Everything you need to know about new Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff

BOULDER — The Pac-12 has found its next commissioner.

The conference announced Thursday that George Kliavkoff will take over the job starting July 1. Kliavkoff currently serves as the President of Sports and Entertainment for MGM Resorts International.

What does that mean?

Basically he oversees everything related to the entertainment at MGM resorts and properties, like the MGM Grand, the Aria, a bunch of other resorts and the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. For example, Bruno Mars has a residency at the Bellagio this summer and the Las Vegas Knights will be in the NHL playoffs at the T-Mobile Center starting this week. Both fall under Kliavkoff’s supervision, as do countless boxing matches, UFC fights, concerts, shows and other Vegas events.

Kliavkoff also managed the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, while they were owned by MGM. He served on the WNBA’s Board of Governors until the team was sold to Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis earlier this year.

The relationship between Kliavkoff and Davis is worth noting, as the Pac-12 currently holds its football championship game in the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium. BetMGM has also partnered with the Raiders, and Kliavkoff serves on its Board of Directors. When the time comes to extend the deal with Allegiant Stadium, these relationships can’t hurt.

The same can be said of the Pac-12 basketball tournaments. They are held at the T-Mobile Arena, which is, of course, owned by MGM and under Kliavkoff’s control, at least for a few more weeks. Kliavkoff mentioned during his introductory press conference that he was in the room in March 2020 when the decision to cancel the tournament after its first day was made.

With all of Kliavkoff’s ties to Vegas, it’s fair to wonder whether a potential move from the Pac-12’s current headquarters in San Francisco to Las Vegas could be on the way.

“I want to be clear: I am, with my family, relocating to San Francisco and will be working full time in San Francisco,” Kliavkoff said. “The emergence of Las Vegas as a sports capitol of the world is significant. I think 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 of those other opportunities that I outlined first.”

A potential move from San Francisco to Las Vegas is not dead. If anything, Kliavkoff made it sound like a very real consideration, though not a priority. It’s worth noting that the 11-year lease the conference signed in San Francisco is set to expire next year.

But what about those “other opportunities” that Kliavkoff mentioned?

The new commissioner outlined his “top three immediate priorities” early in his remarks, Thursday.

1. Protect and support Pac-12 student-athletes.
2. Make decisions to optimize revenue for Pac-12 institutions, including renegotiating media distribution deals.
3. Make our teams more competitive in revenue-generating sports, especially your football.

The big note here is “renegotiating” the media deals.

The Pac-12 is lagging behind the rest of the Power 5 conferences in terms of media rights revenue, but the current deal is set to expire after the 2023-24 academic year. Kliavkoff noted that the first decision the conference needs to make is when to start trying to negotiate a deal. They could start now and try to get something done early or wait until closer to the end of the current deal.

But the word renegotiate was an interesting one. According to Kliavkoff, who declined to give further details, there are windows in the current deal during which the conference could try to renegotiate the current deal. We don’t have much to go off of at this point, but it’s worth keeping half an eye on potential renegotiations.

Regardless of a potential renegotiation, there will be some sort of billion-dollar negotiations with TV networks and, potentially, streaming services sometime in the next few years. Kliavkoff is extremely qualified to lead these negotiations.

Not only does Kliavkoff have experience with MGM, he was also the leader of a division of Hearst Entertainment that included interests in ESPN, A&E, Lifetime and HISTORY. The experience with ESPN is notable, especially considering that Kliavkoff oversaw these interests while the network was building the SEC and ACC Networks.

On top of that, Kliavkoff was the first chief digital officer for NBCUniversal. During this time, he partnered with NewsCorp to launch Hulu and he served as the interim CEO of Hulu until the first official CEO was chosen.

Rumors circulated during the last round of Pac-12 media rights that the Pac-12 could do something radical like sign an exclusive deal with Apple, Amazon or another tech firm to stream Pac-12 sports. Given Kliavkoff’s involvement at the forefront of streaming and other digital media, these radical ideas could certainly be in play.

Kliavkoff was asked about the future of the Pac-12 Network, which is currently in 16 million households.

“I believe it’s part of the future of our media distribution strategy,” he said. “Today the Pac-12 Network has far fewer subscribers than any other comparable network and we have to fix that. 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.”

In terms of media, the Pac-12’s strength is that it owns all of its rights starting in 2024 and will be able to cut them up and sell them however they want. The SEC, by comparison, had its Tier 3 rights (a.k.a. the least interesting games) locked up into the 2030s when it entered it latest round of negotiations. Those rights were held by ESPN, which is also a part-owner of the SEC Network. That meant they could only offer the top two tiers of rights in any deal they made, which could hurt its leverage. Eventually, in December, the SEC made a deal with ESPN to take the rest of its rights, too, beginning in 2024.

“I also think about the media rights in the Pac-12 Network as being a small slice of the media rights that we can create and distribute,” Kliavkoff said. “There are some obvious and perhaps not so obvious ideas to optimize the revenue distribution of our content. Slicing and dicing that content is, candidly, what I’ve done in many of our previous roles with great success.”

With the rights to every Pac-12 event available to slice and dice starting in 2024, Larry Scott’s most valuable gift to the next commissioner is essentially a massive chunk of clay that can be molded however Kliavkoff desires.

The most valuable rights are the football games, followed by men’s basketball. The value is swayed heavily by how competitive football and basketball teams are on the national stage. The Pac-12’s basketball teams took major strides with widespread success in this year’s NCAA Tournament, but the football programs leave plenty to be desired.

“The greatest weakness (of the Pac-12), if we’re being honest with ourselves, is the number of years it’s been since we won a football or men’s basketball championship,” Kliavkoff said. “We’re going to do everything we can at the conference level to fix that.”

This is a departure from how the previous administration viewed the Pac-12 landscape. Larry Scott propped up Olympic and other net-loss sports, being careful not to imply that some sports were more important than others. Kliavkoff, in his opening media availability, stated bluntly that the success of the revenue-generating sports is important to all programs in the conference.

Kliavkoff, who has a strong track record promoting women’s sports and women’s basketball in particular, said that he wants to promote the fact that the Pac-12 just won a national title in women’s basketball and continue to build up the conference’s women’s programs, but that the top priority is still in the two, key revenue-generating sports.

“We know where the bread is buttered,” he said.

Again, this is a departure from the previous regime’s values. But, at least partially, this is dictated by circumstance.

Larry Scott negotiated a 12-year media rights deal early in his tenure. For the rest of his time as commissioner, there was little need to try to increase the value of its football media rights, because the conference was already locked into a deal.

Kliavkoff is in a different boat. Remember his comment about *when* to start negotiations? He’s probably wondering when the rights will be most valuable—in other words, when the football teams and basketball teams will be at their best.

It’s safe to say the Pac-12’s football product isn’t peaking at the current moment. Does he foresee on-field growth over the next two seasons that could increase the value of those media rights? I doubt he foresees them becoming less valuable.

So for the next two or so years, it makes sense to invest in the sports that will determine how many tens of millions of dollars each school will make over the next decade-and-a-half, and then circling back to the non-revenue-generating sports. That’s my guess, at least.

But how can the conference improve its football product? Kliavkoff has some ideas.

“I believe, personally, the solution to elevating Pac-12 football is a combination of addressing structural issues and a more focused approach on recruiting,” he said.

Structurally, Kliavkoff wants to expand the College Football Playoff. He points out that 20 of 28 CFP spots have gone to just four schools and that in other sports, athletes have an 18-25% chance of making the postseason, while only 3% of football teams make it in.

”I take a lesson from this year’s men’s basketball tournament,” he said. “Elite Eight teams included six-seed USC, (No.) 11 UCLA and 12-seed Oregon State. We just need chances.”

Kliavkoff didn’t give any details as to how the playoff should be expanded, saying that he hasn’t done enough work to provide anything other than that there needs to be a bigger field. That work will include talking to athletic directors and coaches.

He also mentioned kickoff times, conference and non-conference scheduling as other areas to address.

(I agree. #Pac12AfterDark turns the conference into a meme and the Pac-12 plays the longest conference schedule in Power 5 football, creating increased canibalization of the conference.)

He also added that the conference could invest in technology that could be used by all of the league’s programs.

“Everything is up for review to make us more competitive,” he said. “I want to be clear about that.”

Kliavkoff’s plan to improve recruiting is twofold: first, the conference needs to do a better job marketing the value of a Pac-12 education versus the value of the educations that other conferences offer.

Second, he thinks the Pac-12 can be the gold standard in player marketing, even before the NCAA finalizes how exactly the new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rules will work. By doing emphasizing student-athlete marketing early, the student-athletes will be able to cash in more once the new era begins.

“We will invest to give Pac-12 athletes—football players and others—an opportunity to create a bigger social platform,” he said. “We believe video creation and other tools help the athletes and, once the NIL comes into effect, that will help the athletes substantially. Finally, we will be a proponent of consistent and fair approach to name, image and likeness legislation, and we believe that’s a competitive advantage for the Pac-12 because of the markets we play in , and the opportunity that some athletes will have to star immediately.”

All-in-all, Kliavkoff had detailed answers for most of the questions asked.

Only time will tell whether they turn out to be the right answers.