Why did PAC not expand sooner?

[PonyTime]

I have read a lot about this. But I can't understand (other than poor leadership) why the PAC did not expand sooner when it had the chance.

There obviously had to be schools that strongly opposed SMU and SDSU (and which schools) due to decreasing the brand of the PAC? Otherwise, it would or should have happened.

Only other reason could have been these schools not wanting to share the limited $$ with two new schools.

Regardless, will be interesting to find out later what really went on. I have a sneaky feeling that some schools in the PAC wanted the PAC to fail and opposed expansion to ensure that happened.

And - in closing. A case could be made that Deion killed the PAC conference. Adding his kid to our roster never really helped.

[ROCKNEPONY]

It seemed Oregon and Washington always wanted out of the PAC and they were just buying time so as to not sign the grant of rights. Kinda a USC blocking expansion kinda move.

I wondered if they continued discussions with the big10 all along trying to get a bigger share but in the end had to settle for the 30mil because things unraveled so quickly.

The less well placed schools would have been smart to vote for expansion and ignore the power players.

The other possible inhibitor could have been some elitism ...on the part of the 2 teams left in San Fran against non-west coast academic institutions and California State schools.

just ramblings.

In the end Oregon and Washington State will suffer the most sadly.

[Charleston Pony]

I doubt Oregon & Washington or anyone else wanted out until USC and UCLA made their move. There was nobody out there to "add" to replace the revenue those two accounted for. The question is "why didn't the PAC go after Texas and OU hard when they appeared to have that chance?" I don't recall whether those discussions ever got serious

[ROCKNEPONY]

interesting article on that topic. That's the reference to USC I was making about Oregon.

Looking back at the time Larry Scott opted to not add Texas and Oklahoma to the Pac-12
July 27, 2023


https://www.si.com/college/stanford/foo ... the-pac-12

"There is a very high bar. It's hard to imagine very many scenarios for our conference to expand because the bar is so high."

A bar that apparently was far too high for the likes of not only Texas and Oklahoma, but also their respective in-state rivals Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. A decision that at the time was somehow viewed as the right one by members of the conference, with USC athletic director Pat Haden even saying the conference didn't need 16 teams.

"I don't think there is any rush for us to get to 16" said Haden.

A statement that will live in infamy, as USC later went on to sabotage the Pac-12's chances to expand again with adding Big 12 teams in 2021 following news that Texas and Oklahoma were joining the SEC.