The Pac 12 and the L.A. Times

Super interesting read from The Oregonian. This is where newspapers are in 2020. Yuck.

 

Canzano has been on a crusade against Larry Scott for the last five years. He should be going after school presidents who continue to prop him up and allow him to squander millions that should otherwise be going to schools.
I found the article particularly interesting as I covered Olympic sports at a Pac-12 school for a metro daily in the '90s and it was a phenomenal beat. The football and basketball beat writers were covering also-rans and I was interviewing Olympic gold medalists and world champions (though struggling to get space). At that same paper, they hired a writer after someone (not the writer) promised 100 new subscribers with his employment.
I don't know what the Pac-12's current PR/news department situation is right now with COVID - but the conference seems as if it would be well-positioned to "own" its own coverage - better than the news outlets the conference is courting. Use school SIDs, interns whatever. Allow news orgs to use their content freely. Maybe hire a couple of top names to cover the bigger stories in the conference.
That the Pac-12 still thinks the Road to Relevance is through the Players Tribune and the LA Times is troubling - particularly when it took six-figure consultants to arrive at that fact. And all the more reason I have little confidence in Larry Scott. I don't blame him for losing football and basketball programs or declining attendance - but I think his usefulness has run its course. He's still selling the conference's "amazing backyard" while people see an unimpressive front porch when they drive by.

 

Or at any rate where the LAT was and is.

The Poynter wonk was right: The Pac-12 didn’t have to pay for any of that.

 

Two words: Staples Center. You would think they'd know better in El Segundo.

 

Twenty years ago, this would've led that newsroom — all metro newsrooms — to revolt.

This is a deal you do with the local Pennysaver.

 

Of course. But sports is the toy department, so ...

 

By the PAC-12 TIMES

PASADENA -- The UCLA Football Team Bruins played super rad Saturday in a 55-14 loss to Tennessee.

-30-

 

I think twice in my career I said to the people at the team/school I covered that I'm there covering this stuff, how about sending some ads our way.

The main one was in 1983-84, right before the Olympics. I covered UCLA and it hosted 6 NCAA championship events in that time period. Men's basketball (West Regional), Women's basketball (Final Four), M & W tennis finals, W gymnastics, W volleyball.

I covered all of this. In the midst of it, I saw a large ad UCLA bought in the L.A. Times. I told the SID, Marc Dellins, that LAT wasn't even covering some of this stuff and I'm there producing stories every day. How about an ad or two in my paper, which circulated through the Westside, including Westwood. Well, Dellins passed the word and in the next couple of days, our paper had the ads, too. I did not ask for a commission.

All of those events were OK, except the women's gymnastics. Back then, by the time women gymnasts got to college, they were pretty much over the hill.

 

PALO ALTO — Stanford University announced Tuesday that it is rebranding 11 intercollegiate sports.

Field hockey, squash, rowing and eight others will now enjoy emeritus status.

 

That's pretty funny, seeing as how the Pac-12 has used Tennessee as a punching bag in recent years.

 

The Vice article from last month on the LA Times covered most of what was in the column.

Vice didn't connect the dots on the Pac-12 arrangement though or if they did, I don't remember it.