While the era of the superconference seems to have been pushed back a bit in recent days, for a while it sounded like the first one to form would have been the Pac-12 after the conference accepted Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech. Well, now that we know that won't be happening, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott went on KJR-AM in Seattle on Thursday afternoon to talk about how close his conference came to expanding.Turns out, it wasn't as close as everybody believed.
"It wasn't nearly as close as the media painted it out to be," said Scott. "If you paid attention to where the media reports where coming from that it was imminent, it was all out of Texas."
Scott went on to say that a deal could never be reached with Texas because the school just wasn't willing to share its revenue from the Longhorn Network, which he fully understood. Scott also went on to say that while Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were interested in joining the Pac-12 with or without Texas, it just wouldn't have worked.
"Oklahoma wanted us to do that [go to 14 teams] so we looked at it, but 14 never really made sense to us. A 16 team conference could have been a blockbuster with Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State."
Scott also said that adding only the Oklahoma schools by themselves wouldn't have been as attractive, as Texas was the market the Pac-12 was really interested in adding to the fray.
As for whether or not his conference will once again be exploring the idea of expanding again in the future, don't count on it.
"We're not trying to send a signal that the door is open. We're thrilled with what we've got, we hope the world stays the way it is with 12-team conferences.
"I don't see any scenario in which we're going to be having this conversation anytime soon again."
It's a pretty interesting interview in its entirety, as Scott goes further into the dealings of the Pac-12 beyond just expansion. If you'd like to listen to the whole thing, you can find it here.
