The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football (40 page)

“Our plan was to take inventory that wasn’t generating net revenue for institutions and turn it into an additional revenue stream,” Weiberg explained. “Plus, the conference network gives you a chance to expand exposure and brand reach for the conference generally. You’ve got a promotional vehicle out there 24/7, year-round.”

Bill Moos was sure of one thing: conference expansion, new television deals with ESPN and Fox and the creation of a new conference network promised a flood of new revenue into the Pac-12. The question was how it would be distributed. Under the Pac-10’s existing television contracts with ESPN and Fox, teams that participated in televised games shared 55 percent of the revenue. The remaining 45 percent was divided up equally among the other schools. Since USC or UCLA was on television virtually every week, the two of them were taking in the lion’s share of the money. They resided in the second-largest television market in the United States, and both schools had rich football traditions and were a bigger draw for the national networks. WSU was in one of the smallest markets and seldom appeared on TV. The
year Moos arrived, WSU received less than $2.5 million in TV money. USC and UCLA both received roughly eight times that much.

When he was at Oregon, Moos chaired the Pac-10’s television committee and tried repeatedly to get the conference to switch to an equal revenue-sharing plan. But conference bylaws required eight votes to change any revenue policies. Naturally, USC and UCLA always voted no. University of Washington routinely joined them because the Huskies were on television a fair amount in the 1980s and 1990s and consistently had one of the strongest programs in the conference. But for WSU to turn its football fortunes around, Moos had to find a way to get eight votes before the new television contracts with ESPN and Fox were negotiated.

One weekend Moos left Pullman and went back to his ranch. He tended to get his best inspiration behind the wheel of a tractor. So he spent a day on his John Deere. At one point he turned off the engine and called the Pac-10 offices to inquire about voting rules. With Utah and Colorado joining, he wondered how many votes it would take to change revenue policy.

The answer was nine votes. If he could get Utah and Colorado on his side, it wouldn’t matter how UW voted. He also learned that he had an ally in Commissioner Larry Scott. “Larry was a proponent for equal revenue sharing, and we put that on the table early on, based on experiences I had at the Big Ten Network,” Weiberg explained. “If you are going to do complicated things in TV, you have to have all members participating as equal partners, and you need a grant of rights across the board. So senior and junior partners doesn’t work.”

Moos had a plan. He started laying the groundwork for it in July 2010 when the conference ADs met at the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills. UCLA’s AD, Dan Guerrero, chaired the meeting. After a full agenda that included discussions on conference realignment, scheduling, bowl games and future media rights, the final agenda item of the day was a discussion on the composition of new conference divisions. That’s when Moos raised an objection. He argued that it was ridiculous to discuss how to divide the conference until they determined how to divide the money from the new television contract. “The money,” he said, “will dictate how we divide the conference.”

Other ADs agreed. The matter was tabled, and the meeting was adjourned.

Over the remainder of the summer, Moos called every AD in the Pac-12, except for Pat Haden at USC and Guerrero at UCLA. His message to the other ADs was simple and direct:
This is our chance to get an equal
share of the pie
. He already had the nine necessary votes to get equal revenue sharing passed when he called Washington AD Scott Woodward and secured an insurance vote. For years Washington had sided with USC and UCLA. But Moos had a hunch. Washington had reached an all-time low in its program’s history in 2008, finishing 0-12—the only team in the country to go without a victory. It had another losing season in 2009. The Huskies were seldom on TV, and they had to pay for a huge stadium renovation. Equal revenue sharing suddenly sounded very appealing.

“I’d like to propose we carry the hammer,” Moos told Woodward and the other ADs. “Let them [USC and UCLA] talk first. And we’ll have a plan to slam them right in the face.”

After a series of conference calls and additional meetings, the Pac-12 ADs reconvened on October 6, 2010, in San Francisco to vote on proposals to divide the conference and embrace equal revenue sharing. With Larry Scott about to begin negotiations with ESPN and Fox, it was imperative to settle these issues. A motion on conference divisions suggested the following plan:

On paper the South conference looked much stronger. When the ADs voted, they deadlocked 6–6 along division lines. Every school in the South Division supported the measure; every school in the North Division opposed it. Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State felt like second cousins under the proposed alignment. Those four schools wanted Stanford and Cal in the North Division, while placing Utah and Colorado in the South Division.

But during a brief recess, Moos had second thoughts. When the ADs reconvened, he invoked Robert’s Rules and changed his vote, giving the South Division ADs a 7–5 margin. The motion passed.

“My northwest peers looked at me like I lost my mind,” Moos said.
“Washington, Oregon and Oregon State each questioned me. But I got to thinking about the ultimate objective at WSU, which is to win the northern division, putting us in the championship game with a chance to go to the Rose Bowl. It is my belief that we have a better chance of achieving this objective if we’ve got Stanford and Cal playing USC and UCLA every year and we don’t have to.”

Once the divisions were established, the ADs turned their attention to revenue sharing. Things got much more testy. Right off the bat, USC and UCLA made it clear that they fully expected to have a higher share of the television revenue, based on precedent and the fact that they were in the most lucrative television market. “The L.A. schools were saying we’re the ones driving it, so you are damn right we should get more,” Moos explained. “My argument was that the New York Giants don’t get more than the Green Bay Packers and they’ve got a pretty good league.”

Everyone except USC and UCLA was with Moos. “USC and UCLA had received a larger share in the past,” said Weiberg, “and were very cautious about schemes and plans that might change that dynamic unless they were going to be in a better position than they were before.”

Haden and Guerrero held their ground. But Moos informed them that he had ten votes. That didn’t go over well.

Haden hinted that USC might explore leaving the conference.

Stanford’s AD, Bob Bowlsby, had no patience for Haden’s bluster and called his bluff, saying everyone knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Moos and his colleagues could have rammed the revenue-sharing plan through with a 10–2 vote. But that would have been a costly mistake. “If our television partners sensed a fracture, we would never be able to command the big money,” Moos explained. “We had to come through with everybody happy.”

USC and UCLA came around when they were each promised a $2 million premium in 2012–13. A sunset provision was also included, which stipulated that UCLA and USC would not receive the premium if the conference’s yearly television revenue reached $170 million. With these two caveats, the ADs voted 12–0, endorsing equal revenue sharing.

Todd Van Horne is Nike’s global creative director. He is to Nike what Jonathan Ive is to Apple. A constant innovator, Van Horne has been the genius behind Nike’s ever-evolving development of the most advanced football uniform system ever assembled. And his flair for marketing helped him
come up with names like Nike Pro Combat, a system of dress—from state-of-the-art helmets to lightweight, ultra-breathable jerseys that provide enhanced thermoregulation—that is revolutionizing the look and style of college football uniforms. Van Horne is also transforming the look of NFL uniforms. When Nike took over as the supplier to the NFL, Van Horne completely redesigned the entire uniform for teams like the Seattle Seahawks, overhauling everything from the color of the top of their helmets to the tips of their cleats. He even designed colorful gloves that formed the Seahawks logo when a receiver brings his hands together to catch a pass.

At Knight’s request, Van Horne met with Bill Moos to figure out what could be done to reinvent the image at WSU. “We needed an identity,” Moos explained. “A lot of people—young and old—want to wear the gear that their Saturday idols wear. Plus, partnering with Nike helps us immensely with recruiting. When football recruits visit our campus, I wanted to be in a position to talk up our partnership with Nike because today’s recruits have grown up with Nike.”

In their first meeting, Van Horne stressed the importance of uniforms and apparel that comport with modern fashion trends. “Today’s fashion is dictated by youth,” Van Horne told Moos. “You want something that is going to appeal to kids, something that makes them feel good, makes them want to come to your school. It needs to show well and show consistently.”

The one thing Moos didn’t want to do was fool with WSU’s logo. “Our logo is seventy-five years old,” Moos explained. “It has stood the test of time. It is recognizable.”

WSU also has had the same colors—crimson and gray—for the same length of time. Van Horne opted to start there, maintaining a true crimson while developing fifteen shades of gray to reinvent WSU’s athletic uniforms.

The practice of creating uniforms that change from week to week is a pattern that Nike started at Oregon when Moos was the AD there. It took merchandising to a new level, enabling Nike to design a vast array of slightly varied jerseys, sweatshirts, hats, T-shirts, gloves and other sportswear for Oregon. Overnight, Oregon’s apparel became a top seller at Foot Lockers and other retail outlets throughout the Pacific Northwest. Oregon’s visibility soared, helped along by radically flashy uniforms that changed colors from week to week. Apparel sales became a lucrative revenue stream for the athletic department. And consumers became walking billboards for the university, which coincided with a rise in enrollment.

It’s a sales and marketing strategy that Nike has spread throughout the country. Of the 125 top teams, Nike exclusively outfits 79 of them, including
9 schools in the SEC, 8 in the Big 12, 10 in the Pac-12 and 7 in the Big Ten. Nike’s nearest competitor—Adidas—outfits just 29 teams.

At WSU, Nike gifts the university more than $1 million worth of shoes and apparel for the sports teams each year. In exchange for that, WSU agreed to exclusively outfit all coaches and players in Nike gear from head to toe. The agreement forbids coaches and players to wear any other brands. Nor are they allowed to “spat”—wear anything that covers the Nike swoosh on athletic wear.

With the apparel deal in place, Moos and Van Horne spent months rebranding WSU’s uniforms and apparel. The goal was to roll out the new look in time for the start of the conference’s new television deal.