In Pac-12 Football: Empty Seats, TV Woes and Recruiting Gaps
The chasm is growing between the Pacific-12 Conference and its Power Five counterparts. And its rescue hopes are pinned on a new TV deal in 2024.
When Larry Scott, the Pacific-12 Conference commissioner, began jumping through hoops for television money, he envisioned nights like Friday, a prime-time audience on national television for a compelling game: No. 10 Utah, the conference’s highest-ranked team, against U.S.C., its most storied program.
And yet that story line may be overtaken by a subplot — the presence of the excommunicated Reggie Bush and the eternally angling Urban Meyer, who in their roles as Fox Sports commentators will loom over the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum like plaintive ghosts of U.S.C. football past and (perhaps) future.
Bush’s return highlights the dance U.S.C. has had to perform in permanently disassociating from him, as N.C.A.A. penalties mandated in 2010 after Bush was found to have violated the organization’s amateurism rules. So the running back’s name has been scrubbed from the record books, his Heisman Trophy has disappeared from Heritage Hall, and his number is not displayed at the Coliseum with those of the school’s six other Heisman winners, including O.J. Simpson.
There will be similar tap dancing around Meyer as U.S.C., which forced out its athletic director, Lynn Swann, last week, conducts a search for a replacement whose first order of business will be to determine the future of Coach Clay Helton.
Oh, and somewhere after that, there’s Utah, too.
This is just how it goes for the Pac-12 as it fights to regain college football relevancy, swimming against a current of declining attendance and TV ratings, a bleeding of recruits, the decline of U.S.C., and — most distressingly — a growing TV revenue gap from the SEC and Big Ten.
While no conference this week has more teams in The Associated Press Top 25 (six), none of the Power Five conferences is farther from reaching the College Football Playoff than the Pac-12, which hasn’t had a team qualify since 2016.
“I’m not a blind man — I’ve seen Clemson play, and Alabama and Ohio State,” said Petros Papadakis, a Fox Sports college football analyst who played for U.S.C. “The gap exists. When those teams are on the field, they look differently and play differently.”
There are few signs of that changing anytime soon.
Though the Pac-12 has an enviable TV footprint, with five of the top 17 markets in the country — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix and Denver — it doesn’t translate to the balance sheet under the terms of its television deals. The Big Ten distributed as much as $54 million in TV revenue to its schools in the 2018 fiscal year, dwarfing the $29.5 million the Pac-12 paid out. The SEC paid out as much as $43.7 million to its schools, while the Big 12 was at $38.8 million and the A.C.C., whose revenues will get a bump this year with the start of its conference network, was at $29.5 million along with the Pac-12, whose payout decreased by $1.5 million from 2017.
The chasm is likely to widen each year until 2024.
That’s how long the Pac-12 will have to wait to see if Scott’s big bet pays off: the decision not to partner with ESPN or Fox in forming the Pac-12 Network (as other conference networks have) while waiting to cash in on a bidding war for all its TV rights when they expire — a battle among not just traditional networks but also newer contenders like Amazon and Google.
Or so the hope goes.
At the moment, it has been a costly decision. Not only is the conference left with far less money, it also has far lower viewership because cable and satellite companies aren’t compelled by a partner like ESPN or Fox to take the Pac-12 Network as part of a bundle of sports networks. As a result, the Pac-12 Network, which was introduced seven years ago, is in only 18 million homes, less than a third of the audience for the SEC Network and the Big Ten Network, and about half of that for A.C.C. Network, which started in August.
“We determined that we didn’t want to sell the Pac-12 Network — there was anticipation that it would grow — and when the landscape changed, we’d be able to negotiate a better deal and cash in,” Ray Anderson, Arizona State’s athletic director, said. “That’s been a painful wait.”
“If we hit it in 2024, we can reduce the gap significantly,” Anderson added. “That being said, there is frustration that the money isn’t flowing as quickly as it was originally promised.”
Among the signs of distress: The Pac-12 has begun to seek private equity partners for its network, and Scott has urged the schools to consider occasional 9 a.m. kickoffs for home games beginning next season to take advantage of a national broadcast window on Fox.
“Different people will have different points of view,” Scott said of the early kickoffs. “But I feel like it’s my job to regularly think outside the box.”
TV revenue, Scott said, accounts for 25 percent to 40 percent of university athletic budgets.
In a conference that prides itself on the breadth of its athletic programs, particularly in the so-called Olympic sports, lower TV revenue translates largely into lower salaries, fewer staff members and fewer resources for the moneymakers: football and men’s basketball.
For example, Alabama augments its coaching staff with 12 football analysts — three of whom are former head coaches, Major Applewhite, Butch Jones and Mike Stoops — along with four player development and four player personnel staffers. Oregon — even with Phil Knight, the Nike founder, as its longtime benefactor — is no match. It has six football analysts, one player development staffer and one player personnel staffer.
Georgia spent $2.6 million on recruiting last year, easily doubling the spending of each Pac-12 school.
“All those things take resources,” the Oregon athletic director, Rob Mullens, said.
Not surprisingly, the resource gap and the decline in performance have begun to bleed into recruiting.
Though it is not uncommon for under-recruited prospects to develop into stars — Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert, likely to be the top quarterback in the N.F.L. draft, is an example — the top programs across the country are poaching the West’s most coveted talent.
The top-rated quarterback in the country, D.J. Uiagalelei, from St. John Bosco High in Bellflower, Calif., is headed to Clemson, where he appears likely to be followed by Justin Flowe from Upland, Calif., the top inside linebacker.
Sav’ell Smalls, the top outside linebacker, from Kennedy Catholic in Burien, Wash., is said to be leaning toward Alabama, while Darnell Washington, the top-rated tight end, from Desert Pines High in Las Vegas, will probably head to Georgia, and Bijan Robinson, a top running back from Salpointe Catholic in Tucson, Ariz., has committed to Texas.
“It’s a major problem,” said Rick Neuheisel, the former Colorado, Washington and U.C.L.A. coach who works as an analyst for CBS. He believes the talent flight is happening because of more aggressive recruiting elsewhere and the Pac-12’s minimal influence in the playoffs: Its only win was by Oregon in a 2015 semifinal, and the two Los Angeles schools have never qualified.
“It’s a two-way street now,” Neuheisel said. “It’s not just tuning in on Saturday and seeing most of the attention is elsewhere, but Alabama, Georgia and Clemson are coming to California. It’s not just that they like what they see on TV, they’re getting the full-court press.”
The Pac-12 has trended in the wrong direction since Washington was mauled by Alabama in a playoff semifinal three seasons ago. The conference lost eight of nine bowl games the next season and had only two teams finish in the top 25 last season as its marquee program, U.S.C., tumbled to its first losing season in 18 years.
Oregon had a chance to change the tenor but blew a late 15-point lead in a season-opening loss to Auburn. And the Pac-12 is 4-4 thus far against the Mountain West.
The conference had an opportunity to make a better impression last weekend, with six games broadcast nationally. But U.S.C. lost in overtime at B.Y.U.; Colorado was upset by Air Force in overtime; Stanford was routed by Central Florida; and U.C.L.A. was clobbered by Oklahoma in a barely half-full Rose Bowl.
Though the hiring of Chip Kelly as head coach was supposed to invigorate the 0-3 Bruins, disinterest is so rampant that the school can barely give tickets away. Some Oklahoma fans bought a U.C.L.A. season ticket this summer (discounted to $150) to get better seats, and U.C.L.A. gave away four tickets to any season-ticket holder who attended the previous week’s game. Still, the announced crowd of 52,578 was made up largely of traveling Sooners fans.
The best result of the weekend — and perhaps this season for the Pac-12 — came when Arizona State won at Michigan State, 10-7.
The young Sun Devils should get credit for resiliency and discipline, but they were outgained by nearly 2 to 1, survived three missed field goals by Michigan State (including on the last play) and should have received a 15-yard penalty, the conference admitted, for illegally jumping to try to block a field goal on the final play.
At this point, there are few things for the Pac-12 to take comfort in. One might be its collection of well-regarded coaches. And if U.S.C. returns to national prominence, it could pull freight the way Alabama, Texas and Ohio State do for their conferences.
In the meantime, the Pac-12’s hopes of reaching the playoffs, and regaining a stamp of legitimacy, increasingly feel like a Hail Mary.
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