Exiting Pac-12 Chief Urges a Bigger Playoff and a More Responsive N.C.A.A.

What has been the secret sauce, in your mind, for what’s worked?

We’re operating in a completely different orbit now than when I arrived in 2009 as a modern, progressive, innovative league. The things I’m most proud of, in addition to our student-athlete success, is five-times growth in revenue, leading initiatives around student-athlete revenue, having the largest TV contract in college sports in 2012 and, through an owned and controlled media company, setting ourselves up for great future success.

You’ve taken hits regarding the Pac-12 Network, and a lot of people say it hasn’t met expectations.

I’m very bullish on the value of college sports right, in general, but the Pac-12’s in particular because the conference is in the position of owning its rights. The value of premium college sports continues to increase, and I think it’s validated the initial strategy. The challenges, of course, have been that while we had the biggest TV contract in college sports in 2012, other conferences have since had a chance to redo their deals. Our time is coming in 2024, and I’m highly confident the conference is going to see a massive increase in its TV rights.

Have you had doubts about the network, seeing the numbers as they’ve been over the years?

For those who were involved at the time, they realized it was a long-term strategy and owning and controlling the rights was the right move despite challenges in distribution with a network when you haven’t granted your rights to a partner. In hindsight, I think we could have taken less money and would have had a less impressive deal in 2012 if we had kept our deal shorter and had a chance to reset sooner. I probably didn’t fully appreciate the short-term pressures our campuses would feel when another league redid a deal.

You’ve been criticized for how you ran the conference and its operations — everything from officiating to moving the league office to San Francisco. You’ve been the highest-paid commissioner in college sports. Do you think you earned it?

That’s for others to determine, but it’s ultimately the presidents and chancellors who decided the value that I brought. My contract was repeatedly re-signed and extended and increased. Keep in mind revenues for the Pac-12 increased five times over my tenure, as well as the equity value in the network.

You want the football playoff to expand. It’s on the table. Do you think it will it actually happen?