Standford's recent volleyball national championship gave the Pac-12 its 16th title in the sportgetty images
Oregon AD Rob Mullens said that the Pac-12 "shouldn’t be judged purely on its exclusion" from the CFP or its "recent issues in men’s basketball both on the court and in federal court," according to Ryan Thorburn of the Eugene REGISTER-GUARD. Mullens called the Pac-12 a "great league," but acknowledged the focus at times "only gets on football and men’s basketball results." He noted those sports "haven’t produced what we all want it to produce." He said the conference has "great institutions," but added they "need to be working collectively to do everything we can to give our teams the best chance to succeed.” Thorburn noted five Pac-12 women’s basketball teams are "currently ranked in the AP poll" and Stanford "won its eighth NCAA volleyball championship." Oregon State this year "won the College World Series." However, TV contracts for football and men’s basketball "pay the bills." Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott is "facing mounting criticism as the conference continues to lag behind its peers in distributing revenue." Mullens acknowledged the "big resource gap" between the Pac-12 and other Power 5 schools, which "creates some tension." He said his conference "closed the gap significantly" in its last TV deal and now has "much greater exposure in football and men’s basketball." However, he said the gap has "grown" again. Mullens: "We took a road less traveled in that we decided we would retain 100 percent ownership of the networks and that we would do seven networks, we’d do 850 live events to elevate our Olympic sports.” Thorburn noted the Pac-12 Network is "still not available on DirecTV," and Mullens "admits the long-term strategy is a gamble." He said, “It’s still up in the air as to whether that turns out to be the right move. If the media landscape shifts and it goes our way, we could be sitting in a great position” (Eugene REGISTER-GUARD, 12/24).
