In this edition of the Podcast of Champions hosts Ryan Abraham and David Woods welcome in special guest John Canzano to talk about last week’s bombshell news that USC and UCLA would be leaving the Pac-12 for a much bigger payday in the Big Ten. Within the first 48 hours of the news breaking Canzano wasn’t very optimistic that the Pac-12 would continue to exist after 2024, but since then he now feels that commissioner George Kliavkoff will be able to pull something together and keep the Conference of Champions afloat, one way or another.
We get into several topics with John, including the viability of this West Coast conference without the Los Angeles market and what sort of options there are out there, starting with a partnership with the ACC. Adding schools to the ACC would be tough with their TV deal lasting until 2036, but there are opportunities to for the Pac-12 and ACC to work together, scheduling games and even having potential post season match-ups between the top teams from each conference squaring off in Las Vegas. This sort of out of the box thinking would give ESPN more programming and the Pac-12 (and ACC) more revenue.
They also talk about what potential expansion for the Pac-12 will look like, what Oregon and Washington’s best options are, if he thinks the mountain and desert schools will leave for the Big 12, what could happen with the Bay Area schools and of course how Washington State and Oregon State are in limbo waiting for all of the dust to fall in order to find out their fate.
As always Dave and Ryan spend the last part of the show answering your voicemails, texts and emails with questions about Pac-12 football plus lots of other topics.
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