THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: The Pac-12's new media rights deal, San Diego State or not

Yep, it was a splash.

San Diego State’s startling run to the Final Four — complete with a buzzer-beater victory in the semifinals — got the nation’s attention.

Just as important for the university’s top brass, the Aztecs’ thrilling run was a nice, loud audition for membership in the Pac-12.

(For this analysis, and as a slight stress reliever for everyone at Wazzu, we’re going assume there WILL be a Pac-12 still standing when UCLA and USC bail out in 2024).

Jon Wilner, who writes the respected Pac-12 Hotline covering all the schools and the conference itself, says that a decision on a media rights deal — hopefully near $30 million per school (as opposed to the $31.7 million already agreed between the expanded Big 12 and ESPN/Fox) will be the trigger for everything to follow.

Wilner has written that commissioner George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12 university presidents are working on a unique media rights package that would combine linear telecasts (likely ESPN) with one or more streaming services (Amazon, Apple, or both).

Washington State president Kirk Schultz is a member of the executive committee which ultimately will sign off on a decision.

Furthermore, sources close to the conference suggest that a decision — on both the media rights and expansion (or standing pat with 10 schools) is coming soon.

ASSUMING that Kliavkoff and the university representatives can get the deal they want, schools like Washington and Oregon — which might be attractive to, say, the Big Ten — can return to everyday business.

That would be great news for all, but especially Washington State and Oregon State.

If the conference can’t find an agreement with USC and UCLA now gone in 2024, it’s anybody’s guess where various schools could wind up.

But Wazzu, unfortunately, would not be atop any glamor lists.

There is some irony in that, since the Cougs have drawn better football TV audiences in recent years than many of their Pac-12 brethren (and some schools being considered for expansion).

And it’s crucial to remember that football provides about 80 percent of a university’s sports revenue, with men’s basketball picking up the rest.

Of the programs that would remain, only Oregon (2.21M), Utah (1.16M) and Washington (1.15M) averaged more football viewers in 2022 than WSU (907K).

The rest: Cal (847K), Stanford (846K), Oregon State (625K), Arizona (506K), Colorado (353K) and Arizona State (315K).

There are a couple things worth noting about those numbers.

Oregon’s handsome 2.21 million average viewership is a little skewed, since the number was given a tremendous boost in the season debut against Georgia. A total of 6.2 million viewers watched the Ducks get waxed 49-3 by the eventual national champions.

Also, Washington State’s average likely would have checked in over a million per game if the Cougs had UCLA on the schedule — and the two Arizona teams off it.

Now, since you’re going to ask …

The two schools most prominently mentioned as expansion candidates are, yes, current hoops darling San Diego State — along with SMU, which is currently treading water in the American Athletic Conference.

NO DEEP thought is needed to come up with the Aztecs as Pac-12 members, although they had a disappointing first football season in their new Snapdragon Stadium.

The school issued an average attendance figure of 29,000 in the 35,000-seat venue, but the actual turnstile count was roughly 21,000.

The Aztecs have been decent (on the football side), but no more than that in the Mountain West Conference.

In fact, rival Fresno State has won the conference a couple of times recently, drawn more people and pulled in higher TV numbers — 220K to 198K.

Indeed, that’s a small number for San Diego, an area of more than 3 million people.

The Pac-12, though, needs a southern California school to replace UCLA and USC, putting San Diego State in the No. 1 spot — assuming the conference decides to expand at all.

At the moment, SMU remains in the conversation to be the 12th school — but not because of success in football or even impressive attendance.

It’s as simple as the fact that the Dallas metro area is the fifth-largest in the country, and that’s a lot of potential viewers – assuming SMU becomes a bit more attractive in the Pac-12.

TCU basically owns the Dallas market now, with average TV viewership of 2.2 million to just 317,000 for SMU.

It will interesting, though, to see how TCU and the other Big 12 schools navigate the loss of Oklahoma and Texas — who have been replaced by BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston.

Media buyers, incidentally, consider those moves as a bigger hit than the Pac-12 losing the two Los Angeles schools.

The bottom line in all these negotiations …

If Kliavkoff and his university partners can strike a deal that will earn something near $30 million annually, the conference will be fine and Washington State can enjoy coming closer to balancing the books.

But in the meantime …

We wait.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”