It was truly the end of a magical and historic era.
As the final football games ticked to an end on Saturday around the Pac-12, viewers and college football fans, in general, sat in their living rooms and truly realized this era of Pac-12 football was really coming to an end.
Even yours truly became a little misty-eyed when the final seconds of the clock ticked to zero while watching the Cal-UCLA game at the Rose Bowl.
The final Pac-12 After Dark!
Hard to believe.
The entire 2023 season of football was one of the best in conference history.
Not just because it was a year of incredible competition, but it was also an incredible year of players, especially at the quarterback position.
The storylines were expansive and robust and continued to trend on the national landscape of the game.
But as medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer once wrote ‘All good things must come to an end.’
It could be argued that if it had to come to an end, it certainly ended on a majestic note.
But why did it end?
Could the Pac have been saved?
The simple and precise reason is ‘greed.’
And yes, it could have been saved, however, the powers leading the conference 14 months ago completely whiffed and miscalculated on their gamble of what the Pac-12 was truly valued at at the current time.
Prior to 2023 the Pac-12 and their university presidents were evaluating a new media rights deal. In fact, looking back the conference was in a strong position of hammering out a new deal that each school could live with.
According to sourced reporting ESPN came forward and provided an offer of $30 million ( per year ) to each university in the conference. Keep in mind, this was after USC and UCLA both decided to leave for the Big 10.
It was an offer that still provided national eyeballs for the conference, and it was also a solid offer of financial resources that most certainly would have continued the stability of the conference and kept it intact.
However, thinking that evaluation was far too low, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff went back to ESPN with a $50 million counteroffer ( per member ) which the World Wide Leader laughed at and ceased all negotiations.
In addition, the Big 12 Conference felt a partnership with the Pac was valuable to both conferences and would demand higher and additional dollars. Again, the Pac-12 balked at that invitation and stood firm on their high horse for better things to come.
But they didn’t come.
The Pac-12 had two viable and financially stable opportunities to move forward and they thumbed their nose at both of them.
With clearer heads and less greed, there’s no doubt the Pac-12, or Pac-10, would still be intact as we end this football season.
As each school prepares to go their own ways, and as the Pac-12 Network prepares to sign off for the final time, we can only wonder now what might have been.
But now, as Saturday came to a close and we witnessed players walking off the football field for the final time as a Pac-12 family, we were reminded of the incredible memories and the rich history of this once proud conference.
It truly was the ‘Conference of Champions.’