Commentary: George Kliavkoff’s confidence notable as wait for Pac-12 media deal goes on

SEATTLE – If someone started a drinking game in which participants had to take a shot every time an executive associated with the Pac-12 said the conference’s media-rights deal was imminent, it might resemble the aftermath of a five-hour tailgate party in Pullman. (Or Seattle. Or Corvallis. Or Eugene. You get the picture.)

Sure enough, Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff said Friday in Las Vegas that the eagerly awaited deal, upon which nothing much is hinging except the very future of the conference, will be revealed “in the near future.”

Drink.

Now, the phrase “near future,” which has been thrown out periodically for months in regard to this matter, is a relative one. In the totality of time, the Pleistocene Epoch was a blink of the eye.

But in the realm of college football, the clock is ticking rapidly, and the entirety of the sport is watching – with trepidation (Pac-12 fans) and with avaricious intentions (all the other conferences poised to poach).

In that context, what stood out during Kliavkoff’s brief, poised appearance at Pac-12 football media day is the utter confidence with which Kliavkoff characterized the status of negotiations.

He’s either bluffing with the skill of a consummate card shark in the nearby casinos, or Kliavkoff is on verge of pulling off a feat that many viewed as highly improbable, if not impossible: A lucrative media-rights deal that would keep the Pac-12 competitive with the other conferences and thus appease all 10 of its members that aren’t bailing after this year for greener pastures.

For weeks, if not months, speculation has run rampant that the Pac-12 was hanging by a thread, and that all it would take would be one or two defections to start a full-scale unraveling. And that a subpar deal would provide the needed yank of the thread.

A coy Kliavkoff scoffed at that notion Friday and implied that it emanated from a rival conference (cough, Big 12, cough) trying to stir the pot.

“I sit in the board meetings, and I see the commitment that all of our schools have to each other,” he said. “And I also kind of know where the sources of that is coming from. So I discount that, because I know the truth.”

For months it has seemed as if the Pac-12 has been constantly moving the goal posts to the point that Kliavkoff was going to have to kick a 100-yard field goal. Washington State President Kirk Schulz said in February that a deal needed to be done by March to quiet the noise. In March, Arizona President Robert C. Robbins predicted a deal “within the next couple of weeks” that would be better than that of the Big 12, which everyone agrees is the yardstick by which the eventual Pac-12 package will be measured.

And then … no deal in March. No deal in April. Surely, it had to be done by the June 30 deadline for expansion candidate San Diego State to inform the Mountain West Conference of its intention to leave.

No deal by June 30. Well, then, surely it had to be done by Pac-12 football media day Friday to silence the wolves at the door.

No deal. But Kliavkoff said that was by design, so as not to deflect attention from all the good things happening with Pac-12 football.

His next words were curious, and perhaps unintentionally revealing.

Or, to be more Machiavellian, intentionally revealing.

“We’re not announcing a media deal on purpose today because I want the focus to be on football,” Kliavkoff said.

The obvious implication, pounced upon by many, was that the conference actually has a deal in hand, but it’s just holding it close so that its football teams could have their day in the spotlight without distraction.

“I think you’re reading too much into that,” Kliavkoff responded.

Perhaps, but I couldn’t help but come away from Kliavkoff’s appearance Friday thinking that just maybe he’s crazy like a fox. Amid all the criticism that the Pac-12 was off in its timing, that Kliavkoff was outmaneuvered by the Big 12, that there simply isn’t enough television money to go around in the current economic climate, what if he actually has pulled it off?

It was hard not to believe that something good – or at least acceptable – is on the horizon when Kliavkoff said such things as:

• “We’re on track to announce our deals at about the same time as everyone would have anticipated and predicted before the news of conference realignment.”

• “Getting the right deal has always been important, more important to our board and to the conference than getting the expeditious one.”

• “What we’ve seen is that the longer we wait for the media deal, the better our options get. And I think our board realizes that there’s an underlying shift in the media market that’s happening. And we’re long term taking advantage of that, but short term it may have provided some hiccups.”

• “Our schools are committed to each other and to the Pac-12. We’ll get our media-rights deal done, we’ll announce the deal. I think the realignment that’s going on in college athletics will come to an end for this cycle.”

It might all be bluster, or naiveté, or the world’s most confident bluff, but what if it turns out that Kliavkoff guided this perfectly all along? If he wrangles a competitive media-rights package that keeps the conference together, no one will care about the timeline or hypothetical deadlines that were missed. Only that the Four Corners schools are staying put, and at least for now, the Pac-12 isn’t going to be buried by its rivals.

We’ll find out definitively … in the near future.

Drink.