Oregon AD Rob Mullens, prez Karl Scholz explain move from Pac-12 to Big Ten
Oregon ultimately decided that the Big Ten was better for its long-term outlook than the Pac-12. At the end of the day, that was the driving force of the move.
The Ducks and Washington Huskies announced moves to the Big Ten on Friday, ending a century-long partnership with the Pac-12.
“We have the opportunity to accelerate our extraordinary record of innovation and success on the playing field as well to enhance significantly the academic reputation of the university,” said university president Karl Scholz during a press conference.
In the early morning hours on Friday, there was a last-ditch effort to keep the conference together, but a Grant of Rights was never signed. Oregon and Washington followed USC and UCLA to the Big Ten. Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah jumped to the Big 12.
Without the Los Angeles market to prop up the conference in its media rights negotiations, it became very difficult for George Kliavkoff to even approach the per-year average that Big 12 schools will see on their next media rights deal. Considering that number was already going to be a fraction of what USC, UCLA, and other schools in the Big Ten and SEC garnered, Oregon risked falling drastically behind its peers when it came to athletics.
“Listen, all along we’ve done everything we could to find an opportunity forward with the Pac-12,” said athletic director Rob Mullens. “We worked hard all along. And then I’d say over the last few days, the opportunity presented itself with the Big Ten and we appreciate the opportunity. We appreciate our colleagues in the Pac-12. I would say in the last 24 hours is when it really intensified, and it wasn’t done until early, early hours of the morning (Friday).”
Added Scholz: “Of course, USC and UCLA left the conference a year or more ago, and then Colorado’s departure, so it was not the Pac-10, it was the Pac-9. Those are challenging times. The landscape for major intercollegiate athletics is changing. It’s conference realignment, it’s Name, Image, and Likeness, it’s the transfer portal. All of those things make this a challenging time. I think every university in the conference has been exploring and thinking about (what’s) next? How do we position ourselves to be as strong as we can going forward?”
That led Oregon to the Big Ten.
The Ducks will join the Big Ten as only a partially-vested member for the first six years, entitling them to some — not all — of the revenue shares from the Big Ten’s record $7 billion media deal with FOX, NBC, and CBS. That deal went into effect ahead of this year’s football season. Oregon will get a full share of the next deal the Big Ten signs.
Even so, Scholz said the school anticipates an average of more than $50 million a year over the next 10 years just from media rights revenue.
“There’s a number of revenue streams associated with this,” he said. “There are proceeds from the football championship series. There are other ancillary rights that we expect to control. In the first part of the agreement, we will be receiving partial shares. Those shares are commensurate and are in fact larger than the media rights we thought would be attainable through other mechanisms, and then we transition to being a full member. Over the 10 years of the deal, we anticipate averaging over $50 million just from direct media rights.