Pac-12 Media Day: Commissioner mum on media rights deal, conference expansion
If Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff’s first Media Day last year was about putting out the fire after the announcement of USC and UCLA's plans to leave the conference, his second on Friday seemed to be aimed at not stoking anymore flames.
It sort of worked.
Facing questions for the first time publicly since December about the still unresolved Pac-12 media-rights deal and talks of conference expansion, Kliavkoff mainly sidestepped answering during his introductory press conference in Las Vegas.
Where does the Pac-12 media rights deal stand?
After a lengthy opening statement about the strength of the conference, saying the Pac-12 is “the strongest it has been in two decades,” it didn’t take long before he had to answer for the conference’s standstill on a new media rights deal. The Pac-12’s current deal is set to expire after the 2024-25 season.
“I will tell you what we've seen is the longer we wait for the media deal, the better our options get,” Kliavkoff said.
As the presser went on, Kliavkoff’s answers got shorter and shorter. He said he wanted the focus to be on the product on the field, rather than the talk outside of it.
“We're not announcing a deal on purpose today because I want the focus to be on football,” he said.
When pressed about whether he was implying a deal was already complete and the conference was choosing not to announce it, he backtracked.
“I think you're reading too much into that,” Kliavkoff said.
Was there any clarity on Pac-12 expansion?
The commissioner was similarly unclear on talks of conference expansion.
With rumors that both San Diego State and Southern Methodist were interested in joining the Pac-12, Kliavkoff wouldn’t talk about those specific schools but made it clear the media-rights deal would come first before any talks of expansion.
Though he did say that while the conference previously preferred expansion candidates that were members of the Association of American Universities, he left the possibility open for universities not part of the association, like San Diego and Southern Methodist, to join.
“We rate them all against all of those criteria: academic progress, research to standing,” Kliavkoff said. “AAU is a part of that in one component, but not the only component.”
A shift to Las Vegas for Pac-12 events
The one thing the commissioner did answer? The conference’s shift to Las Vegas for events.
The conference football title game, men’s and women’s basketball conference tournaments, and now Media Day events are held in Las Vegas, a city Kliavkoff has great familiarity with.
“I love Las Vegas,” he said. “But it's been great for our fans and for our student-athletes. The experience of coming, playing at Allegiant Stadium, the experience for our men's and women's basketball teams of coming and playing in Vegas, their fans having so many opportunities to take advantage of everything that Las Vegas offers is very special.
“It's also a neutral site. Historically we have not always been in a neutral site for our championships. I think we'll be bringing more stuff to Vegas.”
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, women's basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@gannett.com and you can follow him on Twitter @AlecDietz.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Pac-12 Media Day: Commissioner Kliavkoff mum on media rights deal
