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Canzano today:
GRANDSTANDING: Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren did a fair bit of grandstanding as part of the conference media day on Tuesday. He didn’t do a cartwheel on stage, but he came very close.
Warren spent a good portion of his time touting the Big Ten’s poaching of USC and UCLA. Pac-12 stakeholders weren’t happy about all the horn tooting. Said one conference employee: “The only people happy with the USC/UCLA move are those in the B1G, USC/UCLA and FOX.”
Warren also appeared to take a shot at the Pac-12 when he was asked about expansion and the health of college football.
Said Warren: “If a conference is allegedly on the brink, there are many more issues than members leaving. There are deeper issues. I’m not promoting conferences facing a crisis or going out of business, not at all. But I come out of the NFL for 21 years. In the NFL, either you succeed or you fail, and that's not only on the field. I’m talking about in business, operationally. Either you have your fan base or you don’t.”
The Pac-12’s biggest problem is its media rights deal. The conference has advantageous geography in the Pacific Time Zone. It has good history, strong brands, and it wants very much to matter. But let’s face it — losing USC and UCLA was a gut punch from Warren’s conference. That blow equated to the loss of 5.2 million television households.
How do you replace that if you’re the Pac-12?
I’ve long wondered about San Diego State as a Pac-12 expansion candidate. It would add back 1.1 million TV homes in the Southern California footprint. I also wonder about UNLV as a possible addition.
The Las Vegas television market is only in the top-40 right now, but the region is growing rapidly. There’s a pile of untapped sponsorship money buried in Vegas and commissioner George Kliavkoff lives there and is deeply connected. I’ll bet he rarely pays for a meal.
UNLV might not command a full share of media rights distributions out of the gate. It also plays home football games in the NFL stadium in Las Vegas. It would be a speculative play, for sure, but doubling down on Vegas makes sense.
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