A Grip on Sports: Another hint drops that the Pac-12 is inching closer to a resolution of its media and expansion issues

A GRIP ON SPORTS • What will the Pac-12 look like in, oh, 2025? And do you care, beyond being able to watch the conference’s games the same way as in the past?

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• Two good questions for a Saturday morning in mid-June, right? After all, with little in the way of college sports in action – the College World Series started yesterday and will continue for about a week, but that’s about it – contemplating the future is about it.

Especially when you’ve just discovered another Easter egg. Let’s hope it’s not rotten.

ESPN reported yesterday San Diego State, the biggest un-cut gem on the West Coast, told the Mountain West Conference it wants to leave in 2024. Its destination? That’s not clear. But we’ll speculate. The Aztecs are headed to the Pac-12 as its 11th member.

The last sentence received a bit of a boost in that SDSU requested a month’s extension on its June 30 deadline to officially notify the conference of its intent to leave. That date is important because any change after it costs the Aztecs $16.5 million, an amount even athletic director John David Wicker admitted the school cannot afford.

Why does it want the extra time? According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, San Diego State stated in its letter to the conference it needed a “one-month extension given unforeseen delays involving other collegiate athletic conferences beyond our control.”

Sure, the school didn’t use the singular, so more than one conference could be in play (the Big 12 has made it clear it wants more of a West Coast presence). But the Pac-12 makes the most sense for the Aztecs. Always has.

It’s easy to make the leap from the extension request to the Pac-12 dithering once more, forcing SDSU to try to hedge its bets. Not the best for the school, but par for this course.

Lately, the Conference of Champions, as it refers to itself, seems only to be the champion of unforeseen delays. The long-awaited media deal, with the accompanying grant-of-rights contract as well as expansion, has been a moving target for months and months.

Jon Wilner, who has his finger on the conference’s jugular as often as anyone, feels the deal absolutely must be announced by July 21, when the conference holds its football media day in Las Vegas. If not, commissioner George Kliavkoff will have overshadowed the biggest PR day the conference has and wasted an opportunity to have two days of flashy coverage.

But we’ve heard this media-rights deadline song before. Too often. Spring was floated. Then by the end of June. Now we have (more-than-likely) the conference’s No. 1 expansion target – No. 2 seems to be SMU, which sits in the Dallas media market – asking for an extension from its current conference before deciding to stay or go. What a mess.

Besides, most of us don’t care when the media deal is done. We just want to know if it will make our life easier or harder. Will there still be night football games announced six days in advance? Will every football and basketball game be available? How many streaming services will we have to buy to watch our favorite team play?

Those are the key details. If San Diego State and SMU (or someone else) are involved, great. If not, OK. If the school we care about makes more money than the Big 12 in the contract, great. If not, OK (as long as it’s close).

But if we find out it will be hard to switch back-and-forth from watching, say, the Cougars and the Huskies on any given Saturday, well, darn it, that’s unacceptable. Or, if there are way too many late nights in Pullman or Eugene or Corvallis or Tucson, just to satisfy some conglomerate’s bottom line, then we’ll want to know why the conference sold out its fans in search of an extra buck or two.

Hey, we just answered all our questions. Everything is taking so long because Kliavkoff and his negotiators are walking a tightrope, trying to get the most money and the best terms. All the while attempting to foresee where sports media is headed over the next five-to-seven years.

The last guy screwed up that last part. Royally. And it cost the conference dearly. The new folks in charge don’t want to repeat that mistake. Instead, they have already made a new one, waiting so long to finalize a deal. Unless, of course, when they finally do get around to announcing it, it checks off all the boxes.

Anyone have faith that’s going to happen? Didn’t think so.

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WSU: Around the Pac-12 and the nation, the Deseret News has a look at Washington State’s upcoming football season. … We missed this earlier this week, but former WSU athletic director Jim Sterk has returned to his alma mater, Western Washington. … Wilner has his thoughts on what the San Diego State story means. As does John Canzano. … Wilner also has a mailbag in the Mercury News, which covers some of the same territory. … New Colorado football coach Deion Sanders gave his all to be a Hall of Fame-level football player. That might also include, down the road, his left foot. … There have been some questions raised about the leader of a new Utah NIL collective. … Stanford begins its College World Series journey today against top-seed Wake Forest, a scary-good team. … A couple of Pac-12 basketball players will represent the U.S. on the U19 team, one from Arizona and one from Colorado. … An Arizona State thrower had to go through some tough times to get to the good part.

EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, Montana State seems to have finalized its basketball roster. … Montana announced its non-conference kickoff times and broadcast plans.

Indians: Winning the Northwest League’s first-half title is going to be tough. Friday night’s 13-8 loss to Eugene at Avista dropped Spokane two games behind Vancouver with just five to play. Dave Nichols has the game coverage.

Chiefs: The Winnipeg Ice, which played for the WHL title this past season, have been sold. Next season they will play in Wenatchee and move from the league’s Eastern to Western conference. 

Golf: We watched a lot of golf yesterday from Los Angeles. Saw some good shots and some not so good ones. Bottom line? The two people we are rooting for the most, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, are still in contention behind second-round leader Rickie Fowler. … This might be our favorite weird sports story we’ve read in a while. The moral of it? It wasn’t wise to cross Hugh Hefner. Not even for the LACC membership.

Cycling: More than 40 years after he rode his bike across the nation the first time, a Spokane man is going to do it again. Charlotte McKinley has Jim Stefanoff’s story.

Mariners: Bryan Woo threw well again. But he left on the short side of a 2-1 score. Low and behold, the M’s rallied against the White Sox and earned a 3-2 victory. … Woo’s workload will be monitored. … No one will argue the M’s need more offense. But who could they add that will help? Here are some possibilities. … Justin Topa is just the latest Seattle bullpen project to come through.

Seahawks: It will be a while until training camp but it’s not too early to start posing some questions.

Storm: There are many spots in which Seattle could use a breakout star. One player who did such a thing last season is trying to build on it.

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• We’ve counseled in the past buying a subscription to The Athletic was worth the money. We’re not so sure anymore. In the past couple months, the publication has dropped Christian Caple and his University of Washington beat – you can find Christian’s work at his website, On Montlake – and, earlier this week, Corey Brock and his Mariners coverage. The national coverage is still solid but it was the Seattle news that made it worthwhile to purchase. It might be time to redirect part of our online budget another way. Until later …