Podcast of Champions

In this episode of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods are back in studio talking Pac-12 spring football with three programs finishing up their spring workouts, Arizona, California and USC. The guys may not have watched these spring games (not even Ryan!) but they will discuss the biggest news and notes from the spring games as these three teams head into the long off-season. Hope springs eternal in the spring and with new faces on the roster the Sun Devils, Golden Bears and Trojans are all feeling optimistic about the changes that were made heading into the 2023 college football season.

The guys also talk about the spring window of the NCAA Transfer Portal opening, sparking two weeks of potential turmoil across the college football landscape. The biggest name to enter the portal is former five-star edge rusher from Washington Sav’ell Smalls. The most active program in the portal is no surprise, the Colorado Buffalos with Coach Prime making some moves including 12 more players leaving and an all-conference safety joining the ranks from the Mountain West.

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In this episode of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods are back in studio with even more spring football updates from around the Pac-12. Last week the guys heard from Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, California, Stanford, USC, UCLA, Arizona State and Arizona. This week they will finish off their Conference of Champions tour hearing from Colorado, Utah and Oregon.

The Buffs have the most excitement around their program with Coach Prime selling out the Colorado spring game, which will be broadcast live on ESPN. Oregon returns quarterback Bo Nix and is looking to taking its talented roster all the way to a Pac-12 title. Utah is coming off of back-to-back conference championships and with Cam Rising out, most of the focus will be on who wins the backup quarterback spot.

The guys also talk about the latest reports regarding the media rights deal with what everyone felt would be done within weeks now looks like it will take months. Multiple reports are pointing to a late spring or early summer timeline for when the new media rights deal will be announced, which will be about a year out of the expiration of the current deal. There was also another potential media partner named in reports, the CW Network.

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In this episode of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods are back in studio talking once again about all things Pac-12 football. As we creep further into April (how did that happen so fast?) the guys reached out to the various publishers around the Conference of Champions to get updates on how spring football practice is going for each Pac-12 program. There are some new coaches, lots of new players and even a couple of new quarterbacks making their Pac-12 debuts so we get the skinny on how everyone is acclimating in their new environments and how much excitement and enthusiasm is being generated (here’s looking at you Colorado).

The guys also talk about the impressive run future Pac-12 conference member San Diego State made in the NCAA Tournament, nearly bringing the first major championship to the Conference of Champions since USC won a football title in 2004 (the last basketball championship was Arizona in 1997).

Everything is still quiet on the media rights front but Dennis Dodd is reporting that the Pac-12 is more likely to have a much higher percentage of its games on streaming platforms rather than linear television. Will that be an issue, even if the money gets close to the Big 12 if the Pac-12 has more than half its games streaming and the Big 12 has less than 30%? We are all still waiting to see how much money these programs will make and how much national exposure they will enjoy in 2024 and beyond.

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In this episode of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods are back in studio with not a whole lot to talk about when it comes to how the Pac-12 fared during March Madness. No. 2 seed Arizona was out hours after the tournament began and No. 2 seed UCLA couldn’t make it out of the Sweet 16, falling to recent nemesis Gonzaga. But soon to be Conference of Champions member San Diego State took care of business against No. 1 Alabama and made the Final Four for the first time in program history, so we are going to count that as a win for the Pac-12.

While there hasn’t been any real news about conference realignment or a new media rights deal for the Pac-12, with SDSU making the Final Four it seems nearly impossible for George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12 presidents to not bring the Aztecs into the fold. Since 2010, San Diego State has the highest combined winning percentage of any Division I school in football and men’s basketball at 73.8%, ahead of Ohio State (72.9%) and Oregon (71.1%). SDSU’s academics are better, they have built a new stadium, the have beat Pac-12 teams on the gridiron consistently and bring a foothold back into the Southern California for recruiting, how could Kliavkoff say no?

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In this episode of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods are back to talk about the disappointing opening weekend for the Pac-12 in the NCAA basketball tournament, with three of the four programs that made it to the Big Dance getting bounced out on Thursday/Friday. Arizona State did get a win in the First Four to advance to the field of 64, but lost a tough one against TCU. USC looked flat yet again and had no answers for tournament tested Michigan State who once again made it to the Sweet 16. The biggest flop came early on Thursday with Arizona as a No. 2 seed succumbing to No. 15 Princeton, which would have been the biggest upset of the tournament had it not been for No. 1 Purdue losing to No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson.

The UCLA Bruins are the only Pac-12 program left in the field (unless you want to count San Diego State) and they will face off against Gonzaga in Las Vegas on Thursday. For the third season in a row the Bruins will face the Bulldogs having lost in Final Four of 2021 and in T-Mobile Arena last season. Overall UCLA is 2-5 against the Zags with three of those games in the NCAA Tournament.

The guys also talk about the latest rumors in the Pac-12 media rights negotiations saga, with the presidents of Arizona and Arizona State making statements about the deal being nearly done and still not a peep out of commissioner George Kliavkoff. Will he be able to pull off a lucrative deal that makes enough money for each athletic department to keep them competitive and also have enough exposure to keep West Coast football relevant? It appears that some sort of deal with ESPN, Amazon and Apple could accomplish that, but until something is announced we continue to await the fate of the Conference of Champions.

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In this episode of the Podcast of Champions, David Woods records solo as Ryan Abraham is spending his second consecutive weekend in Las Vegas. Dave talks about the NCAA Tournament, how the Pac-12 is doing in the Tournament, what to expect in the coming weeks from media rights deals (spoiler: Dave has no idea), and which Pac-12 football coaches would last longest during a zombie apocalypse. You know, normal episode.

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In this episode of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods are recording remotely with Ryan at the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas. The guys will talk about Ryan being a degenerate, the future of the Pac-12, Chip Kelly’s contract extension, and will actually answer questions about basketball for the first and only time this season.

Ryan first talked about his first night in Vegas, which was a story of loss and sorrow. The boys then rebounded to talk about actual basketball for God knows what reason, before transitioning into Ryan’s favorite topic: granular details about media rights. Trying desperately to save the show, the fells transitioned to questions from the listeners. They did not succeed in saving the show.

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In this episode of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods are back in studio trying to talk about anything but the potential demise of the Conference of Champions, which will be nearly impossible to do until a lucrative media rights deal is secured and the remaining 10 members are satisfied with the payouts. The guys start off the show talking about a move that everyone anticipated after the conference hired George Kliavkoff as commissioner, the Pac-12 football media day will be moving to Las Vegas! Ryan doesn’t need much of an excuse to head to Vegas so he will be there, but will David be able to break away from his kids midweek for his final Pac-12 media day? We shall see.

While they are trying not to talk about the conference breaking up, they will discuss what some prominent members of the college football media and sports business reporters are saying about what potential media partners are available for Kliavkoff to team up with and what sort of deal he could expect with the 10 programs he has now or with the addition of others like San Diego State and SMU. Unfortunately, the current marketplace isn’t favorable for the Pac-12 and that is one of the reasons the projections for the new media rights deal aren’t very promising.

Unless Kliavkoff can pull something spectacular off, some sort of out of the box deal that delivers cash to his members and also gets their programs more visibility, the speculation surrounding schools leaving for other conferences will continue to grow. The best news for Kliavkoff is that the Big Ten still doesn’t have a replacement commissioner for the outgoing Kevin Warren, but the Big 12 is like a wolf on the prowl and appears to be ready to pounce if any Pac-12 program isn’t happy with the new deal.

Dave also provides some potential breaking news as he has heard that Utah and Colorado have already decided to leave the Pac-12. How credible is this information? Dave said he heard it from the same guy who told him two days before it happened that USC and UCLA were leaving, so we shall see.

We’re not sure if Wednesday’s Los Angeles hail storm was some sort of omen for the Pac-12, but Dave’s Tweet of the storm did give us an unexpected glimpse into his backyard and maybe the reason why he wasn’t a fan of the show, ‘The Last of Us.’

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Sound off about Pac-12 football in our Podcast of Champions Reddit page! Send us a text or leave us a voicemail by texting or calling (424) 532-0678 or you can email us at pac12podcast@gmail.com

In this episode of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods are back in studio talking about all of the buzz around commissioner George Kliavkoff and the remaining 10 Pac-12 programs that are desperately trying to work out a lucrative media rights deal. All eyes are on Kliavkoff who is trying to pull off some sort of miracle and get the Conference of Champions a television contract that will surpass the ACC and Big 12 and keep the Pac-12 members happy.

The guys discuss all of the reports and rumors that are floating around including partnering with Amazon or Apple for the first Tier One college football media rights deal on a streaming service, expanding the conference footprint to include Texas with SMU and Southern California with San Diego State and even forming some sort of merger with the Big 12, creating the first CFB super conference.

They also take a look at the state of mind of Oregon and Washington and if Ohio State cancelling the home and home with the Huskies will make anyone nervous in the Pacific Northwest.

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In this episode of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods are back in studio discussing the long and drawn out pending media rights deal for the Pac-12 conference. On Super Bowl Monday the Pac-12 Conference Board Members issued joint statement that addressed the long wait for an announcement on media rights, but it did little to give fans of the Conference of Champions confidence that a big payday for the remaining 10 schools is coming. According to the statement the media rights deal or deals would be done “in the near future,” there have been “positive” conversations with “multiple potential media rights partners” and that the conference is “highly confident in our future growth and success as a conference and united in our commitment to one another.”

The guys breakdown what they took away from this joint statement including the fact that it came from the board members and not commissioner George Kliavkoff. They also talk about what some of those outside of the Pac-12 footprint are saying, including projections of doom and gloom for the PAC.

Speaking of Kliavkoff, he was seen at a Southern Methodist basketball game and has reportedly been in conference expansion discussions with SMU and San Diego State. Some are speculating that the media rights delay is in part due to the need for increased game inventory and that Kliavkoff may need to add two more teams to have more games to sell to potential media partners.

They also talk about Utah quarterback Cam Rising tearing his ACL but still aiming for a return before the start of the 2023 season and Utes offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig not taking the same position at Notre Dame, in part because of his rather large buyout.

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Sound off about Pac-12 football in our Podcast of Champions Reddit page! Send us a text or leave us a voicemail by texting or calling (424) 532-0678 or you can email us at pac12podcast@gmail.com