Once Colorado split with the Pac-12 two weeks ago, we could all anticipate what was next. Heck, when USC and UCLA announced their departure for the Big 10 last July, all of this was imminent — especially when league commissioner George Kliavkoff let the Big 12 sneak in line to secure a media rights deal.
However, there is another piece to this puzzle that could have brought millions to the schools in the Pac-12: negotiating a separate media rights deal for women’s basketball. During the run to the run to the 2021 national title game, fans across the nation fell in love with the Wildcats and their coach, Adia Barnes. They were the underdogs who were left off the publicity for the Final Four — the upstart team that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Arizona’s women’s basketball team has earned no money for participating in the last three NCAA Tournaments and playing in the national title game in 2021. Stanford has earned no money for winning that title and playing in the Final Four 15 times. The NCAA will start negotiating on a new deal later this year and there has been a call from top coaches, like South Carolina’s Dawn Staley, for women’s basketball to have their own package and also for those units.
For that 2021 final that pitted the two Pac-12 teams in Arizona and Stanford in the championship, an average of 4 million viewers was the most since the 2014 title game. But all of that at the expense of destroying a conference that has a 100-year history, tradition and incredible athletes doing incredible things on the field of play is inexcusable.Some have suggested that all football teams could break off forming NFL-like divisions and all the other sports forming regional conferences. This sounds like a good step.