Arizona State President Michael Crow met with the media Saturday to discuss Friday’s major realignment news.

Entering Friday, the Pac-12 was down to 9 schools but was further splintered by Oregon and Washington leaving for the Big Ten. Arizona State — along with Arizona and Utah — eventually followed suit with a move to the Big 12, dropping the Pac-12 to 4 remaining teams.

While money is a large part of the move, Crow disputed that the Sun Devils left strictly for television revenue. He pointed to the fact that media deals are just a portion of the overall revenue for ASU athletics.

“It’s often the case in the media that the media thinks the measurement of the success of our program is the media contract and share per school,” said Crow. “The media contract is a fraction of our revenue relevant to ASU athletics, even relevant to football.”

Crow went on to say it was the move by Oregon and Washington that put the Pac-12 in a “non-viable position.” The Sun Devils could not wait around in such a position, leading to the move to join the Big 12.

“We were very interested in ASU on finding a way to connect with more people, but we have to be in a viable conference to do that,” Crow explained. “Once Oregon and Washington decided to go to the Big Ten, the conference was no longer viable. You can’t be in a non-viable position for more than a few hours in our mind, so we resolved that.”

As for when he realized the Pac-12 was no longer viable, Crow said a 7 am meeting of Pac-12 presidents was called for Friday morning. Two presidents were no-shows to that meeting, indicating the league was “no longer viable.”