The leaders of the University of California system said they needed more time to consider whether to allow U.C.L.A. to move from the Pac-12, to the detriment of Cal-Berkeley.
www.nytimes.com
Highlights:
The regents have expressed some disappointment that the Pac-12 Conference is in negotiations for a television rights deal, because there is no direct comparison against what U.C.L.A. has said will be annual revenues of $60 million to $70 million under the Big Ten contract. (The school has estimated it will spend an additional $10 million per year on travel, nutritional, academic and mental health services after switching conferences.)
But last month, the Pac-12 provided to several regents a glimpse of what its deal, which it has been negotiating for months, might look like if U.C.L.A. decided to remain: a range between $42 million and $47 million per school, with U.C.L.A. getting a little more than the remaining 10 schools in the Pac-12 once Southern California leaves for the Big Ten in 2024, according to two people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss them. The holdovers in turn would be getting a little more than San Diego State if it left the Mountain West to become the conference’s 12th team.
Whether the Pac-12 can present to the regents firm numbers with a finalized television rights agreement by mid-December is uncertain.
The Pac-12’s willingness to sweeten the offer for U.C.L.A. also included a willingness to pay the buyout the Los Angeles school would have to fork over to break the Big Ten agreement. That buyout is $15 million, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal terms of the deal.
Multi-tier payouts are not unique in college sports. Gonzaga, for example, receives a greater share of the West Coast Conference’s N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament revenue, and Rutgers joined the Big Ten knowing it would not receive the same payout as longstanding members for at least six years.