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The clock is ticking on the Pac-12 Conference and commissioner George Kliavkoff.
Two of the conference’s biggest members, USC and UCLA, shocked the college football world when they announced they were leaving the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten.
The move sent the Pac-12 into scramble mode as it worked to retain its remaining members and others to the fold.
All that occurred while the conference was trying to work out a new media rights deal, which will be key to its viability and attractiveness to member schools in the future.
There’s now just 15 months left on the Pac-12’s existing deal, and it doesn’t sound like a new one is anywhere close according to CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd.
Dodd spoke with University of Arizona president Robert Robbins who said that he doesn’t belief a deal is anywhere close.
“I have heard nothing to suggest [a deal is] imminent,” Robbins told CBS Sports this week. “There’s all these things about, well, ‘We want to wait until [after] the Final Four.’ That has nothing to do with it. It has to do with assessing who is the right fit, who assesses us.
“I hope [commissioner George Kliavkoff] gets something done sooner rather than later so that the whole thing stops, so we don’t have focus on it. [But] I am perfectly willing to sit here and wait.” – via CBS Sports
The good news for Kliavkoff and fans of that Pac-12 is that it doesn’t appear Robbins has any plans to bolt for another conference. But sooner or later a deal is going to have to get done.
Dodd proceeded to call a deal “not close but hopeful.”
What exactly that means is anyone’s guess. But if the Pac-12 wants to keep it from becoming a Power 4 rather than a Power 5 conferences, it may want to get this sorted out quickly.