With the hiring of MGM executive George Kliavkoff Thursday as its new commissioner, the Pac-12 Conference has hitched its wagon to a leader with a breadth and depth of experience in the professional sports, broadcasting and entertainment industries.
He also possesses a different approach in terms of solving the league’s problems.
“I hope my tenure as commissioner is highlighted by a focus on our exceptional student-athletes, our world-class universities and on the best fans in college sports rather than on the conference or the commissioner,” said Kliavkoff. “I believe I am transitioning from the best job in entertainment to the best job in sports. I made this jump because I’m passionate about the mission of the Pac-12 Conference.”
Here are five questions about how Kliavkoff plans to tackle the issues that will impact the future of the Pac-12.
What are Kliavkoff’s top three priorities?
Kliavkoff succinctly stated his vision as he prepares to take the helm on July 1.
“First, we will protect and support our student-athletes. Second, we will make decisions to optimize revenue for our member institutions, including renegotiating our media distribution deal. And third, we will do everything we can at the conference level to make our teams more competitive in revenue-generating sports, especially football.”
How can Kliavkoff help fix Pac-12 football?
The Pac-12 has fallen behind the rest of the Power Five conferences in terms of on-field success and Kliavkoff acknowledged it’s a huge issue that needs addressing.
“Structurally, we need to review and address conference and nonconference scheduling, game times and any other competitive decisions made at the conference level,” he said. “Everything is up for review to make us more competitive. … We’re going to invest … to help the schools recruit and be more competitive on the field.”
Kliavkoff stressed that he’ll be “pushing to expand the College Football Playoff,” though he declined to discuss details about what the CFP should look like until he gathers more information.
Kliavkoff noted that the CFP needs to include more programs from across the nation.
“It’s not good for college football, and the vast majority of college football fans, when 20 of the 28 CFP bids, 71%, go to just four schools,” he said. “In almost any NCAA sport, an athlete has an 18%-25% chance of participating in their sports’ postseason every year. In football, that number is 3% because of the current structure.”
Kliavkoff pointed out that three Pac-12 basketball programs reached the Elite Eight of this year’s NCAA Tournament.
“We just need chances,” he said.
What is Kliavkoff’s stance on the struggling Pac-12 Network?
Some wondered if the Pac-12 Network would be phased out or eliminated. But Kliavkoff said he’s looking at optimizing it.
“I believe it’s part of the future of our media distribution strategy. Today, the Pac-12 Network has far fewer subscribers than any other comparable network. We have to fix that,” he said. “I think there’s a way to fix that through structuring, and relationships. But we have to get the Pac-12 Network distributed every place, on every platform that our fans want to be able to consume that content. I think about the media rights with the Pac-12 Network being a small slice of the media rights that we can create and distribute. There are some very obvious and perhaps not-so-obvious ideas to optimize the revenue from distribution of our content and slicing and dicing that content. It’s what I’ve done in many of my previous roles with great success.”
What is the Pac-12’s greatest strength and how can it be maximized?
“The Pac-12’s greatest strength is the member institutions and the student-athletes,” Kliavkoff said. “We have some of the greatest institutions not only in the country but in the world. The value of a Pac-12 education cannot be overstated. We’re going to make a big deal about making that very, very public.”
As part of maximizing that strength, Kliavkoff is committed to leading out in pushing for CFP expansion as well as name, image and likeness issues for athletes.
“Both CFPexpansion and NIL legislation are good for college sports fans, good for our student-athletes,” he said, “and can be a significant competitive advantage for the Pac-12.”
Will the Pac-12 strengthen its relationship with Las Vegas?
There’s already a strong, longstanding bond between the conference and Las Vegas, which hosts both the men’s basketball tournament and will host the football championship game in 2021 and 2022 at Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Kliavkoff has been living and working in Las Vegas in his position with MGM. How does he see the relationship between Las Vegas and the Pac-12 evolving?
“I am, with my family, relocating to San Francisco (the Pac-12 headquarters). I will be working full time in San Francisco,” Kliavkoff said. “The emergence of Las Vegas as a sports capital of the world is significant. Having our two major championships there is a good first step. I’d like to see us do more with Las Vegas but I’m very, very focused on all those other opportunities that I outlined first.”