Gene Frenette: Pac-12 breakup shows lust for money always drives college football gatekeepers

The seed for all of the conference realignment mayhem now moving at warp speed was planted long before USC and UCLA went into gold-digger mode, kicking the Pac-12 to the curb last year for a Big Ten money grab.

So don’t lay all this chaos at the feet of administrators from the L.A. twin tower schools. They’re just sheep in a herd full of presidential mercenaries, posturing as academia proponents who pretend to care about athletes’ welfare when, in fact, they worship at the altar of television networks.

There’s no other explanation for the unprecedented turmoil of the past two weeks, which has seen the Big 12 balloon to 16 schools, the Big(ger) 10 expand to 18 schools, effectively destroying the Pac-12 in this process by swallowing up six more of its members.

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Once the USC-UCLA domino fell — and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff took his sweet time announcing a $25 million TV media rights deal with Apple that fell far short of SEC and Big Ten standards — most of the remaining members got antsy and began looking for an exit.

Colorado opted to return to its Big 12 roots July 26, then Washington and Oregon bolted a week later for the greener pastures of the Big 10, followed the next day by Arizona, Arizona State and Utah dashing off to the Big 12.

“For that thing to move as fast as it did, we could never envision the Pac-12 being destroyed,” said Tony Barnhart, a longtime authority on college football and now a lead writer for the website TMGsports.com.

“I think the Pac-12 panicked in that they couldn’t get a [television] deal together. At first, I got mad about all the changes, then I got sad. I’m still sad. I don’t think it had to be this way.”

But as always in the sports landscape — dating back to when the Big Ten plucked ACC member Maryland and Big East member Rutgers in 2012 to put a TV footprint into the Washington, D.C. and New York City markets — greed wins.

College football will survive this crazy upheaval, including the bad optics of movers and shakers putting a horrendous travel burden on Pac-12 and Big Ten athletes in non-revenue sports.

For now, the presidents who signed off on this disturbing game of musical chairs should refrain from taking a bow in the name of financial gain.

Let’s not forget they also sacrificed pieces of their soul at the expense of people they purport to serve.  

FSU should have kept quiet

Once it started to look like the Pac-12 would need an autopsy, Florida State joined a chorus of schools that started getting jittery about their future.

FSU president Rick McCullough made a dimwitted move by publicly announcing his school was in an “existential crisis” over its television revenue with the ACC.

The Seminoles want more TV revenue, believing its brand and success over its ACC lifetime warrants a greater slice of that pie. McCullough and Board of Trustees chairman Peter Collins dropped numerous hints about possibly ending the 31-year marriage to the ACC to avoid falling $30 million behind annually to schools in the SEC and Big Ten with bigger TV packages.

Unfortunately, FSU doesn’t quite pack the same punch as Texas and Oklahoma had before the SEC poached those schools to begin play next year. The ‘Noles still have a solid brand, but football has been quite pedestrian in recent years until that 10-win season in 2022 against a sub-par schedule.

The truth is FSU blew it by going public with its displeasure over ACC financing. What good does it do the ‘Noles to make threats about leaving when it might not have enough leverage to go anywhere?

Furthermore, there’s the sticky legal issue of being tied to the ACC grant of rights deal — meaning the conference owns its media rights with ESPN through the 2035-36 season — and the cost of getting out is $120 million.

Even if FSU were to challenge the GOR in court and win (also an expensive proposition), there’s no guarantee the most viable options of the SEC or Big Ten would want them.

“FSU’s stance was not well received [by ACC members],” said Gator Bowl president Greg McGarity, the former athletic director at Georgia. “I don’t know why people go public unless you’re trying to cater to a certain population like donors. Where is FSU going to land? I don’t think the Big 12, they just got UCF.

“The Big Ten might make more sense than any for FSU, but how much additional revenue will it make? Over the last five years, what’s FSU done? It’s not like they come in swinging a big stick.”

Of course, FSU begs to differ, implying it has some weight to throw around and isn’t about to stand still while the SEC and Big Ten command massive amounts of dollars to gain a competitive edge in football and other sports.

After the school’s come-to-Jesus Board meeting, Collins minced no words about FSU’s ability to swing a big stick in possibly challenging the ACC’s grant of rights deal.

“We have a very good handle on what our risks are under that document,” Collins said during an interview with an FSU website, Warchant.com. “What our opportunities are under that document. That’s the least of my worries. We have gotten a lot of counsel on that document, and that will not be the document that keeps us from taking action. I’ll leave it at that.”

So, will FSU go rogue on the ACC and be the next domino to fall, possibly getting scooped up by the Big Ten, the only viable Power 5 conference (or is it now Power 4?) left without a footprint in Florida?

“TV is dictating everything,” said McGarity. “As long as they have revenue streams for the conferences, you’re going to continue to see this method of madness.”

Tradition going bye-bye

College football, at least as many of us had known it, will take a permanent leave after this season.

The idea of Washington and Rutgers being in the same conference, along with UCF and Arizona State, USC and Maryland, Utah and West Virginia, would have seemed preposterous a year ago.

It remains to be seen whether traditional rivalries like Washington-Washington State and Oregon-Oregon State can be preserved, but there’s for certain going to be massive changes to college football beyond NIL and the transfer portal.

Another overlooked factor in all these conference shakeups is what happens in 2024 with the 12-team College Football Playoff, whose contract is up for renewal after two years?

That tournament will invite conference champions from the six best leagues, but nobody knows what the Pac-12 might look like. Leftovers Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State could go to the Mountain West, giving that champion greater access to a CFP berth.

If so, that means putting a toe tag on the Pac-12, a circumstance nobody saw coming just 14 months ago.

The Mountain West merging with the Pac-12 sounds logical, but that is also rife with complications like a $34 million exit fee for MW schools. It would take a lot of legal maneuvering that may not happen quickly.

Whatever happens, college football is one messed-up commodity at the moment. The idea of this ending with two super leagues, the SEC and Big Ten, dominating the landscape for decades to come is not terribly attractive for what is supposed to be an inclusive society.

“No matter how much adults try to screw up college football, the game is going to be fine,” said Barnhart. “But this is a very difficult patch to go through and not have a West coast presence.”

McGarity fears for where the college football train is headed, saying: “This [realignment] doesn’t enhance things, it diminishes things. The [college football] structure is not conducive to any type of things settling down.”

Will the SEC expand or stand pat? Does Cal and Stanford go independent, try to save the Pac-12 or consider the wild option of flocking to the ACC, as one ESPN report suggested? Does FSU close its money gap with the SEC/Big Ten by getting out of the GOR and leaving the ACC? And if the 'Noles actually find a place to go, what happens with Clemson, North Carolina and Virginia?

Stay tuned. College football could get a lot messier. It certainly wouldn’t be the first sport to choke on its own greed.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540; Follow him on Twitter @genefrenette 

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Realignment puts Pac-12 at death's door, college football less appealing