Colorado’s value to the Pac-12 ‘never about football’
The value of Colorado football and the rest of CU’s athletics was never the value the Buffaloes had to the Pac-12 according to The Salt Lake Tribune’s Kevin Reynolds — who says it had more to do with the Boulder/Denver media market and the stability a highly-populated metropolitan area provides.
“Colorado’s value to the Pac-12, and to the Big 12, was never really about football success,” Reynolds prefaced before saying, “It was about a media market, stability and a brand. After all Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark wasn’t eyeing a Colorado team led by Karl Dorrell last year because he thought they’d sneak up on everyone. He’s viewed Colorado as a long-term target because of its location and strategic value.” Collegiate Sports Management Group co-founder Ray Katz backed that up by stressing the importance of having different time zones, with Colorado covering the Mountain timezone.
“Denver is the biggest market in the Mountain Time Zone — And with respect to programming schedules, time zones play a huge role in ratings and therefore media rights value optimization,” Ray Katz said. “In terms of establishing value in conference athletics programming, I believe that University of Colorado contributes a great deal as a result of this to the Big 12 Conference.”
Colorado football a ‘pawn in the long game’ in Big 12’s plan to destroy Pac-12
As it turns out, the point of the Big 12 poaching Colorado football from the Pac-12 was to destabilize the west coast California-based conference according to Reynolds.
“Colorado’s value to the Big 12 was also strategic, a potential pawn in the long game,” Reynolds wrote. “If Yormark could get Colorado to bolt, it would spark more instability in an already shaky conference. Colorado’s departure could potentially lessen the value of a media rights deal for the rest of the Pac-12, leading other members to defect too. Arizona, Arizona State and Utah have been patiently waiting for a media rights deal to be presented by commissioner George Kliavkoff. If it is not lucrative enough, getting close to the $31 million dollar per school figure that the Big 12 commanded, they could bolt.”
At this point, we’ve all accepted college football as a business, so hearing university higher-ups essentially play monopoly with the sport shouldn’t be too disturbing. But from the sounds of it, CU was a major chess piece that could drastically alter the rest of the board moving forward.