With the Pac-12 Conference set to shrink to two teams on August 2, the conference announced today that it and commissioner George Kliavkoff have “mutually agreed to part ways, effective February 29, 2024.”
Kliavkoff’s dismissal follows months of speculation and the failure to land a media deal that satisfied his member universities after USC and UCLA announced plans to leave the conference for the Big Ten in June 2022. The L.A. schools’ sudden departure from the conference led Kliavkoff to begin the media rights negotiations process earlier than expected. But due to strategic misfires and an inability to push back against the presidents and chancellors of the remaining Pac-12 schools, the conference ultimately collapsed, leaving Oregon State and Washington State as the lone remaining universities.
After serving as the president of entertainment and sports for MGM International, Kliavkoff was hired on July 1, 2021, signing a five-year contract and replacing outgoing commissioner Larry Scott.
At the time, he was highly regarded by the presidents and chancellors. Former Oregon President Michael Schill, who was the chair of the search committee that landed Kliavkoff and also the former chair of the conference’s board of directors prior to his departure to Northwestern, praised Kliavkoff and his past experiences in media and professional sports. Prior to MGM, Kliavkoff’s past employers include Hearst, the MLB, the Las Vegas Aces, the WNBA, and NBCUniversal. Schill described him as a “visionary leader with an extraordinary background as a pioneering sports, entertainment and digital media executive.”
Despite the praise that he received when he was appointed commissioner, Kliavkoff’s tenure would become defined by his inability to secure a satisfactory media deal after USC and UCLA decided to leave. At one point during the negotiations, ESPN offered $300 million per year for the Pac-12, according to John Canzano.
But Utah President Taylor Randall, with the help of a professor at his school, suggested Kliavkoff counter with $500 million, to which ESPN refused to entertain, according to Canzano. After that, deadlines came and went, and eventually, after losing patience with the process, Colorado decided to return to the Big 12 Conference on July 27, 2023.
On August 1, Kliavkoff presented an all-in streaming deal with Apple, worth $23 million per school annually, with incentives to increase financial distributions should certain streaming quotas be met, according to ESPN. This deal was not well-received, prompting Oregon and Washington to accept membership in the Big Ten on August 4. Later that day, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State announced that they would join Colorado in the Big 12.
With four members left in the Pac-12 at the time, Stanford and California began looking for an exit out of the conference. On September 1, after weeks of speculation and controversy, the Cardinal and Golden Bears were accepted by the ACC along with SMU, leaving Oregon State and Washington State as the lone remaining Pac-12 members after the 2023-24 college sports season ends.
Worried that their outgoing members might try to dissolve the conference after Kliavkoff called a meeting on September 13, the Beavers and Cougars sued the Pac-12 and Kliavkoff over control of the board of directors on September 8. The two schools ultimately prevailed, settling the case with the 10 outgoing schools on December 21 and taking full control over the conference.
With Kliavkoff gone in less than two weeks and the outgoing members out the door this summer, Oregon State and Washington State plan to compete as a two-team league. They will take advantage of the NCAA’s two-year grace period to rebuild the Pac-12 back up to the minimum eight teams required for collegiate sports conferences. In order to schedule games, the Beavers and Cougars have entered into a scheduling partnership with the Mountain West Conference for football, and have announced plans to join the West Coast Conference for the majority of their other sports teams as affiliate members.