Q&A with Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott

It’s been a busy summer for Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott, who made a bold, but ultimately abortive move to create the first super-conference — a Pac-16 with Texas as the headlining new partner — but he still made big news when he expanded the conference to 12 teams with Utah and Colorado. But his work is far from done. He’s got to figure out how to divide the new conference into divisions. He’s got to figure out where and how he wants to play a conference championship game. And he’s got to then try to negotiate a blockbuster media deal that keeps the Pac-12 competitive with the other top BCS conferences going forward. While a lot of tough negotiations lay ahead — particularly over the divisions – he did have some answers this week. While he wouldn’t get pinned down definitively, it’s clear the conference will continue to play a nine-game conference schedule going forward and that there will be a conference championship game. Also: A Pac-10 network is going to get serious consideration. The football part of football is about to start cracking in earnest, but we wanted to check in with Scott and find out where things stand. So has life as the Pac-10 commissioner slowed down a bit or are things still as busy as this summer? Larry Scott : The summer is generally a slower time, but we’ve been very busy with preparations for the expanded conference. We’ve been actively working on divisional structure, looking at our revenue sharing arrangements, planning for a football championship game and continuing our preparatory work for our upcoming media negotiations. Those are the top priorities we’ve been focused on, as well as the regular business of getting ready for this season. It has been some weeks between the aspirations for a Pac-16 and the deal falling apart: Any perspective or lessons learned from that? LS : Nothing specifically. We feel good about the process. We got a lot of positive from it. We are thrilled with where we wound up. We’re excited about where the Pac 10 is going as the Pac-12. There’s been no looking back. Just excited about our future and our prospects. No real additional perspectives on it. What are the chances the Pac-12 will revisit expansion in the coming years? LS : It’s pretty impossible to predict what the timing could be around possible super-conferences discussions. I’ve said and believe that there will come a time when those conversations are picked up again, because the underlying fundamentals behind our vision and the plan we articulated had a lot of positive reaction and got a lot of traction. It came very close for good reasons. So if and when those conversations happen again, the Pac-12 will be very well-placed, and I’m sure will be in the mix. I couldn’t begin to predict what the timing of that might be, because it depends on factors outside our control. The biggest bit of intrigue on the table is how the Pac-12 will divide itself. Update us on that process: What is going on between now and the meetings in October? LS : We have a working group of athletic directors for football and senior women administrators for other sports looking at sports schedules on a sport-by-sport basis. So we are analyzing different models, talking about pros and cons, looking at different scenarios. And on a parallel track we are also discussing our revenue sharing arrangements, because how you divide divisions could have an impact based on our current model, which is appearance-based revenue sharing for football. We are very much on track against the timetable I laid out, where we’ve got several more rounds of discussions with our athletic directors. Ultimately the decision will be made by our board, which are our presidents and chancellors, at the end of October. I would describe the conversations as spirited and robust. I think there is a very healthy balance between institutions looking at the issues from an individual perspective, but I’ve been very impressed with the big-picture view the leadership of our schools is taking toward what is in the best interests of the conference long-term. I think there is a common view that that which is good for the conference will be best for each of the individual institutions long-term.

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Q&A with Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott