Arizona President: ‘We’re Just Waiting to Get a Deal’
Arizona president Robert C. Robbins remained steadfast in his stance that the school would wait to see what the Pac-12’s media deal would be and evaluate from there.
Robbins reiterated that to The Athletic on Wednesday when contacted about the reports that Colorado is ready to join the Big 12 as early as Thursday.
Robbins has been one of the more vocal Pac-12 presidents during the media rights negotiations process, doing several full-scale interviews in the spring.
He said the same thing on Wednesday night that he did several months ago — Arizona won’t do anything until they see the deal.
“All I keep saying is, you know, we’re just waiting to get a deal,” Robbins said. “And then everybody has to evaluate the deal on its merits. I’ve been pretty steadfast in that stance.”
Arizona is part of the “Four Corners” schools that have reportedly been on the Big 12 Conference’s radar for expansion since USC and UCLA announced they would lead the Pac-12 for the Big Ten last summer.
Since the two Los Angeles-based schools left, the Pac-12 has been working to get a media deal done. They went two rounds of exclusive negotiating windows with Fox and ESPN and then took their rights to market. So far, they have not been able to seal a media deal.
The Pac-12 most recently had a meeting about its media negotiations on Wednesday.
In that time, the Big 12 has signed an extension of its current deal with Fox and ESPN that will pay its members schools $31.7 million per year.
Should Colorado elect to join the Big 12, the school will get a full share of that media revenue.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
