PAC-12 Reportedly Suffers Major Blow During Chaotic Media Negotiations

The PAC-12 continues to be in serious trouble when it comes to landing a new media deal.

The western conference has struggled to hammer out a new media deal with just one football season left on the league's current deal and UCLA and USC leaving for the B1G in 2024.

There's been seemingly a never-ending stream of reports about the conference struggling to garner up much interest for a new media rights contract. Now, it sounds like things are about to get much worse.

Brett McMurphy reported Wednesday that CBS & Turner are no longer involved in negotiations. That's significant because it had been previously reported CBS was in the mix to be one of the major networks the PAC-12 could get a deal done with.

That is no longer the case.

The PAC-12 appears to be in major trouble.

There has been literally no good news about the PAC-12 landing a new media deal for the past several months. The Big 12 got a deal done and is now financially stable.

The same can't be said for the PAC-12. A stunning report from The Athletic indicated the PAC-12's financial requests could be off by roughly $100 million annually. Commissioner George Kliavkoff reportedly wants annual payouts to be at least $40 million, but the ceiling might only be just north of $30 million.

"Today, it’s uncertain whether the Pac-12 will even be able to exceed the $31.6 million average the Big 12 reportedly landed in a six-year extension with ESPN and Fox it reached last fall," The Athletic reported.

The PAC-12's media future appears to be in serious trouble. (Photo by Christopher Hook/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Chaos consumes all.

With CBS now out, that means there's less bidders, which always drives the price down. If you're a PAC-12 official, this is really bad news. It's terrible.

The PAC-12 recently released a statement trying to calm the choppy waters. How do we think that's going over with ADs and university presidents right now?

The only way this could be spun is that a deal was reached elsewhere and CBS dropped out because of that. However, if that was the case, it'd likely be stated.

Finally, as we've talked about before, the longer this goes, the worse it gets for the PAC-12. That's why George Kliavkoff was reportedly given a mid-April deadline to get this fixed.

The Big 12 has guaranteed cash on the way and can come calling with promises. Kliavkoff's conference might not have anything to persuade members to stay amid all this instability.

Will the PAC-12 get a new media deal? (Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images)

There might be a deal that gets done, but whatever it is, it will likely fall very short of Kliavkoff's reported lofty expectations. That should make everyone associated with the conference very nervous.