us elevate and enhance our brand with their own voice ... so our story continues to evolve and continues to grow as we go forward."

Here's more from Jackson on the state of the WCC and its future:

On conference expansion and realignment:

"Those discussions are only ongoing every day. It's no secret that in this collegiate landscape and realignment, it's like a food chain. As one conference loses a member or a few, that conference, it's incumbent upon them; they have to go get new members, and we're no different. We've said publicly before that our presidents are committed to continue to expand this conference upwards to an additional one or three members. There's no timetable on that, but we're committed to doing so."

On the WCC's priority over the next 1-2 years:

"I feel really strongly that, and I'm going to go back to the future here, when I was in this room two years ago, and I said at the time, I felt that one of the characteristics of this conference that made it so special was the historic success that they've had in Olympic sports. And I felt that if we could continue to develop and grow the basketballs that this conference truly could be special, and I still believe that today, but shame on us. We just have to get better at telling people nationally our story and understanding the true strength and value of this conference, and if that means from a marketing standpoint, a social standpoint, digital standpoint; we just need to keep finding ways to enhance our brand and tell our story. So that's a priority. It's a big priority for us going forward, and it's something we need to continue to get better at.

"The second major piece, at least for me, again, harkening back, is that over the next year, year and a half, two years, we've got to come to understand what our scheduling is going to look like, so that it's inclusive of membership and what our media rights are going to be in one to two years. Given the fact that Gonzaga is now departing, which is a major loss for us, what our media rights are going to look like, because that, in and of itself, will determine just how financially stable we can continue to be, which right now is in a really healthy place."

On discussions with other conferences about potential schedule partners:

"I can't speak for those conferences, but I will tell you, there have been discussions and with other conferences and, it's my own personal view, getting those scheduling alliances in basketball, and particularly for the WCC and other conferences like ours, is the only vehicle that we have to really stabilize realignment. Otherwise we're going to continue to live in this world of adding members [and] losing members. But the advantage that a scheduling alliance affords you is that without actually merging conferences, it affords you the ability to strengthen schedules, strengthen resumes and basically enhance each other's ability to access the NCAA Tournament. So while it's something that I would like to do, I have to think other conferences have to be entertaining that type of structure, given the environment that we're in."

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