Larry Scott Raises Eyebrows With Pac-12 Exit Interview

The commissioner shared his greatest accomplishments and failures during his 11-year run.

In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott reviewed some successes and failures during his tenure with the conference. 

Scott has a few more weeks left as commissioner before former MGM executive George Kliavkoff takes over in July. The conference announced they would part ways with Scott on June 30 after a 11 year-run. 

During Scott's 25-minute telephone interview with the Associate Press, he shared his honest opinion on his greatest accomplishments and failures. 

Q: When you look back on the goals laid out when you took the job, where do you see missions accomplished?

Scott: I’m proud of much of what our team’s accomplished. There was a lot of alignment around a bold and innovative agenda when I arrived in 2009 and at the highest level, we’ve modernized the league, which is now operating at a much higher level than where it was before.

Highlights include a five-fold increase in revenue; significant improvements in student-athlete welfare and involvement; expansion of the conference; creation of our own media company, which is well-positioned for the future as evidenced by very high valuations we’ve received from private equity firms and interest from companies like Apple and Amazon; modernization of our championships in Las Vegas; and other things.

Q: The flip side of that is where do you see failures or goals left unaccomplished?”

Scott: The biggest regret is that we didn’t have teams performing better in football during our 11 years. Certainly, we’ve got some brands that traditionally would be making the College Football Playoff and competing for a national championship. It didn’t happen. For a variety of reasons. Thankfully, it has happened in our other sports where we won more championships than any other conference every year, including what was the best overall conference in basketball, men’s and women’s, this year. But competitively, teams not reaching their traditional potential was a real regret.

Secondly, hindsight is 20/20, but I didn’t anticipate the amount of change amongst our leadership, presidents, chancellors and athletics directors that were really aligned about a long-term vision. And as we had change in leadership on our campuses, the focus became much more on short-term pressures.

And in hindsight, if we had done shorter TV deals, even if it meant leaving some money on the table, I think our members would have appreciated being able to redo our TV contracts a little bit sooner. But I think the long-term, bold nature of our strategy will pay off handsomely for the league when it re-does the deals in 2024.

Q: What do you think the Pac-12 could have done under you leadership to help better position the conference’s football programs to be more successful?

Scott: I’m sure looking back we could probably identify some small things we would have done differently, but all the strategies around football and other sports were in alignment with all of our schools and our football coaches. USC, Oregon, Stanford, Washington not getting to the playoffs more often or winning has very little to do with the conference office. Between compliance issues, coaching changes and other things, some of our traditional powerhouses have struggled the last few years, and that’s hurt the league overall.

Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott 

The commissioner’s lack of personal accountability for the conference’s pitfalls drew national attention. 

Jon Wilner of The Mercury News said, “If you thought the departing Pac-12 commissioner’s reputation couldn’t sink any lower, you haven’t been paying attention the past four or five years.”

Trojans Wire’s Matt Zemek told Scott to get lost and not let the door hit him on his way out. 247Sports’ Dean Straka detailed how Scott didn’t hesitate to cast blame on the schools he was paid millions to lead.

Scott failed to take the blame for really anything, failing to understand that the front office is the brains of the conference. A weak leader unravels conference unity, culture, hurts recruiting and the conference’s overall success.

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