While there are plenty of vicious moves in college conference realignment, it’s rare to see conference commissioners openly discuss that another conference might be a target for them to raid. That’s at least partly what Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff did at Pac-12 Media Day Friday, though. A reporter asked Klaivkoff a question of “What gives you confidence that the 10 remaining schools are going to stay in this conference?”, following a prelude that referenced an “open for business” comment from Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark and a comment from Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren that that conference might look to expand further as well (after previously taking USC and UCLA from the Pac-12). And Kliavkoff responded with quite the remark about Yormark’s comment:
Here’s video that aired on ESPN’s SportsCenter Friday of both that question and answer from Kliavkoff, as well as a later question and answer:
The second question there is “Do you think the days of trying to be collegial when it comes to expansion are over?” That led to quite the response from Kliavkoff:
“I hope they’re not over, but they’re certainly harmed. That remark was a reflection of the fact that I’ve been spending four weeks trying to defend against grenades lobbed in from every corner of the Big 12, trying to destabilize our remaining conference. I understand why they’re doing it. When you look at the relative media value between the two conferences, I get it, I get why they’re scared. I get why they’re trying to destabilize us. I was just tired of that. Yeah, that’s probably not the most collegial thing I’ve ever said.”
Twitter had quite the reactions to Kliavkoff’s remarks. Some saw his discussion here as a sign of insecurity, especially with his claim that the Pac-12 media rights are stronger (they are not currently in terms of per-school distributions, and it’s unclear what both conference’s media rights will look like in the next round with so much uncertainty about who’s even in each conference):ere’s the specific discussion of “grenades”:
Kliavkoff has done a great job over the last hour of eroding any belief the P12 is going to survive this.
— PodKATT (@valleyshook) July 29, 2022
https://twitter.com/tom_turner00/status/1553076698379337729
Others weren’t impressed with his specific target of the Big 12:
And some took exception to his claim that now is when “collegiality” has been lost, considering some of the nastiness in previous rounds of realignment:
Bingo. Kliavkoff's "up until very recently everything was great" should be read "I was fine with everybody stabbing each other in the back until I got stabbed" https://t.co/e8riQ3gtkw
— jamal shead appreciators (scott & holman pawdcast) (@SHPawdcast) July 29, 2022
But there were also just a lot of comments on how rare it is to see a sitting commissioner publicly target a specific other conference as a potential source of expansion:
Probably won’t mean much in the long run, but love Kliavkoff taking the gloves off with the Big 12. They are the only power conference to a) never win a playoff game & b) only put one team in the playoff. And that team is leaving.
— Andy Johnson (@TheDirtJohnson) July 29, 2022
George Kliavkoff talked Friday with the gloves off and zero punches pulled. https://t.co/exzsnM04Qb
— Arizona Daily Star (@TucsonStar) July 29, 2022
We’ll see what this leads to for Kliavkoff and the Pac-12.
[Awful Announcing; photo from Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports]