Pac-12 hires MGM Resorts executive George Kliavkoff as commissioner to replace Larry Scott
Kliavkoff comes to the Pac-12 from a role leading sports and entertainment for MGM Resorts International
Barrett Sallee (CBSSports.com) — The Pac-12 announced Thursday that George Kliavkoff has been named its new commissioner. Kliavkoff will take over the conference on July 1 after earning unanimous support from all 12 Pac-12 presidents and chancellors. He replaces Larry Scott, who was let go in January after serving in the role since 2009.
If you have never heard of Kliavkoff before, you’re not alone as he is a neophyte to the college athletics space. He comes to the Pac-12 after serving as the president of entertainment & sports for MGM Resorts International, a role he has held since 2018. He also served as a member on the WNBA’s Board of Governors, BetMGM and Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group during his time at MGM Resorts International.
“I am thrilled to be the Pac-12 Commissioner. This is a challenging time for intercollegiate athletics, but I believe these challenges also create significant opportunities,” Kliavkoff said. “I loved being a student-athlete, and I’m passionate about the doors that college sports and higher education open for young women and men. My job at the Pac-12 will be to help manage the balance between continued academic excellence, student-athlete well-being, and an even higher level of athletic achievement.”
Kliavkoff was previously the executive vice president of business with MLB Advanced Media from 2003-06, the chief digital officer at NBCUniversal from 2006-08, and a board member and interim CEO at Hulu from 2007-08. He was also previously a board member for A&E from 2013-16.
“At each step of his career, George has navigated complex, quickly changing environments and has been a successful consensus builder. George is a visionary leader with an extraordinary background as a pioneering sports, entertainment and digital media executive, and we are delighted and honored that he has agreed to become our next Pac-12 Commissioner,” said Oregon president Michael H. Schill, chair of the five-member search committee.
“He is the new prototype for a sports commissioner. While George has deep sports experience, his biggest asset is his ability to listen, connect with diverse groups, find common ground, collaborate and navigate an evolving landscape. We believe George’s overall skills and experience will become even more prevalent in college sports leadership.”
This is an interesting hire for the Pac-12. The popularity in sports gambling as increased over the last five years as several states have begun to allow sports betting. Kliavkoff’s ties to the industry certainly indicated that the conference could be taking a more proactive approach to its popularity. Coupled with his experience in the world of streaming and entertainment, that indicates the conference had a forward-thinking approach to this decision.
His hire comes a tumultuous time for the conference. Scott’s rollout of the regional Pac-12 Networks didn’t match that of the SEC, Big Ten and ACC. The Pac-12 also hasn’t placed a team in the College Football Playoff since 2016 (Washington) and has largely become irrelevant in major college athletics.
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The articles I have read about this new hiring states everything but the obvious. The PAC12 wants to back into the playoffs by getting the Power 5 conferences to expand the playoff teams. Nothing is ever said about the Presidents admitting they are not supporting their football programs at the same level the other conferences do so they will “legitimately” earn the right to get in. They want exceptions made. This is the real root of the problem that has affected anything to do with West Coast football.
@Jamaica Personally, I’m fine with a four-team playoff. It should be hard to get in there, and it places an emphasis on making every regular-season game count, which I like. But the truth is, regardless of my feelings, the playoffs need to be bigger because too much of college football is simply being left out at the top, and the game is starting to mean less to those that aren’t ALA, CLEM, OHIO ST, or OU fans. What’s bad for the fans is bad for business. Clearly, and for the sake of the game, the playoff needs to be expanded… Read more »
Carr will transfer to Indiana University for next season. I really wish him injury-free football and great success. He’s a great young man. ✌
I hope Carr doesn’t run into the same problem he had at USC, and end up playing second-fiddle on a team that runs the ball a lot. At least former USC RB coach Deland McCullough will be on the Hoosier staff to help Carr make the switch.
Pac-12 Track & Field Championships Final Results from USC’s Loker Stadium earlier today —
Men:
1 ORE 185 (14th consecutive title)
2 USC 137
3 UW 114
4 ASU 72
5 ARIZ 67
Women:
1 USC 162.5 (third consecutive title)
2 ORE 151
3 ASU 77
4 UW 77
5 CU 74.5
Final Update: #1 USC demolishes UCLA 18-9 to win the Women’s NCAA Water Polo title (most points ever scored by the winner by far in the championship game)!
Update: USC is running away from UCLA in the Women’s Water Polo NCAA title game 14-6.
Update: USC now leads 10-5 as the 3rd period begins.
USC leads UCLA 10-4 in the 2nd period for the Women’s Water Polo National Championship.
Greg Katz (WeAreSC.com) — Playoff expansion – Part 2: No doubt, USC president Dr. Carol Folt and AD Mike Bohn heard the new commish’s recent comments loud and clear, and it could impact how Folt and Bohn view the immediate future of Trojans football and basketball. Kliavkoff’s emphatic and rapid response to the inevitable expansion of the college football playoffs and the general college football community’s acknowledgment that USC has traditionally been the standard-bearer for West Coast football, now puts greater scrutiny than ever on both the future of Clay Helton, who has won just one conference title since 2016, and… Read more »
This is the most optimistic I have been about SC football in at least two years (maybe longer). It is obvious that Clay is not capable of producing championship caliber teams (IMO, he is the worst HC in Power 5). The Pac requires SC to field a championship caliber team to be competitive monetarily with the other Power 5 conferences. In fact, I would say that the financial success of the Pac is dependent on SC fielding championship caliber football teams and UCLA fielding championship caliber BB teams. Pretty obvious if you have a Pac 12 Commissioner whose goal is… Read more »
Actually Alan, fucla has only won 5 of the last 22 matchups.
And Brett Hundley has 3 of those five. The other two were the embarrassment of 2018 (I agree with Allen that the 2018 team was the worst SC football team in the last 50 years) and the 13-9 upset that cost SC a chance for four NC appearances in a row.
USC played so poorly in that 13-9 loss, it was very difficult to believe that team was a contender for anything, let alone actually beat MICH in the Rose Bowl 32-18.
Hundley was good, but Cade McNown was the worst to go up against, IMO. They both sure had USC’s number! Thank Goodness for the Curse of Cade! He left and USC basically took over!
This is one of my favorite USC football stats of all-time! So cool! 😎
The baby bruins have won just five matchups against the Trojans in the last 20 years.
The “Curse of Cade” lives!
I’ll give George K the benefit of the doubt as he surely faced some tough competition in securing the job. I will be cautious however, due to experience in my business career where a CEO came in with no experience in the specific business my company operated. I was the CFO and it was clear to me that the new CEO was going to bring in his own team so I left before I was shown the door. Before I did leave, the new CEO showed up in my office on his first day and asked me “Where is my… Read more »
Everything I have read about Kliavkoff leads me to believe he has what it takes to be the man to lead the Pac-12’s planning for this huge set of media rights negotiations that loom ahead. Of course, just because I haven’t read anything bad about him doesn’t mean his weaknesses don’t exist. But from what I’ve seen so far, I’m not bothered in the least that he doesn’t have a professional background in college athletics. Successful people can often cross over into different jobs with remarkable ease. Why? One reason is that they are often adaptable and quick studies of new… Read more »
Not to mention the fact that Scott has set the bar so low, he can’t help but to look great in comparison. I really hope he will turn out to be a star in that key managerial position.
I’ll be very interested to see how the Pac-12 Network develops. The programming there has been woefully inadequate and weak. This is just one area that Kliavkoff needs to revamp. This Pac-12 job is just a massive undertaking.
I think George’s success will be based on the quality of people he hires to work under him. It is obvious he can lead, now his toughest job is to get the right people with the talent to swing the Pac12 in the other direction. The previous idiot hired yes men who got way over paid and produced nothing, yet spent enormous amounts of money on essentially nothing. Of course the people who hire the commissioner need to have their stuff together to make sure the Pac12 mission gets accomplished. Not sure we have the minds that are able to… Read more »
Ryan Kartje (LAT) — “I want to be clear,” George Kliavkoff said. “We know where the bread is buttered. We’re focused on revenue sports and winning in men’s basketball and football.” Before even taking his first question, Kliavkoff made clear two paths he plans to pursue to make that happen. “I want to go on the record that the Pac-12 is in favor of the expansion of the College Football Playoffs … and the implementation of consistent guidelines for name, image and likeness,” he said. “We think that both CFP expansion and NIL [Name, Image and Likeness] legislation are good… Read more »
Four major points here. Pac 12 football and basketball have to be National Championship quality. I doubt Folt is opposed to that. Football play offs needs to be expanded, I like an 8 team format. Now the 2 big ones. The conference closely involve in NIL. Maybe as the defacto agent for players conference wide? Just a thought but if the conference is able to promote players conference wide, LA may not have the advantage over smaller markets, but who knows how this will play out. But a savvy commissioner could turn this to an advantage for the whole conference.… Read more »
I’m definitely ALL-IN on the hiring of George Kliavkoff as the Pac-12’s new Commissioner. The world is always changing rapidly, whether I perceive that to be the case or not. Kliavkoff seems to me to be a very forward-thinking smart guy who will be more apt to think “outside the box” as they say. I think these times in college athletics call for this type of approach. The Pac-12 has been negatively affected for many years by the obtuse “my way or the highway” approach of egotistical, self-absorbed Larry Scott, who just wasn’t that smart and was never capable of… Read more »
Let me translate this for UCLA and Stanford fans: Your days of strutting around because you racked up titles in women’s soccer and women’s racquetball are OVER!!!
But I love those four Women’s Beach VB titles, all since 2015. Great sport to watch, at least IMHO.
As I always say, best uniforms in sports.
Coming in with an open mind. Good thing.
USC lands Auburn safety transfer Chris Thompson Jr. Ryan Young (TrojanSports.com) — USC continues to mine the NCAA transfer portal for top talent, picking up a commitment from former Auburn safety Chris Thompson Jr. on Thursday. Thompson, who was a 4-star Rivals250 prospect in the 2020 recruiting class out of Duncanville, Texas, had strongly considered the Trojans coming out of high school and took an official visit two summers ago before committing to Auburn. Thompson played in six games as a freshman this past fall, totaling 8 tackles in limited action. Auburn replaced its coaching staff after the season, which… Read more »
Jon Wilner — “In his first media session, Kliavkoff said what Larry Scott never did (that I can recall): ‘We know where our bread is buttered. We’re focused on the revenue sports.'”
That is GREAT news. Given the expensive recent hire at the revenue losing SC WBB program, it is doubly good news. The Commissioner’s office should push both SC and UCLA to upgrade football staff (bye bye Clay and Chip). He needs both schools to have nationally competitive Football programs. I trust he will make that message loud and clear to Madame Chairman.
Wow, just had a flash, imagine USC and UCLA meet in the Rose Bowl for 1st place in the Pac 12 South, ranked 1 and 2 in the polls? The winner plays UW or U of O, ranked in the top 10, for the Pac 12 Championship and ranked #1 in the playoffs.
Boy is that a long way off!
From around the web, here’s what one person had to say about George Kliavkoff: “Have broken bread with him — not a bad person. 1000 times the human being Larry Scott is. “He def lacks the administrative experience as far as running what is supposed to be a Not For Profit Org. Look for hefty outlays to consultants that will run day-to-day operations. “Now strategic planning, A+ hire. Lack of Administrative experience is scary. Increasing digital footprint, B hire. Digital MA and Digital negotiations, A hire. “My hopes for a major tv deal with ESPN or Fox is inked, fading… Read more »
From both Wilner and the above, his greatest asset is he is not Larry Scott. Wilner is non-committal on the hire. For me, I think the comment on lack of administrative experience in this field (sports in general and collegiate sports in particular) is my largest concern. I follow the “Outliers” model – it takes 10,000 hours of experience to be competent in a field. My personal experience was it took me 10,000 hours to learn to be a lawyer and then another 10,000 hours to learn the financial services area of law. If the same rule applies to Kliavkoff,… Read more »
Jon Wilner (OC Register) — The Pac-12 has gone outside the box in order to get back on track, hiring MGM executive George Kliavkoff as its next commissioner. Kliavkoff, 54, oversees MGM’s sports and entertainment division and has partnered with the Pac-12 on events in Las Vegas. He is also a board member at BetMGM. While working for Major League Baseball in the early 2000s, he oversaw the development of Baseball Advanced Media (BAM), the highly successful internet arm of MLB. “One of the most creative thinkers I know,” a conference source said of Kliavkoff. “He has a great media… Read more »
THUC NHI NGUYEN (LAT) — So you have no idea who George Kliavkoff is. You’re not alone. The new Pac-12 commissioner, who was appointed Thursday, has almost no experience in college sports, but sports fans, especially in the Pac-12, are familiar with his business. Among his wide-reaching responsibilities as MGM Resorts president of entertainment and sports, Kliavkoff oversaw operations for venues such as T-Mobile Arena and Mandalay Bay Events Center, which hosted the Pac-12 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, respectively, this year. He sat on the board of BetMGM, one of the three largest U.S. sports betting companies. Until MGM sold… Read more »
Yeah, but can he play tennis? I don’t know him but I was thinking about the gambling angle. I’ll bet there is a change in the area soon. Does anyone suppose he can make the PAC 12 Network better? I pay for it, but I don’t know why. I watch maybe two events per season.
I buy the Pac-12 Network as well. Way too much rerun stuff and redundancy. It needs to be improved dramatically with many more live events, among other things.
I will be interested to see how Jon Wilner and Arledge reports on this hire. Again, it seems very odd to me. It would appear that he is the type one would hire as a consultant rather than a CEO. He has zero experience with collegiate sports, zero experience in dealing with academic institutions, zero experience in managing any type of sports enterprise, zero experience negotiating sports media rights, and zero experience in football or basketball management. On the surface, it looks like he will have a significant learning curve. But, I defer to Wilner, who is far more knowledgeable… Read more »
Sometimes, experience is over-rated, or highly misleading. I sure never thought as a young lawyer that my very enjoyable lifelong career would be as a niche sports magazine publisher that survived on subscriptions, not advertising.
I think George Kliavkoff sounds like he’s incredibly experienced and well-regarded. Great hire IMO.
Until today I had no idea who Klivakoff was. Based on his resume and interview I am impressed. A few things stuck out to me. 1) he mentioned football, coaches & AD’s a lot. In 15 minutes he demonstrated more awareness than Scott did in his entire tenure. 2) He wasn’t afraid to say he didn’t know something. In my life experience people who can admit they don’t know everything are confident in themselves. And those people are good leaders & coworkers.
Ditto on the positive of admitting to what one doesn’t know. Seen very successful senior execs with that attribute.
I think Kliavkoff will be very good based on what I have read so far. To say that his main strength is that he is not Larry Scott doesn’t give the 54-year old MGM executive nearly the credit that I do.
I’m not Larry Scott either, but that doesn’t tell you diddly squat about my strengths and weaknesses.
Ha! After I hit send I realized I gave George K credit for not being Scott. I should have chosen my words better. I should have known you would catch me Allen.
Hah! Don’t blame yourself #Trojan5. I saw this narrowization of George K a few other places too.
I think this guy faced off some very stiff competition for this prestigious, high-paying, influential job, and its title. He must be pretty impressive IMO.
However, I tend to look at many new hires through too rosy a pair of red glasses.
I have to say Allen, it is an asset not being Larry Scott. Just like it is an asset not being Clay Helton.
Given no choice, with a gun at my head, I’d rather be Clay Helton — Scott was a real clueless dolt IMHO.
I have a hard time saying Helton has a clue I think we can all say we would not want to be either of them.
They’re both diabolical I would say, but Clay hides behind his “faith, family and football” schtick, which makes him all the more aggravating to me. Both have laughed their way to the bank, our public protestations notwithstanding.
Always an asset to know what you don’t know, then admit it. Unlike CH.
Consider the fact that his lack of these institutional experiences may bring certain areas into new light. What he needs is the people working for him to be savy, take their advice and expertise and make sound decisions. Something Scott never did.