Upon meeting with media Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Arizona president Robert C. Robbins was greeted with a familiar blaze of questions about the Pac-12βs future and its pivotal, still-ongoing media-rights discussions.
Robbins told multiple reporters that he didnβt know of any pending Grant of Rights agreement among Pac-12 schools, contradicting an earlier report Wednesday. According to Sports Illustratedβs Ross Dellenger, Robbins went on to say the Pac-12 wouldnβt get a deal as rich as the SEC or Big Ten but βif we win a bronze medal, I think weβd all declare victory.β
While also appearing on the SEC-focused βPaul Finebaum Show,β Robbins said heβs always been βvery, very confident we would get a dealβ and that βI donβt know exactly when, but I would say itβs a matter of weeks.β
They were the sort of uncertain answers that have long been common around the Pac-12, which has been fighting for its life since UCLA and USC announced nearly a year ago they were taking off for the Big Ten in 2024.
More questions, and maybe more uncertain answers, will be posed Thursday, when Robbins and the UAβs DC Center hosts a summit called βThe Future of College Athletics.β
The event actually began Wednesday with a Capitol Hill reception with some elected officials and staff, and it will continue Thursday with panels to discuss ever-evolving trends in NIL, the transfer portal and, of course, conference realignment.
A discussion entitled βWhatβs really driving conference realignmentβ is scheduled to include SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Wasserman executive Dean Jordan, while the opening discussion is simply called: βWhat comes next in the wild, wild west of college athletics?β
Robbins and NCAA president Charlie Baker are among the panelists scheduled for that one.
Before leaving for the summit in Washington, where college administrators have been lobbying for NIL-related guardrails, Robbins told the Star that the Wild West analogy is βabsolutely true.β
βI think what most people are hoping for is some national, either law or set of laws, that will govern this,β Robbins said. βI know that in our conference, weβre going to have a lot of legislators or at least their staffs. β¦ I think there will be a very good discussion and hope that there would be some legislation move forward by the end of the summer.β
Robbins said differing state laws are βcreating an uneven playing fieldβ in NIL, with some allowing schools to credit donors who give to collectives that pay athletes.
βI think the IRS is gonna have a lot to say about that,β Robbins said. βI donβt think you can pay into a deal with student-athletes and then get credit for giving to a non-for-profit entity. My understanding is that some of these collectives are going to seek (being) not-for-profit entities, but I think thereβs a lot to be done about how this is all going to work.β
Arizona has two main collectives: Arizona Assist, which specifically benefits menβs basketball players; and the Friends of Wilbur and Wilma, which focuses on football and other sports. Robbins said the money the UA-focused collectives are raising is βfairly smallβ compared with some others.
βWeβre competing with USC, which has a huge amount of money being paid to their players, all the teams in the SEC, the Big Ten, on and on and on,β Robbins said. βI think we were on this early. I think we did a good job of with our (Arizona) Edge program of educating students about what it means to have one of these deals in terms of financial planning and paying your taxes and looking at (a) contract.β
Robbinsβ concerns could be discussed during a panel entitled βNIL: What is the state of play?β That discussion is scheduled to include Walker Jones, the executive director of the Grove Collective, which benefits Ole Miss athletes, as well as UA womenβs basketball player Maya Nnaji.
Meanwhile, UA football coach Jedd Fisch and ACC commissioner James Phillips are scheduled to be on a panel discussing the transfer portal, whose popularity has picked up immensely in the NIL era.
Robbins said NIL has legalized what had already been going on in college sports.
βNow youβve got this quote-unquote βpay-for-playβ thing,β Robbins said. βI think thatβs still a gray area. Youβre not meant to do it to entice players to come to your university. Iβm finding it hard to believe that people arenβt doing that.β
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