STEVE GOLDSTEIN: The Pac-12 conference, which includes ASU and the U of A, is moving on from its commissioner of more than a decade. Larry Scott, whose contract still at nearly 18 months remaining, is being removed to make way for a new direction. Scott was credited with the creation of the Pac-12 Network, but it's been a money loser and did very little to increase the conference's exposure because of carriage issues around the country. And the conference's on-field competitiveness has also lagged. With me to talk about Scott's tenure and what's next for the Pac-12 is Stewart Mandel of the Athletic. So Stuart, Larry Scott faced heavy criticism. How much of that was valid?
STEWART MANDEL: You would say that the start of his tenure, he did exactly what he was hired to do. He came in in 2009, the Pac-12 — well, it was the Pac-10 at that time — was light years behind the other conferences in how it operated. And he modernized it. He got them, at the time, the richest TV deal in college sports. So for a few years there, he was being lauded and celebrated by Pac-12 fans. The problem was the Pac-12 networks, there were some strategic decisions there that that blew up, and that that network has always been a problem. The larger TV deal, because he locked them into a 12-year deal, they've fallen way behind the other conferences financially. But there was just also a lot of very public missteps where he just seemed very out of touch and didn't grasp the importance of being a commissioner of a college sports conference. TV deals, media stuff — that was his wheelhouse. But they had scandals involving football officiating, you know, stuff that's central to the actual results of the games. And it caused that conference to lose credibility and people to question how seriously they actually take football in that league office. And so by the end, yes, I think he did deserve the flak he was taking. He can't control whether (University of Southern California) USC is good at football or not. But a lot of things that were in his control, he really botched towards the end.
GOLDSTEIN: Stewart, how challenging is it for the Pac-12 generally? There's been discussion that because the games are at a certain time that people in the East Coast, it's too late for them to watch a Pac-12 game. And maybe that affects recruiting because young people will say, "Well, my family won't be able to watch me on TV. So I don't necessarily want to go to this conference." Is that something that still hangs over the competitiveness of the conference in relation to other conferences?
MANDEL: I think that, while the fans sometimes don't like those late kickoffs certainly, the "Pac-12 After Dark," I actually think that's been good exposure for them — it's become a brand. Pac-12 After Dark is a thing. That to me is not as big a problem as the Pac-12 Network. I mean, at the end of the day, you can't emphasize enough how spectacular a disappointment the Pac-12 Network has been. And it's hard to say how much of that is the decision that they may regret now that they chose to go on their own, whereas the Big Ten and the (Southeastern Conference) SEC and the (Atlantic Coast Conference) ACC networks are co-owned or entirely owned by ESPN or FOX. And whether that's been a problem with distribution or whether there's just not the demand, right? We know that there might not just be as much demand for Pac-12 sports nationally as there is for the others. But whatever the case, I think of a program like Utah. Utah is a very respectable program. They played in two straight Pac-12 championship games. And there were years where I'm sure people east of the Rockies never saw them on TV because every one of their games was on Pac-12 Network. That is the single biggest thing holding them back. And when they get into their next negotiations for their next TV contract, they're going to have to make a hard decision about whether it's worth continuing to have a network or if you are going to have a network, are you going to put your football games on it? They actually, this past season — this weird, short 2020 season — they didn't put any games on Pac-12 Network. They didn't have enough inventory to do it. And in some ways, they got more exposure that way. Unfortunately, it was a very abbreviated season. There wasn't a lot of interest.
GOLDSTEIN: Stewart, finally, where does the conference go from here now for a new commissioner? You have a situation where Northwestern in the Big Ten actually just lost their athletic director (James J. Phillips) to become the commissioner of the ACC. Could we see someone like that come in after Larry Scott — someone who's been an athletic director somewhere? Where do you see this going?
MANDEL: You know, just like when, when a school fires a coach, they usually try to hire somebody who's of the opposite background, right? Go in a different direction. Well, the Larry Scott hire was a very unconventional hire at the time. He had no previous college experience. He came from women's tennis. And in some ways that paid off in terms of his negotiating abilities. But then ultimately, I think that that turned out to be a huge hindrance. So I think the number one criteria will be somebody who already has those preexisting relationships. And that's where you start talking about sitting [athletics directors] ADs. Gene Smith, Ohio State's AD, was at Arizona State before he was at Ohio State. If you could convince him to come be the commissioner of the Pac-12 — instant respect in the industry. Greg Byrne used to be Arizona's AD — he's Alabama now. Somebody like that would be pretty similar to what you're describing with the ACC going and hiring Jim Phillips. The other option would be to hire somebody who, you know, it's probably not going to be a fellow Power Five commissioner, but a lot of the commissioners kind of work their way up the ranks from the mid-major conferences to the higher conferences. And the current commissioner of the (West Coast Conference) WCC spent some time at the Pac-12. So I would fully expect it to be somebody who's actually already inside college athletics, not a kind of outside-the-box type of hire.
GOLDSTEIN: That is Stewart Mandel, college football editor-in-chief for the Athletic.
