THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: My plan for a new Pac-12 includes an attractive wild card

Unlike university presidents, conference commissioners, athletic directors, media executives and various consultants …

I will not lie to you.

No false statements, contradictory promises, fake news exclusives about the “stability of athletes” or other nonsensical press releases that are meant to send you stumbling in the wrong direction.

This is honest and simple.

I am hoping, against the odds, to keep an entity called the Pac-12 alive, and competing as it has since 1915.

Well, not quite like the Pac-12 we’ve known and admired for generations.

Just a healthy, honorable, enjoyable Pac-12 with four of the century-old eight — plus (at least) four more first-class universities that will give athletes, fans, alums and a national audience a truly exciting Power 5 conference.

Longtime members USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington will soon take up residence in the Big Ten — every one of them skulking out in the dead of night after assuring conference peers that they will be loyal members forever.

Colorado is bolting to serve the wishes of its show-biz football coach.

Finally, Arizona, ASU and Utah are joining Colorado in the Big 12 — which has so many schools they’re nearly impossible to remember.

Just start in Texas and walk in any direction.

OH, AND I’m not bothering to hoot at a geographical footprint that stretches from the Mexican border to the outskirts near (but not into) the city of Pittsburgh.

That’s actually not as weird as the “new Big Ten” (again, with a number of teams you have to count on an abacus), which boasts such obvious rivalries as UCLA getting lost en route to Rutgers, and Oregon spending a weekend in Happy Valley.

It’s in Pennsylvania, thanks for asking, and a tougher drive than renting a car in Azerbaijan.

Given that college sports — in other words, football — has descended into little more than a blend of greed and comedy, almost anything I might suggest for the Pac-12 would make SOME sort of sense.

Especially …

Let’s say the lawyers and accountants agree that the four survivors – Stanford, Cal, Washington State and Oregon State – are entitled to more than $400 million in residual media, NCAA tournament, bowl game and various other payments left over by the departing eight.

The ignored four suddenly have a fair shot at putting together a cooking conference by 2024.

Of course, my plan depends on that “final four” being honest and cooperative along the way — and that’s no cinch.

My new Pac-12 will require the lighting of candles.

For instance, Stanford and Cal appear to be done cuddling up to the Atlantic Coast Conference, but if they TELL their partners it’s done …

Then it has to BE done, or we have no chance.

Showing my naivete in the matter of football revenue, I will accept everyone’s word that we’re really, really going for it — and stop the damn lying.

NOW …

There’s a next absolute must, or the lifeboats will come too late.

We need media income.

I’m guessing that Apple TV, which long ago (less than two weeks) put an offer on the table to the previous Pac-12 that guaranteed $25 million to each school, still wants entry into big-time sports.

FYI, Apple’s market cap ranges around $3 trillion, depending on the day, it’s gone up around 10 percent in the past year, so …

OK, the company has plenty of cash.

Apple is also closely tied to ESPN, and eventually may buy all of part of it.

There’s a real tie there, all the way back to friendship between bright young bucks Bob Iger (now president of Disney) and the late Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Apple wanted to make the Pac-12 its first streaming sports star, not unlike the success Disney has had with ESPN Plus.

IN OTHER words, there are connections that perhaps can be put in place, ultimately helping this new Pac-12.

With few (basically, zero) options in the cash range that Apple can offer, why wouldn’t the four remaining schools give it a go with some new partners?

Logical sports programs are out there, and the Pac-12 name, competition and money would be serious jumps up for all of them.

It’s pretty easy (even with Stanford arrogantly thinking of academics when trying to ignore its own cheating scandal).

We poach two schools from the Mountain West at the beginning: longtime applicant San Diego State, and always competitive, basically spotless, much-admired Air Force.

Then, from the American Athletic Conference: Southern Methodist (Dallas) and Tulane (New Orleans).

Don’t laugh at Tulane, which beat USC last year and is ranked in this season’s top 25.

The Mountain West schools get around $5 million each in media money, the AAC schools $7 million under a relatively new deal.

ALL OF those hookups are with ESPN, which is one more reason that some version of Apple and ESPN+ streaming should appeal to all of them — even if Apple lowers the opening guarantee just a bit.

Say, to $22 million.

Another point: ESPN has just opened a national betting service, and you know it has an eye on all that cash changing hands in California — where it has no Power 5 teams at the moment.

The new Pac-12 could change that.

Yes, there are exit fees to pay, but that’s why the residual payments to the current Pac-12 are so important.

If that money is ours to spend (as it appears), helping any of the targets with exit fees would not be an insurmountable problem.

If our first eight work out swimmingly, then perhaps more schools can be added along the way: Boise State, Fresno State – although this new Pac-12 would have a mandate NOT to destroy another conference and leave it with nothing.

The Mountain West is a humming outfit, and there would be an obligation to work WITH it, not tear it apart.

Same with the AAC.

A FINAL thought: Streaming services will be our TV of the future.

Bet on it.

Unlike the linear TV we’ve watched forever (like FOX, with its massive Big Ten deals), streaming needs passionate fan bases – buyers, in other words — rather than simply giant numbers of households.

That leads us to throw an idea into this mix.

Once we have our solid eight teams, why not a couple of basketball schools that would add oversized streaming totals.

You know, like …

Oh, Gonzaga.

That’s the cinch, but I also find myself thinking of Utah Valley, which sits in the shadow of BYU (literally), boasts an enrollment of 43,000 — but just a 7,500 capacity to watch a wild hoops program that won 23 games a year ago.

Those are streaming candidates, my friends.

So, there you go.

Call Apple, get the lawyers on that residual payments business, and we’ve got a new Pac-12.

Pretty sexy one, too.

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.”