| Pac-12 Conference 2023-24 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Member Schools - 2023 | 12 | |
| Member Schools - 2024 | 2 | |
| Average Collective Funding per School 2023-24 * | $ 6,472,447 | |
| Average Collective Funding per School 2024-25 * | $ 3,190,207 |
Pac-12 Conference Schools 2023-24:
| School | 2023 Conf | 2024 Conf | Collective Funding * | Total Support | Ticket Sales | Contributions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | Pac-12 | Big 12 | $ 6,414,683 | 39,030,243 | 19,164,426 | 19,865,817 |
| Arizona State | Pac-12 | Big 12 | $ 5,689,877 | 34,620,152 | 14,144,182 | 20,475,970 |
| California | Pac-12 | ACC | $ 3,932,903 | 23,929,814 | 8,073,384 | 15,856,430 |
| Colorado | Pac-12 | Big 12 | $ 5,337,719 | 32,477,439 | 19,175,198 | 13,302,241 |
| Oregon | Pac-12 | Big Ten | $ 10,623,807 | 64,640,729 | 24,357,945 | 40,282,784 |
| Oregon State | Pac-12 | Pac-12 | $ 3,163,423 | 19,247,899 | 9,447,886 | 9,800,013 |
| Southern Cal | Pac-12 | Big Ten | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Stanford | Pac-12 | ACC | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| UCLA | Pac-12 | Big Ten | $ 5,919,423 | 36,016,831 | 17,494,361 | 18,522,470 |
| Utah | Pac-12 | Big 12 | $ 7,252,969 | 44,130,809 | 15,286,819 | 28,843,990 |
| Washington | Pac-12 | Big Ten | $ 9,406,794 | 57,235,798 | 29,198,790 | 28,037,008 |
| Washington State | Pac-12 | Pac-12 | $ 3,216,991 | 19,573,838 | 9,299,636 | 10,274,202 |
* See our disclosure of Methodology as to how these estimates were arrived at.
Listing of Pac-12 NIL Collectives by School:
Notes & Updates – NIL Collectives supporting Pac-12 Schools:
| School | Notes / Comments |
|
|---|---|---|
| Arizona | ||
| Arizona State | ASU football coach said that NIL is “over 80-85% of the process” of recruiting and retaining players and that NIL efforts around ASU were improving but still “extremely behind.” |
|
| California | Over 1100 Cal fans raise $1.2 million for California Legends NIL in a 72 hour period after ACC invite. | |
| Colorado | ||
| Oregon | Primary collective is backed by Nike Co-founder Phil Knight | |
| Oregon State | Announced Mission to $ 1 million challenge contributor will match up to $1 million | |
| Southern Cal | Donor has committed to match the total raised through Fifty for Victory up to $250,000. | |
| Stanford | Collective expects to operate with a budget of nearly $4 million for this year, on the modest end for Power 5 collectives. A predecessor collective paid every men’s basketball player $50,000 last season. |
|
| UCLA | Today, an anonymous donor committed to match the total raised through Fifty for Victory, up to $250,000. | |
| Utah | Collective has raised $ 1,250,000 of $ 5 million goal | |
| Washington | ||
| Washington State |  | Collective aims for a minimum of $2.5 million a year to be competitive. "If we don’t get there, we’re not going to compete, plain and simple." |
Why a rebuilt Pac-12 should remain a Power 5 Conference:
In 2024 ten current members of the Pac-12 will leave and join new conferences. The reason for the departures is to secure football TV contracts. The two remaining Pac-12 schools will be Oregon State and Washington State who intend to rebuild the conference.
Many people are already saying that the “Power 5” is now the “Power 4”, but as ESPN college football analyst Lee Corso is fond of saying … not so fast my Friend. Currently the most likely scenario is for the Pac-12 to be rebuilt with some form of reverse merger with the Mountain West Conference. If so, should this be considered a Power 5 conference?
Just by athletic competitiveness the answer is a pretty clear yes. This past football season, six of the Pac-2/MW schools had teams either ranked or receiving votes in the top 25 polls. In basketball, it was San Diego State playing UConn in the 2023 Men’s championship game, not any school from the other power conferences. In baseball, Oregon State has won three national championships in the past 17 years, more than any other NCAA school. I could go on, but you get the point.
A merged Pac-12 / Mountain West Conference would have some impressive and unique characteristics that would be very attractive to broadcasters:
- Schools in 9 western states (10 if you include Hawaii) – the current Pac-12 has schools in only 6 states.
- Fast growing media markets including San Diego, San Jose, Las Vegas, Denver, Seattle, Portland, Boise, Salt Lake City, Spokane and central California among others.
– - The average in-state undergraduate percentage of these schools is 77% – significantly higher than the departing Pac-12 schools. This indicates that school alumni are more likely to reside in the target media markets compared to schools with a higher percentage of out-of-state enrollment.
– - With departure of the other Pac-12 schools to conferences based in central and eastern time zones, the supply of Power 5 match-ups for the Pacific time zone late (7pm & 8pm) games will be decreased. The rebuilt Pac-12 would be able to effectively fill this upcoming shortage in available games for broadcast.
The effect of the ten departing Pac-12 schools moving to conferences based 2 to 3 hours east is significant, as games involving west coast versus mid-west and east coast teams are going to be compacted into a smaller time frame for broadcast. These match-ups for practical purposes, will automatically result in the loss of one of the three Saturday time slots. For example, Maryland is not going to agree to an 8pm start at Washington because this would result in a TV broadcast beginning at 11pm on the east coast. Similarly, Washington will not agree to a noon kick-off at Maryland, as this would mean a broadcast beginning at 9am in Seattle, when most Husky fans are still on their first soy latte of the morning.
During 2023 current Pac-12 teams participated in 144 games. Of these, only 7 were played in the CT/ET time zones – this number spikes to 38 for the upcoming 2024 season due to the department of ten Pac-12 teams to conferences based in the mid-west and east:
School | Total Games | 2023 - PT/MT | 2023 - CT/ET | 2024 - PT/MT | 2024 - CT/ET |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 12 | 11 | 1 | 9 | 3 | |
| Arizona State | 12 | 12 | - | 7 | 5 | |
| California | 12 | 11 | 1 | 7 | 5 | |
| Colorado | 12 | 11 | 1 | 8 | 4 | |
| Oregon | 12 | 11 | 1 | 9 | 3 | |
| Oregon State | 12 | 12 | - | 12 | - | |
| Southern Cal | 12 | 11 | 1 | 9 | 3 | |
| Stanford | 12 | 12 | - | 8 | 4 | |
| UCLA | 12 | 12 | - | 8 | 4 | |
| Utah | 12 | 11 | 1 | 9 | 3 | |
| Washington | 12 | 11 | 1 | 8 | 4 | |
| Washington State | 12 | 12 | - | 12 | - | |
| Totals | 144 | 137 | 7 | 106 | 38 |
So for practical purposes the 38 games played in the Central and Eastern time zones during the 2024 season are not viable candidates for the evening time slot on the west coast. This is a significant drop in available content – about 3 games per each Saturday evening and is one of the gaps a rebuilt Pac-12 would immediately fill.
Another critical consideration is the impact of the lost regional rivalries on television viewership on the west coast. We are in uncharted territory for 2024 as there has never been a major conference that was in existence for 115 years that essentially dissolved overnight. The rivalries built over those years will be difficult for many viewers to let go, and about half of them have already disappeared – in 2023 there were 54 conference games featuring Pac-12 teams, in 2024 there will be only 28 featuring current or former Pac-12 teams.
In terms of viewer demand, we’ll see down the road if west coast viewers are going to be as compelled to tune into a Cal v Wake Forest ACC match-up or Washington v Rutgers Big Ten game compared to the historic west coast match-ups that have been the traditional staple of Pacific time zone television broadcasts. Whether conference realignment that drops long-time regional rivalries will pan out for the networks is literally the million-dollar question.
The current Mountain West television agreements run through the 2025 football season. Just due to the simple supply and demand you learned in Econ 101, it would appear that the combined conference would be in position to realize an enhanced contract. It’s not going to approach anywhere close to what say the SEC or Big Ten receive, but it would likely be substantially more than what the Mountain West schools are currently receiving.
There is also a definite “nothing to lose” aspect this conference would have with respect to media rights compared to the other Power conferences. This allows for more out of the box thinking, and means that a rebuilt Pac-12 could seriously consider contract offers from the streaming services aggressively looking to enter the sports markets – i.e. Apple TV, Amazon Prime, etc. as well as the traditional networks.
“Power 5” is a media creation, there is of course no official designation. But it’s important for recruiting and other factors. A rebuilt Pac-12 would be the smallest in revenue of the Power 5, but the current Pac-12 is also 5th in revenue production, mainly due to the fact that west coast schools in general just don’t generate the football dollars that the mid-west and southern schools do. But another factor is that a rebuilt Pac-12 would be to some extent the Power 5 for the middle class. The majority of the schools are land grant universities, schools originally tasked with providing a high quality and affordable education to students from working class families. And they do this very well – 77% of the combined undergraduate enrollment are in state residents who pay the much lower in state tuition – the highest percentage of any of the Power 5 conferences. Compare this to other public universities such as Alabama and Oregon, where the majority of undergraduates are out of state residents paying much higher tuition.
There is a developing crisis in the US post-secondary system. Fewer US high school graduates are going on to college, and the decline is especially striking among US males. At the end of the 2021-22 academic year, female enrollment represented almost 60% of college undergrads nationwide, while male enrollment has declined to only 40%. There are serious ramifications of this development to society at large, and there are a number of reasons for the decline. One of the reasons is affordability. Given this situation, a conference composed of schools that excel in providing high quality and affordable education to middle class students should be supported in its efforts, not designated as a “lower” league.
There is a creeping elitism in intercollegiate sports with valid speculation that big-time college football is heading towards 30 or 40 teams concentrated in a couple of super conferences. This would be immensely harmful for intercollegiate sports in general as well as to the schools that sponsor Division I athletics. A positive check to this elitism would be not to reduce the number of power leagues to four, but to recognize the rebuilt Pac-12 as the legitimate Power 5 conference it will likely be.
Regionality in conferences should be embraced and not disregarded as being archaic. If TV football contracts are going to become the determining factor of who are members, you could very well end up with conferences looking closer to the Star Wars cantina scene, rather than a league of schools that actually look like they belong together.
But there are more compelling reasons – global warming and the well-being of student athletes. Pacific coast schools Stanford & Cal are moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference strictly for football TV dollars. So two schools that clearly know better are giving the proverbial shoulder shrug to global warming by tripling their annual fuel consumption flying all their teams cross country. Student athletes are already challenged in balancing academic and athletic time loads. Substantially increasing the time spent traveling is simply an added burden to student athletes, without any upside to them. Unlike most of the departing schools, I hope the rebuilt Pac-12 takes all these issues into consideration.
Additions or Changes? Contact us at: edits@nil-ncaa.com
Statistics compiled & edited by Patrick O’Rourke, CPA Washington, DC 