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In mid-June, a member of the Pac-12 Conference CEO Group told me something that I haven't stopped thinking about.
"Finally feeling no time pressure," the source said at the time.
The Pac-12 had been engaged for months in its media-rights negotiation. The conference had taken a public beating from outsiders who claimed it was surely left for dead. But internally, the mood was suddenly pressure-free?
What happened exactly?
One member of the CEO Group told me on Tuesday: "The room just shifted."
The members had verbally agreed on the grant of rights a couple of weeks earlier. The remaining conference members were on the same page when it came to the sharing of media-rights revenue and unequal distributions of College Football Playoff payouts. They pre-negotiated a number of complex items and had unity. All that was left was the media-rights deal that would seal it all.
Was that it?
I'll find out, eventually. But I think that shift in mood is important when it comes to framing what we're about to see play out over the next 10 days. Because it doesn't appear the Pac-12 is in a rush to unveil a media rights deal or expand the conference in front of the July 21 Football Media Day in Las Vegas.
A few things:
• Pac-12 Conference Media Day will be held at Resorts World in Las Vegas on July 21 — one week from Friday.
• There will not be news on the media-rights front this week, I'm told by involved sources. Unless something changes or leaks, the conference will head into next week without a deal to talk about.
• Pac-12 Football Media Day is ideally about celebrating the upcoming football season. Last year's event was held in Los Angeles and was overshadowed by the USC and UCLA defections to the Big Ten.
• Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff will be joined on stage at 2023 Football Media Day by Utah athletic director Mark Harlan, who is serving as the chair of the AD group. Last year, it was Kliavkoff on stage with Stanford AD Bernard Muir.
I expect Kliavkoff and Harlan's mission will be to present a unified front and steer the conversation back to football. Those two will field the brunt of the questions in the early-morning session.
• Do the presidents and chancellors care about optics and the public narrative? Absolutely. They have brands to protect. But they're also focused on completing a significant and complex negotiation. They must also feel very secure about where they stand. I communicated with two different members of the CEO Group and multiple ADs in the last 72 hours. None of them sounded concerned.
How are they feeling about the media deal?
Said one member of the Pac-12 CEO Group: "All good, but our timing is not being driven by media narratives or others' deadlines."
• The second part of that quote — "others' deadlines" — feels aimed the San Diego State conundrum. The Mountain West Conference presidents are meeting on Monday to discuss the Aztecs' membership status.
San Diego State put itself on an island with that clumsy "consider this notice that we're thinking about giving you notice" letter sent to the MWC last month. The Aztecs have not been extended a formal invitation by the Pac-12.
• There have been changes within the Pac-12 CEO Group of note. Oregon's newly appointed president John Karl Scholz officially joined the board on July 1. I'm told by sources that Scholz attended the Pac-12 board meeting on June 30.
• Arizona president Dr. Robert Robbins replaced Washington president Ana Mari Cauce on the Pac-12 CEO Group's three-member executive committee on July 1. That leadership trio is now comprised of Robbins, Washington State president Kirk Schulz, and Stanford's Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Schulz is now the chair.
• The public-relations strategy of the Pac-12 in the last year should be a case study how not to handle crisis management. Long stretches of silence were interrupted intermittently by presidents and chancellors sporadically popping their heads up to make inconsistent public comments. They were obviously trying to help, but it felt like a game of academic Whac-A-Mole.
• For the last year, I've heard consistent messaging from within the CEO Group. The remaining 10 members have repeatedly told me they're galvanized. None of them have deviated from that.
The problem over the last year has been external messaging. While I suspect potential media partners (Apple, Amazon, ESPN, FOX, etc.) appreciate the quiet and private approach, Pac-12 fans have suffered and the brand has taken a hit. It's worth a careful study from the conference.
It's messy to hold a football media day that potentially becomes more about media rights than the players, teams and coaches. But that's where the Pac-12 finds itself today.
"Finally feeling no time pressure."
"The room just shifted."
Think about those things.
It feels to me as if the Pac-12 knows something the rest of us don't.
Read more of columnist John Canzano exclusively at JohnCanzano.com.
