Pac-12: The next commissioner has a big job to fix a leaky ship
Larry Scott is on the way out as Pac-12 Commissioner. His successor has to do things much differently to clean up the mess Scott leaves behind.
We interrupt our regularly scheduled Pac-12 basketball power rankings to weigh in on the search for a new conference commissioner. Last Week, Larry Scott agreed to step away from the job after 11 years.
While that was five years too long, the Pac-12 has to look ahead when picking a replacement. Forward-thinking is the way to go, but learning from the Scott era debacle is a close second. As it stands, this conference is rapidly becoming the Power-5’s forgotten child.
Why Pac-12 athletics became so irrelevant in recent years falls squarely on Scott’s mismanagement. When the Pac-12 made big mistakes was when they made the news. Items such as administrators over-ruling replay officials and the 2020, on, then off, then on (under political pressure) half-baked six-game (ish) football season made the conference a joke.
The more missteps that piled up, the weaker their on-field, on-court product became. Worse, it spiraled. Poor management led to diluted teams, which magnified even more errors, and so on. Why would a top recruit from any big money sport want to play for a school in a conference where they get minimal exposure and are as irrelevant to the national picture as a team from the Ohio Valley conference?
Again, the goal is to move forward, not get mired in the past. Those expecting things to change overnight are chasing a fantasy. First of all, Scott has his job until June. A quality search will take time, and someone has to be in charge. But six months?
Once a successor is hired, it will take a few more months to get acclimated to the position before meaningful changes can begin. It will take years before results show on the field, polls, or wallets.