Revitalized Pac-12 Can Work With Focus On TV Product

Two years after USC and UCLA elected to leave for the Big Ten, and a year since all but two members departed, the Pac-12 is trying to rebuild itself via the same thing that put it on death’s door — conference realignment.

This month, remaining members Oregon State and Washington State voted to expand and add Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State from the Mountain West Conference. And this week, Utah State joined that group to bring the Pac-12’s total to seven schools; one short of the minimum for a Division I FBS-level conference.

Recent weeks have been filled with a variety of routes the remade Pac-12 could take to complete its comeback. Some have revolved around adding strong football programs from outside the power conferences like Memphis, Tulane and UTSA, with the hope that being outside the league’s traditional footprint won’t matter if the league winds up being highly competitive.

Other ideas have involved adding men’s basketball standout Gonzaga (already in the conference’s footprint, in Spokane, Wash.). There are more far-fetched ideas like adding independent school Connecticut for football only. And then there’s the most straight-forward plan: Using the leverage it has with five of the Mountain West’s current 12 schools already in the fold, to try and pick off the best of the rest.

Would a merger have accomplished this in a cleaner way without lawsuits? Sure. But things didn’t materialize that way, so Oregon State and Washington State chose this route opting to make the most of the Pac-12 branding, resources and postseason credits (plus a hefty bank of exit fees collected from the 10 departed schools).

Without a clean absorption of the Mountain West, the Pac-12 should be doing what it can to create the most enticing TV product possible, by utilizing its biggest strength: A foothold in th Pacific Time Zone.

(via Pac-12)

While college football fans on the West Coast may not be as ravenous about the sport as their counterparts in the Southeast or Midwest, nearly 16% of the U.S. population lives in California, Oregon, Nevada and Washington. The Big Ten may have taken some of the biggest names from the “Best Coast” like USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington. But what remaining schools may lack in long-term brand equity, they can make up for by simply having late-night inventory.

Right now, the Big Ten (aforementioned schools), Big 12 (Arizona/Arizona State?) and ACC (Stanford/Cal) have partial commitments to the Pacific Time Zone, and no presence in Hawaii. A Pac-12 with the seven currently pledged schools, plus possibly UNLV, Hawaii and say, Gonzaga? Even if it’s not a power conference, it’s one that provides any TV partner(s) with late-night inventory and a collection of interesting schools in some burgeoning areas. That’s far from nothing, and with a consolidated geographic footprint (Hawaii aside) gives the new-look conference an immediate identity it can take to fans and TV viewers alike.

Being less focused on some perceived traditionalism and more on being a fun TV product out west could also give the league some freedom to do things the power conferences won’t. Guest commentators, fan broadcasts, live trivia games, betting integrations, digital media add-ons, AR/VR games… there’s a nearly limitless potential her for the Pac-12 to just get weird with it.

They already have fun quirks like Boise’s blue turf. The league could have Hawaii’s late-night kickoffs for the rest of the continental U.S. and UNLV playing in an NFL stadium off the Las Vegas strip. Each school has their own charms, but the Pac-12 could lean into those even more as parts of the TV product’s marketing, and just accept the fact that it isn’t like the other college football conferences. And it doesn’t have to be!

For as much as the football product may “look” stronger by adding bigger schools from the central time zone, or “feel” more appealing as a TV product by just adding programs in major markets around the country, there’s something to be said for simply being the West Coast’s football conference, and being proud and cohesive about that fact. It doesn’t mean they can’t find ways to get more marketable with slight footprint expansions (FCS powerhouse North Dakota State, anyone?). And traditionally better schools doesn’t mean the TV part of it just works. Ask the old Pac-12 about that.

But by keeping a sensible group of like-minded and geographically similar schools together, this Pac-12 can embrace just being a TV product that people want to watch. If it’s okay without competing for national championships very often or trying to find revenue parity with power conferences, the rest should likely work itself out.