Report: Could a co-commissioner system be the Pac-12’s answer to replacing Larry Scott?

The Pac-12 is in the process of finding a replacement for outgoing commissioner Larry Scott. The Mercury News’ Jon Wilner reported on a possible solution: a co-commissioner system, with one individual hired to handle the business revenue side of things, and another to work closely with the Pac-12’s athletic directors. | D. Ross Cameron, Associated Press

The Pac-12’s search to replace departing commissioner Larry Scott is entering its fourth month.

Now, it appears the league is exploring an unprecedented option that could fill its two-fold criteria of finding a commissioner that can maximize the conference’s business opportunities — the Pac-12’s media rights negotiations being chief among them — and be someone who understands the challenges facing universities’ athletic departments.

The Mercury News’ Jon Wilner reported Tuesday a name that’s emerged in the search for Scott’s replacement is Amy Brooks, who played basketball at Stanford and currently serves as the NBA’s president for business operations and chief innovation officer.

“Brooks has never worked in college sports and has no background in football operations. Her expertise is on the business side: Prior to joining the NBA, she worked for Bain and Co., the global management consulting company,” Wilner wrote.

Wilner explains that, so far, the Pac-12 presidents have not identified a candidate who fulfills both standards they are looking for in a new commissioner. That’s why the league is exploring the possibility of hiring someone who specializes in sports business — someone like Brooks, for example — while also hiring another individual to serve as a de facto co-commissioner, one that works with the Pac-12’s athletic directors.

This all comes as Scott prepares to leave the position in late June. Scott was hired in 2009 as the Pac-12’s commissioner and did not bring any experience with college athletics with him. Wilner pointed out he “was too often viewed by the athletic directors as placing the needs of the conference office — his office — above those of the campuses.”

That explains why the conference would look at a scenario where a co-commissioner is brought in to work alongside each institution’s athletic departments. Figuring out how the two co-commissioners would work together, though, would have to be worked out, and Wilner reported that the Pac-12 could hire someone in a more traditional sense, like the ACC did by appointing former Northwestern AD Jim Phillips recently.

“They don’t know what to do,” one source told Wilner. “But there is a lot of pressure on the presidents to get someone for the campuses.”

from Deseret News https://ift.tt/3304j5b