Pac-12 school president endorses San Diego State and SMU as possible expansion candidates
It appears the order of operations for the Pac-12 has never strayed away from securing a media rights deal first, than adding programs to replace USC and UCLA who will be off to the Big Ten after next season.
Now obviously no programs will replace the value lost, but in today's conference climate, standing in at just 10 programs is a death wish for the conference. Something the Pac-12 shouldn't have to worry about, as we are aware of their three confirmed expansion targets and have a decent ideas as to who could be the fourth. However, there was a point in the barrage of reports in regards to the Pac-12's next move explaining that expansion would have to come first, media rights deal second.
That appears to not be the case anymore, as Arizona State's president recently confirmed that the conference is in the 'final stages' of their media rights deal thus hinting that expansion will have to wait. It may not be a long wait, as Arizona's president, Robert Robbins, also made comments about media rights and Pac-12 expansion.
Robbins told The Athletic that he expects the Pac-12 will draw a 'better' deal than the Big 12, who has reportedly been religiously pursuing the four corner schools the past few months. He also touched on expansion of the conference and how important it is for the conference saying:
We really haven’t had enough time for discussions about expansion. My personal opinion is we need to expand, and I think San Diego State and SMU are two good schools with two good teams that we should give strong consideration to, but we can’t do that until we get a deal. Once we get the deal, get everyone to sign their Grant of Rights, then we can start talking about expansion. But I think both of them would be targets of the Big 12, but maybe not SMU, because they already have the (DFW) metroplex. San Diego State is attractive to the Big 12 because it gets them out into California. But San Diego, as you well know, is not the L.A. market.
He continued explaining the value of having access to Texas saying:
I think it’s really important because I’m looking beyond just sports recruiting. I’m looking at Texas being our next California for regular students. That’s been our biggest growth area for students coming to the U of A. It’s been very purposeful on our part as a strategy to try to go get those students. So if we got to play games there — wow. That’d be huge.
Both San Diego State and SMU have long been viewed as locks to join the conference, but based on Robbins comments the conference is certainly taking their time. Something that shouldn't come as a surprise, as the Pac-12 has not been rushing any decisions within this past year despite the college football world calling for their demise.
While it does seem true that George Kliavkoff was serious about securing the media rights deal first, and worrying about expansion second, the presidents around the conference appear ready to table that discussion already.
