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The Pac-12 commissioner said that he can envision a day when his league's sporting events are telecast only on the Pac-12 Network.
Larry Scott also said that he can see a day when the Pac-12 Network shuts down altogether because the league sells all the rights to all its events to other outlets.
Neither is going to happen anytime soon. The odds of either of those extremes seems extremely slight — at least in the foreseeable future.
What the Pac-12 commissioner was really saying last week at the SportsBusiness Journal's Learfield Intercollegiate Athletics Forum — in response to questions about hypothetical situations — was that he has no idea what the television and internet landscape is going to look like when his league's current deals with ESPN and Fox expire in 2024.
That doesn't make Scott wrong. Nobody knows what's going to happen in 2024. Don't believe anyone who claims he/she does.
A couple of things are certain. In the present, the Pac-12 Network has not worked out the way Scott hoped and planned. At the forum, he acknowledged frustration that, more than four years after it launched, he still has no deal with DirecTV, and that P12N is available in fewer than 14 million homes while both the Big Ten Network in the SEC Network are available in more than 60 million homes.
So, yes, it seemed overly optimistic when Scott said, "I can see a day when all Pac-12 sports exist only on our network and are licensed to digital content providers" (as tweeted by sports attorney Jason Belzer, who writes for Forbes).
But it seemed overly pessimistic when Scott said he "could also see a day when the Pac-12 Network no longer exists because they sold off rights to everything" (as tweeted by ESPN's Brett McMurphy).
Assuming he remains as commissioner — and I have no reason to believe he won't — Scott won't start negotiating the next deal for several years. Again, the current contracts expire in 2024.
He might be negotiating other deals before then, though. Perhaps deals to expand the Pac-12 into the Pac-16.
Remember, he tried that before. But his play in 2010 to bring Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State in (along with already-announced Colorado) failed, and the league invited Utah as its 12th team instead.
Looking into his crystal ball, Scott called expansion to four 16-team leagues "likely," although not until "TV contracts are up," McMurphy tweeted.
As it stands, the Pac-12 is a regional league with a regional TV audience. Adding schools from, say, the second most-populous state, Texas, would make a great deal of sense to expand the league's reach and appeal.
The Pac-12 commissioner didn't specify which teams he believes might be added. However, while nothing is certain, you have to think that the potential Power Four leagues will be the ACC (currently at 14 teams — 15, if you count Notre Dame); the Big Ten (14 teams); the SEC (14 teams) and the Pac-12. And not the dysfunctional, 10-team Big 12.
While the BYU administration and Cougar fans were hoping to join a league that included Texas and Oklahoma — hopes that were dashed when the maladjusted Big 12 abandoned its plans to expand — perhaps the Utes could find themselves in a league (maybe even in a division) with the Longhorns and the Sooners by the middle of the next decade.
Although, at this point, nobody knows what'll happen. Not even Larry Scott.
Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.