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BOULDER, CO – JULY 27:Athletic Director Rick George speaks during a press conference at the Champions Center at the University of Colorado Boulder on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The CU Board of Regents unanimously voted to approve a resolution to join the Big 12 Conference for the 2024-25 academic year. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)
BOULDER, CO – JULY 27:Athletic Director Rick George speaks during a press conference at the Champions Center at the University of Colorado Boulder on Thursday, July 27, 2023. The CU Board of Regents unanimously voted to approve a resolution to join the Big 12 Conference for the 2024-25 academic year. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)
Pat Rooney - CU Sports / Buffzone Sports Writer
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While looking back at his 10 years at Colorado, a milestone he surpassed on July 17, athletic director Rick George admitted he sees a finish line in Boulder.

“I have less than three years left on my contract now,” George told BuffZone earlier this month, “and I don’t see me working past that time frame in this position.”

A man who played a role in the 1990 football national championship understands his Colorado legacy is on the line. And for the second time in less than eight months, George swung for the fences and connected.

What started as realignment whispers and murmurs over the winter reached a dramatic and landscape-shifting climax on Thursday, as George announced Colorado’s return to the Big 12 Conference. When Colorado’s 13th year in the Pac-12 begins in a few weeks, it will mark the beginning of the end for the Buffaloes on the west coast, with George opting for the security of middle America’s familiar turf.

Credit George for making a bold move to ensure financial stability for CU athletics. Yet it’s equally true this is a domino that didn’t have to fall, and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff has gone from a potential conference savior to the ineffective captain of a sinking ship with USC, UCLA and now the Buffs poised to leave the conference following the 2023-24 academic year.

At a press conference on Thursday afternoon George claimed it wasn’t just about the money. But make no mistake, this was about the money.

“This move was not just based on money or finances,” George said. “A decision this big has a lot more to do with just money. At the forefront of all our minds in all of our decisions is our student-athletes and their experience as Buffs.”

George has a proven track record of genuinely caring about the student-athlete experience. He cited research on travel time and game start times that would be more beneficial to athletes in the Big 12, and I don’t doubt CU did its homework on those matters. Yet if Kliavkoff and the Pac-12 had ever come to the table with a favorable media rights proposal, this move doesn’t happen.

In the Big 12, CU is set to reap $31.7 million per year through the league’s recently-inked media rights deal with ESPN and FOX. The current Pac-12 deal has paid CU about $20.8 million per year. While the media rights numbers have been the drivers of conference realignment, the secondary revenue CU stands to collect in the Big 12 should not be overlooked as well.

Take, for instance, this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The Big 12, with seven entries among its 10 teams, collected 16 units for a conference payout of $32 million. That total is dispersed equally among conference members over six years. The Pac-12 had four entries that collected seven units for a $14 million payout. Even adjusting the Big 12’s $32 million for a 14-team league, which it most likely will be when CU begins play in 2024-25, this year’s tournament would have added about $2.29 million to the coffers of each school. The Pac-12 schools added about $1.17 million apiece. With Houston and Cincinnati joining the Big 12, and UCLA and USC leaving the Pac-12 alongside the Buffs, that disparity is bound to increase. Since the inception of the College Football Playoff, Pac-12 teams have made the field just twice (Oregon in 2014; Washington in 2016). Big 12 teams have made four appearances, although three were earned by departing member Oklahoma (incoming Big 12 member Cincinnati also made the field in 2021).

Former commissioner Larry Scott endured a world of criticism for the Pac-12’s failings, and deservedly so. Yet Kliavkoff’s ability to douse Scott’s dumpster fires with gasoline in just two years is equally eye-raising. George expressed nothing but respect for Kliavkoff’s leadership the past two years, yet less than eight months after luring Deion Sanders to Boulder, George once again didn’t flinch while mulling a monumental decision about the future of Colorado athletics.

Less than a week ago, Kliavkoff offered a tone of solidarity and confidence at the Pac-12’s football media day regarding an imminent media rights deal that remains in limbo. On Thursday, I asked George if he finally saw a media rights proposal and opted for a better deal, of if the lack of a Pac-12 proposal made him feel compelled to jump at the Big 12’s stability. George expertly avoided revealing specifics, saying: “Any time you negotiate a media rights deal, it’s extremely tough to do. It really came down to, as we looked at this and the stability we could get in the Big 12 and the time slots and the partners they have in the media area, that was a significant factor for us as we made this decision.”

And so the Buffs are returning to their former home, while the Pac-12 is left to try to retain the crumbling pieces of a league its leader so blithely described as being in a position of negotiating strength less than a week ago. That media day session took place in Las Vegas, where Kliavkoff owns an extensive background as the former president of entertainment and sports for MGM Resorts International. This turn of events is easy to put in to terms the Pac-12’s commissioner can easily understand.

George may not have hit a jackpot, but Colorado is going to come out ahead in this roll of the dice. Kliavkoff and the Pac-12? They’re on the verge of going bust.

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