Report: Pac-12 will not expand before new media deal, potential fit emerges

It had previously been reported that the PAC-12 was looking to add San Diego State as early as next week. Now, according to a report by Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic, that isn’t accurate.

Instead, the PAC-12 wants to finalize its new media deal before it considers any conference expansion.

There have been numerous rumors that the PAC-12 would like to expand and find a way to stabilize its conference. This comes after UCLA and USC announced that they would be leaving for the Big Ten, while rumors have swirled about numerous other teams in the conference.

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George Kliavkoff, the commissioner of the PAC-12, previously announced that the conference was going to renegotiate its media deal ahead of schedule. The Big 12 also joined in doing this, recently announcing a $2.28 billion media deal. In both cases, the conferences were attempting to become more stable for current members.

In September, Kliavkoff said that there wasn’t a sense of urgency in finding a media rights deal, especially because he didn’t expect membership to change any more than it already had done so.

“I don’t feel any sense of urgency at this point,” said Kliavkoff. “No one’s going anywhere, we’re all together, we’re focused on doing this. … We have runway to do it right, as opposed to doing it quickly.”

The PAC-12 does not yet have a new media deal. Now, it sounds like the conference also won’t add new schools until that occurs.

The PAC-12 Commissioner recently shot down expansion questions

George Kliavkoff recently met with the media, where he fielded questions. One of those questions was about possible future expansion. However, Kliavkoff shot down the questions, though.

“We’re not going to talk about specific candidates for expansion. I’m not going to get ahead of my board on that. Thank you for the opportunity, though,” Kliavkoff said.