Pac-12 announces Larry Scott’s controversial time as commissioner will end in June
Larry Scott is exiting as the head of the Pac-12 Conference.
The conference announced Wednesday night Scott will be stepping down as Pac-12 commissioner June 30, one year earlier than the end of his contract. He’s been in the job for 11 years.
The conference says the Pac-12 executive committee ”will immediately commence a national search for Scott’s replacement as commissioner.” University of Oregon President Michael Schill will serve as chair of the committee, which also includes University of Washington president Ana Mari Cauce and Washington State president Kirk H. Schulz.
“We appreciate Larry’s pioneering efforts in growing the conference by adding new competitive university programs and accelerating the Pac-12 to television network parity with the other conferences,” Schill said in a statement.
“At one point, our television agreement was the most lucrative in the nation and the debut of the Pac-12 Network helped deliver our championship brand to US and global markets on traditional and digital platforms. That said, the intercollegiate athletics marketplace doesn’t remain static and now is a good time to bring in a new leader who will help us develop our go-forward strategy.”
About that television network...
The 56-year-old Scott, former professional tennis player and CEO of the Women’s Tennis Association, has overseen the conference’s creation of its own television and digital-media networks. That spawned an investment and construction boom with new facilities across the conference. Scott launched his network in the summer of 2012, just before the start of that football season, with the promise of an explosion of revenues for the 12 universities and athletic departments in the league.
But Pac-12 Networks was beset from its start by distribution issues regionally and nationally. It is still not on DirecTV, the country’s giant direct broadcast satellite service provider.
The member universities have not experienced the transcendent revenues to turn the Pac-12 into a perennial contender for national championships in the major revenue sports of football and men’s basketball, the sports whose money supports entire athletic departments.
The Pac-12 has fallen far behind the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12 in attracting top national recruits in football and men’s basketball. Teams also struggled to compete for national titls and the huge, additional money that comes with them. Under Scott, no Pac-12 team won a men’s basketball or football national championship.
Meanwhile, Scott has earned an estimated $40 million in his time as commissioner. That has rankled fans and those in Pac-12 athletic departments that have had to furlough employees in the past year with the recession from the coronavirus pandemic.
That includes UW. The Huskies eliminated 16 positions in their athletic department in 2020.
During Scott’s tenure, the Pac-12 did expand in 2011 to include Utah and Colorado and added a football championship game. Those additions helped secure a 12-year, $3 billion media rights deal with Fox and ESPN. The conference also agreed to equal revenue sharing for the first time.
Scott’s departure is being termed a mutual decision between him and the conference.
“I was in pro sports for 20 years, I’ve now been in college athletics for more than 10 years, and now is a great time in my life to pursue other exciting opportunities,” Scott said in the Pac-12’s statement. “This moment, when college athletics are moving in a new direction and with the Conference soon commencing the next round of media negotiations, it seems the right time to make a change.
“’It is important that the conference be able to put in place the person who will negotiate and carry out that next agreement. Based on the recent robust valuation and marketplace interest we’ve received from traditional and nontraditional media organizations, I am confident the conference is well-positioned for continued success. I appreciate the support of the Pac-12 member institutions and a very talented staff, with whom it has been my privilege to work.”
Scott told ESPN that during a meeting with the Pac-12 CEO Group last week, conference presidents and chancellors expressed that a change in leadership would make sense.
“And I had a chance to express to them at the same time that I have been thinking that the time is right for me to exit for personal and professional reasons,” Scott told ESPN. “And so became a pretty quick and easy conversation. It didn’t take us long, a few days, to kind of figure it out.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2021 at 7:48 PM.
