New Pac-12 commissioner discusses what's next for two-team league: 'Rebuilding mode'

As the new person in charge of the Pac-12 Conference, commissioner Teresa Gould reports for her first day on the job Friday with a clear sense of what she must do next.

Her once-proud league will shrink from 12 to only two members later this year — Washington State and Oregon State.

But then what?

What exactly is her mission as the commissioner of a two-team league?

Gould noted there are hundreds of student-athletes remaining at the two leftover Pac-12 schools at a time of transformative turbulence in college sports.

“All I could think about was they need a leader that is prepared to fight for them, a leader that’s prepared to fight on their behalf,” Gould said during an online news conference Thursday. “And I want to be that leader.“

So many uncertainties in the Pac-12 still remain after the latest wave of college football realignment essentially left these two schools shipwrecked in the Pacific Northwest.

But Gould, a former deputy commissioner of the Pac-12, was hired to take charge for several reasons. One was that she had “great ideas for the future where she would like to take our conference in sort of this rebuilding mode we find ourselves in,” Washington State President Kirk Schulz said Thursday.

What is the future of the Pac-12?

Even though it will have only two teams this year, the Pac-12 will still exist as the Pac-12 brand. It won’t be called the Pac-2, at least not officially.

“Starting July 1, as we continue as a two-member conference, we are the Pac-12 Conference, and we’re gonna continue to be the Pac-12 conference,” said Gould, who becomes the first female commissioner of a Power 5 conference. “That brand means something nationally. It means something in our footprint on the West Coast. It means something to our fan base. So we will continue to own the name, the logo and intellectual property.”

But the Pac-12 will not be allowed to continue with two members indefinitely. Gould has a two-year contract for a reason.

What are rules and options for the Pac-12?

The 10 other members of the Pac-12 are leaving this summer to chase more money and stability in other leagues based in other sides of the country — the Big Ten, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conferences. Oregon State and Washington State weren’t invited and instead were orphaned in the realignment wreckage.

Under NCAA rules, leagues in the Football Bowl Subdivision are required to have at least eight members. But if a league falls short of that, NCAA also allows a two-year grace period.  That means the two schools left in the Pac-12 have two years to figure out what to do next.

Ideally, they’d probably like to join one of those other Power Four leagues. If not, they could combine with the Mountain West Conference to form a Pac-14. or new Pac-12 with 14 members. The two leagues made an agreement last December that says they will negotiate the “consummation, as promptly as reasonably practicable, of a definitive transaction pursuant to which all MWC Member Institutions join Pac-12 as Pac-12 member institutions with no MWC Exit Fee payable by any MWC Member Institution to MWC.”

“The invitations, if made, would be effective as of the 2025-2026 NCAA season or the 2026-2027 NCAA season,” says the agreement obtained by USA TODAY Sports.

The agreement strongly discourages the Pac-12 from pursuing any merger with the Mountain West that involves anything less than all 12 Mountain West teams. For example, if the Pac-12 invited 10 Mountain West teams instead of all 12, it would owe the Mountain West a withdrawal fee of $122.5 million.  That stipulation also remains active two years beyond the agreement expiration date of August 2025 or August 2026 (if extended).

Is it certain the Pac-12 will combine with the Mountain West?

No. It’s just an option. Gould said Thursday that discussions haven’t even begun on that and that she wants to stay open-minded about what the league becomes beyond 2026.

“We are very much in the infancy stages of talking about what happens beyond 2026,” Gould said. “We are not discussing one model or one option. We’re looking at many and having a lot of different discussions about what that format and access looks like, how that revenue will be shared.”

In the meantime, Oregon State and Washington State will fill part of its football schedules with six games each against Mountain West Conference opponents and will compete as affiliate members of the West Coast Conference in basketball and other sports.

Shulz said it’s important to show appreciation to those leagues and not act like they’re looking to abandon them the first chance they get.

“Those conferences know that we have a multi-year window here where there’s gotta be some final landing spot for those two schools, and so I just think we’ve got to keep communications open back and forth," he said. “We’ve got to make sure that we don’t sort of… come strutting in there thinking we’re just better than everybody else because of where we were before. We’ll end up getting our ass kicked if that happens.”

What about the Pac-12 Networks and television rights?

Oregon State and Washington State also now control Pac-12 assets and future revenues after fighting a court battle with the departing membership and winning control of the Pac-12 governing board. That includes revenue from the College Football Playoff and Rose Bowl.

The Pac-12 Networks will go dark at the end of June, the league confirmed. But its studio in San Ramon, Calif., will stay up and running for at least the 2024-25 academic year in service of the two remaining Pac-12 schools.

In the meantime, the two remaining Pac-12 schools still are looking for a television partner to televise their home football games and provide revenue to the league. Gould said she was encouraged by the interest in it so far and said she’s hopeful there will be announcement about it in the near future.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com