Getty Image / Kevin Abele
Washington State’s athletic director took a shot at the Pac-12’s most recent commissioners amid the conference’s recent misfortune.
He blamed the conference’s issues on mismanagement and “poor leadership”.
Over the last week, the Pac-12 has found itself in a pretty dire situation.
The conference’s commissioner spent this offseason trying to get a media rights deal that would make member schools happy with their compensation and exposure.
Instead, he ended up presenting them with a weak offer from Apple TV that wouldn’t give them much of either.
As a result, 6 schools have decided to join USC and UCLA in leaving the Pac-12 in 2024.
Unfortunately, there are 4 schools that don’t have such clear plans for the future.
Oregon State, Stanford, Cal, and Washington State all currently remain attached to the Pac-12.
Today, the athletic director of one of those schools took a shot at the most recent commissioners of the conference.
Washington State AD Pat Chun blamed the conference’s collapse on mismanagement and poor leadership.
Washington State AD Pat Chun: "There's a century of history that has gone by the wayside because this conference has mismanaged itself on a bunch of different levels. And when you have poor leadership, one of the outcomes is failure. That's what has happened to the Pac-12."
— Greg Woods (@GregWWoods) August 9, 2023
“There’s a century of history that has gone by the wayside because this conference has mismanaged itself on a bunch of different levels. And when you have poor leadership, one of the outcomes is failure. That’s what has happened to the Pac-12.”
There is a lot that has gone into the demise of the Pac-12 and it’s hard to know for sure what exactly it would have taken to get Washington and Oregon to ignore the allure of joining the Big Ten.
However, the media rights deal ended up being the final straw and that was a mess that was overseen by George Kliavkoff.
He repeatedly extended the deadline for a deal just to end up presenting a deal that was never going to be seen as acceptable by the Pac-12’s schools.
Now he is overseeing the bleakest time in the conference’s history while schools like Washington State are left to scramble to secure their future.