Jon Wilner is one of the foremost journalists in the Pac-12 Conference footprint, and he broke the blockbuster story of USC and UCLA going to the Big Ten.

One of the other great journalists in the conference footprint is Portland-based writer and radio/podcast host John Canzano, who has a Substack and a regular show on Portland’s 750 AM The Game station.

Canzano stepped up to the plate and delivered a significant piece of reportage which will make a number of USC fans even happier and more confident about life outside the Pac-12.

This, from Canzano’s Substack on Friday morning, doesn’t require much of any explanation. It speaks for itself:

The Pac-12 has been immersed for months in strategy sessions and discussions about the conference’s next media rights deal. Kliavkoff told me two weeks ago, “Every single decision is viewed through the filter of what this would do to the value of media rights long term.”

What the Pac-12 didn’t do, per the USC source, is ask how the Los Angeles-based schools felt about how the conference’s revenue is divided. All the Pac-12 universities currently receive equal shares.

“No one ever had a conversation with us about how we felt about the revenue share,” the source said. “Nobody asked, ‘Are you OK with it? Would we like to see something different next contract?’ Not one conversation with LA schools, that was a mistake. We could’ve ended up leaving for the Big Ten regardless, but you have to have the conversation when we have higher cost of living in LA, higher tax, and 60-70 percent of the Pac-12’s TV market.”

Canzano said “I doubt it would have mattered,” and he could be right.

However: If you’re George Kliavkoff, you HAVE to try. You HAVE to do everything to make USC happy.

Kliavkoff did a lot of things to make USC happy, but much like Oklahoma and Texas with the Big 12, USC is a program which, in its own neck of the woods, is the biggest grizzly bear. It’s the biggest whale in the ocean.

Making USC happy in the Pac-12 is more important than making Oregon State happy.

Maybe it didn’t matter in the ultimate endgame. Maybe USC was out the door anyway … but Kliavkoff did need to kiss the ring. He did not.

The rest — and maybe the Pac-12 itself — is history.

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