The Pac-12 is parting ways with Commissioner George Kliavkoff after the former MGM executive oversaw the demise of the once-powerful league during a wave of conference realignment last year.
The Pac-12 Board of Directors announced the move Friday in a two-sentence news release, saying the conference and Kliavkoff “mutually agreed to part ways, effective February 29, 2024.”
“More details about new leadership of the Pac-12 will be announced next week,” the release said.
Kliavkoff was a surprising and unconventional hiring in the spring of 2021 when he was picked to succeed Larry Scott. Kliavkoff has been the president of sports and entertainment for MGM Resorts International in Las Vegas since 2018.
He was tasked with rebranding and boosting a conference that had taken a reputational hit under Scott's leadership, especially in football. He leaned into being a disruptor and outsider, slowing down the process of College Football Playoff expansion after it was revealed the Southeastern Conference planned to pull Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12 in 2021.
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But in 2022, USC and UCLA announced plans to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, a move that turned out to be the beginning of the end for the Pac-12.
Kliavkoff was unable to land the conference a new media rights deal that remaining members believed would keep them competitive with Power Five conference peers and the Pac-12 had eight more schools depart over the course of about a month and a half late last summer.
Washington State and Oregon State are the only remaining Pac-12 schools, and the only members of the conference's board of directors.
The Pacific Northwest schools plan to keep the conference up and running with only two schools for at least another year, or maybe two, as they try to rebuild the league.
ACC asks to have FSU suit paused or dismissed
The Atlantic Coast Conference asked a Florida court to pause Florida State's lawsuit against the conference while the ACC's claim against the school in North Carolina moves forward or dismiss the Seminoles' case altogether, according to a filing submitted Friday.
The ACC's response to Florida State's complaint came at the deadline set by the court and a week after the school filed a motion for dismissal of the conference's lawsuit in North Carolina, where the league office is located.
The first court appearance in either case is a hearing set for March 22 in Mecklenburg County Superior Court in North Carolina.
The ACC initially sued the Florida State Board of Trustees in North Carolina in late December, asking a court to uphold the grant of rights that binds conference members through their media rights as a valid and enforceable contract. The ACC filed its lawsuit without announcement the day before Florida State sued the conference.
Florida State is seeking a quick and easy path out of the conference instead of paying more than $500 million in exit fees and penalties to get out of a deal that runs through 2036. The school's lawsuit, filed in Leon County Circuit Courts, claims the ACC has mismanaged its members’ media rights and is imposing “draconian” exit fees and penalties for withdrawing from the conference.
In its latest filing, the ACC said Florida State is misunderstanding the transaction tied to the grant of rights.
“Florida State (twice) assigned its media rights for a specific term to the Conference for the purpose of entering into agreements with ESPN. The Conference thus controls those rights for that term. If Florida State wishes to regain control of the rights before the end of the term, it could attempt to repurchase them. But having to buy back a right which was assigned is not a penalty; it is simply a commercial possibility. Paying a fair price for rights that were previously transferred cannot be a ‘penalty’ under any reasonable definition of the term,” the ACC said.
Florida State amended its lawsuit in January, taking aim at former ACC Commissioner John Swofford and accusing him costing member schools millions of dollars by acting in the best interest of his son, who worked at television partner Raycom Sports.
The ACC's motion for a stay or dismissal was focused on legal arguments and not meant to respond to Florida State's latest claims, though it did make one reference to the accusation of “self-dealing” by Swofford.