It has been 244 days since USC and UCLA announced their plans to enter the Big Ten and almost as many since the Pac-12 began the process of renegotiating its media rights.
The conference spent 90 days in an exclusive window with ESPN and Fox, then took its content to the market and now, finally, is nearing the end of the saga.
On the first day of March, we are reasonably confident that resolution — in some form or fashion — will come by the first day of April.
Here are the Hotline’s predictions for the key pieces of the process …
*** Survival odds
For several months, we viewed Pac-12 survival as a 5.5-point favorite over Pac-12 extinction, which equated to a probability of about 67 percent. The conference had a two-in-three chance to successfully navigate this existential crisis.
But as the Hotline detailed a few weeks ago, time and risk move in lockstep in the realignment game.
Risk that unknown or hibernating factors can rise up to derail expectations.
Risk that institutional priorities could change or economic pressures could appear.
Risk that anxiety could lead to panic.
Risk that forces of instability could prevail.
Commissioner George Kliavkoff’s decision to take the negotiations across the holidays and into a second calendar year — “No need for a rush,” he said in December — has created an additional level of uncertainty.
As a result, our Pac-12 survival odds have changed for the first time in months, ticking down to five points.
And they will continue to decrease by a half-point every week that comes and goes without a deal.
If the end of March arrives and the same state of uncertainty still exists, then survival will be favored over extinction by merely a field goal.
*** The media valuation
We project the Pac-12’s valuation to fall within 10 percent of the Big 12’s agreement with ESPN and Fox, which will pay each school an average of $31.7 million annually starting in 2024-25.
That places the Pac-12’s range as $28.5 million…
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