Did the Pac-12 have a successful season?
On the surface, this would seemingly yield an obvious answer. After all, it was the last FBS conference to start its football season, and only two of its 12 teams — Oregon State and UCLA — have played six games, as intended. Washington, the North Division champion, was forced to withdraw from the Pac-12 championship game following a spike of positive COVID-19 cases within its program. And the South Division champion, undefeated USC (5-0), is slotted 13th in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings — behind four two-loss teams and undefeated Sun Belt standout Coastal Carolina.
In a meeting with the media on Thursday — barely 24 hours before USC hosts Oregon in an amended Pac-12 title game — conference commissioner Larry Scott said he’s “disappointed at where USC is in the standings compared to the only other 5-0 team (No. 4 Ohio State), and we’ve seen some two-loss teams in front of them. We’ve expressed that and we’re going to continue to express that to the committee.
“We don’t think USC has gotten the respect they’ve deserved — when you watch the games, see the talent and frankly see the firepower on that team.”
He also admitted that the Pac-12’s rigorous testing protocols did not prevent as many cancellations as he had hoped.
“Would I have liked to have missed less games, or not had some of the challenges we had to work through with contact tracing? Absolutely,” Scott said. “There have been some devastating losses of games for Cal, which had a very frustrating season. Arizona State missed three weeks in a row due to cases and contact tracing, and there are other examples of tremendous disappointment. Colorado’s missed a couple games and isn’t going to have a chance to play a game this week.
“So there’s been a lot of disappointment along the way, but we also got through quite a lot of games and many of our teams had a chance to prove themselves.”
Jimmy Lake’s Huskies, of course, will not have a chance to prove themselves on Friday, and Scott said “our hearts go out to the University of Washington, that was due to play in the Pac-12 championship game and couldn’t — nor could they play against Oregon the week before. I know it’s heartbreaking for their students and the staff.”
At the same time, Scott saluted the Pac-12’s perceived successes as well. He called their COVID-19 testing program “the most comprehensive in college sports — with close to 70,000 antigen tests taken so far, conducted daily for high-risk sports, and close to 50,000 PCR tests conducted with student-athletes to date.” Just .15% of positive tests were revealed to be false positives, and Pac-12 athletes tested positive just 1.2% of the time — far less frequently than the general population.
“I think it’s fair to say our students were safer being a part of our programs and having the rigor and having the discipline and having the protocols and having the daily testing, than they would have been otherwise,” Scott concluded. “Certainly we did not put the student-athletes in harm’s way.”
An argument could currently be made at the University of Washington, which reported 25 active positive COVID-19 cases in its athletic department on Wednesday — 14 more than the week before.
But Scott remains encouraged about his conference’s ability to safely play amidst a pandemic.
“No one is aware of any examples in any of our games (in the Pac-12 and beyond) where there was transmission of the virus. It’s pretty astounding,” he said. “We all had concerns that by having student-athletes play football games you could be leading to the spread of the virus, and there’s zero evidence of that, with all the precautions that we’ve taken in our league and others have taken in terms of testing protocols.”
On the whole, Scott acknowledged that “this has been a very difficult year that will have a lasting impact on college athletics. But out of those difficulties I truly believe the Pac-12 is coming out of it in a very, very strong way.”
The rankings, and revenues, would appear to be evidence to the opposite.
Which begs the original question:
Did the Pac-12 have a successful season?
“It’s a tough question to answer, exactly how you measure success,” Scott said. “But I think the first (indicator), by far, would have been, ‘Can we get through the season with health and safety in mind and not be spreading the virus?’ We got through a lot of games, not as many as we would have liked. There are disappointments for sure, but a lot to be proud of.”
Pac-12 media rights
Last week, the SEC announced a 10-year media rights deal with Disney — beginning in 2024 — worth roughly $300 million annually, according to the New York Times. That’s nearly six times more than CBS currently pays for the conference’s media rights.
That’s undeniably positive news for the SEC … and the Pac-12?
“I’m absolutely delighted for the Pac-12,” Scott said Thursday. “(It’s) another great data point supporting what our vision has been, which is that the market for premium college sports rights is going to continue to go up — and it has at every step along the way. It’s been my deep belief that come 2023, when we have a chance to renegotiate our TV rights, we are going to see a huge increase in our media value. We’re sitting on a lot of untapped growth in our value.
“This has been validated when we’ve been out in the marketplace on multiple occasions — not just with our current partners, ESPN and FOX. But we went through an exercise where we talked to agencies, talked to private equity partners. That gave us very significant valuations for our rights and reinforced the fact that we’ve got a plethora of (possible) partners that would love to join with us now to partner in our TV rights going forward.”
Scott asserted that “we’re exhibiting strategic patience” in waiting to negotiate a new media rights deal.
And on the day that deal comes, “like we did in 2011, we’re going to catch up to the other leagues — maybe even leapfrog some leagues,” he said.
Financial support scenarios
Scott confirmed the Pac-12 will be in position to financially support its programs that have suffered significant deficits due to the ongoing pandemic. He said that process began “three or four months ago,” though the details have yet to be made official.
“We do have the ability to help our universities with some borrowing or advance on future TV revenues,” he said. “We have not finalized a specific plan yet, but we are in close consultation with our university CFOs as well as our ADs. We’re still trying to figure out exactly what the need is going to be. But we are there for our schools. We’ve got the ability to provide some bridged financing and financial support to get through this challenging time.
“The good news is we’re expecting to be back to a full season and full revenues next year, and obviously we’ve got some big increases coming when our TV rights come up.”
Extra point
- The oft-criticized Scott’s contract as Pac-12 commissioner expires in mid-2022. On Thursday, he said there have not been discussions about a possible extension but “sometime in 2021 we’ll get to that.”
— to www.seattletimes.com
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