Pac-12 skips media days as rebuilt league passes on chance to own its relaunch
The Pac-12 is trying to come back at the same time it is trying to explain what it has become. That is why its media day decision deserves more than a shrug.
The conference will be the only FBS league not holding traditional football media days or an official preseason kickoff event this summer as it expands from two football members to eight. Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State are joining Oregon State and Washington State, giving the league a new football lineup after the old Pac-12 was gutted by realignment.
There is a practical defense of the decision. Media days cost money. They can become repetitive. Coaches rarely say anything surprising. Players are coached to avoid controversy. Most fans do not sit down and watch every press conference live. In a vacuum, skipping a traditional hotel-ballroom event would not be a major story.
But the Pac-12 is not in a normal offseason.
The league is not just preparing for football. It is relaunching a brand. It is trying to convince people this version of the Pac-12 is more than a Mountain West offshoot with Oregon State and Washington State attached. It is trying to sell Boise State as a headliner, San Diego State and Fresno State as regional football brands, Colorado State and Utah State as familiar western pieces, Texas State as a new footprint and Oregon State and Washington State as the bridge from the old conference to the new one.
That is a lot to explain, and a media day would have given the Pac-12 one controlled stage to start doing it.
The point of media days in 2026 is not breaking news. It is messaging. It is visibility. It is the one part of the offseason where a conference can put its commissioner, coaches and best players in front of reporters and say what the league is, what it is selling and why people should care before the games begin.
The Pac-12 needs that stage because its old standing no longer does the work by itself. The name still means something. The history still means something. The late-night windows, Rose Bowl memories and the conference’s place in college football history still carry weight. But the membership has changed. The media deal has changed. The national perception has changed. The Pac-12 cannot assume the sport will treat it like the old version because the name is still on the door.
The old Pac-12 had automatic relevance. It had USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Cal, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah. It had brands that created national discussion even in down years. It had a power-conference seat, a clear identity and decades of built-in awareness. The new Pac-12 has to build its argument almost from scratch.
That is why skipping media days feels like a missed chance.
Pac-12 senior vice president and deputy commissioner Rick Hart told Front Office Sports the league discussed holding an event but pointed to the cost. “Those are expensive,” Hart said.
He is right. They are. But this is the year when the Pac-12 should be spending to be seen. The league is fighting for oxygen in a crowded national landscape. The SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC already dominate the sport’s attention. The American will continue trying to position itself at the top of the Group of Six. The Mountain West still has its own case to make after losing several of its best-known programs.
The Pac-12 is entering that fight without a traditional preseason platform.
Maybe the league believes it can create more value with in-season promotional events. Maybe it believes the money is better spent elsewhere. Maybe it does not want a room full of reporters asking about media-rights revenue, expansion strategy, playoff positioning and whether the new Pac-12 should be viewed as power-adjacent or simply part of the Group of Six.
Those questions are not going away.
A media day would have let the conference answer them on its own turf. Avoiding the event gives the Pac-12 less control over how those questions get framed. It also leaves its coaches and players without the same preseason platform every other FBS league will have this month.
The Pac-12’s leadership can still meet with reporters in smaller settings. It can still do interviews. It can still produce its own content. It can still rely on individual schools to promote their programs. But none of that replaces the symbolism of the conference putting all eight football members in one place and presenting the new league as a unified product.
That presentation would have had value because the Pac-12 is still fighting basic questions about what it is.
Is it the clear top league outside the Power Four? Is it a rebuilt western conference with power-conference nostalgia but Group of Six reality? Is it a temporary structure waiting for more expansion? Is it a league trying to compete with the American for playoff access? Is it a better version of the Mountain West, or something meaningfully different?
Those questions sit over the relaunch. A media day would not have erased them, but it would have forced the league to answer with confidence.
Instead, the Pac-12 is asking the football to carry the relaunch by itself.
That may work if the product is strong enough. Boise State can still give the league a national contender. Oregon State and Washington State can still provide credibility. San Diego State and Fresno State can help deepen the top half. Colorado State, Utah State and Texas State can grow into stronger roles. If the league produces a College Football Playoff contender and several competitive teams, people will move on from July quickly.
Games still matter more than press conferences.
But the Pac-12 is in a perception fight before it gets into a football fight.
For a rebuilt league, preseason attention has real value. A media day could have introduced the new structure. It could have given Boise State, Oregon State and Washington State a shared stage. It could have put the new coaches and players in front of national and local reporters. It could have created content for the conference’s own platforms. It could have made the new Pac-12 feel more real before fall camp.
The timing is especially odd because the league has already shown it understands the value of being present during media season. In 2024, with only Oregon State and Washington State left, the Pac-12 held an informal “After Hours with the Beavs & Cougs” event in Las Vegas after Big 12 media days. It was not a traditional kickoff event, but it kept the conference visible when the league needed to remind people it was still alive.
Now the Pac-12 has more teams, more storylines and more reason to reintroduce itself. The conference is bigger than it was two years ago, but its preseason presence is smaller.
That is hard to square.
The Pac-12 is also operating under a media arrangement that puts more promotional pressure on the conference itself. Games on The CW, USA Network and CBS platforms may be accessible, but the league does not have the same built-in college football marketing machine that comes with ESPN or Fox. When a conference does not have as much automatic promotion from its media partners, it has to create more of its own.
Media days would have been part of that work.
They also would have helped the league reconnect the old brand to the new membership. The Pac-12’s greatest asset is still its name and history. The more the conference can put that brand in front of people next to its new programs, the easier it becomes to make the relaunch feel legitimate.
That brand connection is fragile because the new league is already asking fans to accept a different version of something familiar. Boise State is a strong football addition, but it is not USC or Oregon. San Diego State and Fresno State have history, but they do not recreate the old California footprint. Oregon State and Washington State carry the remaining Pac-12 connection, but they cannot carry the entire identity alone.
The league has to create new associations.
That requires repetition. It requires access. It requires controlled moments where fans see these programs under the same banner. A media day would have been the easiest offseason way to start that process.
The Pac-12 did not need to copy the SEC or Big Ten. It did not need a massive three-day production with every bell and whistle. It could have built something smaller and sharper. It could have held a one-day kickoff event. It could have staged a digital media day. It could have done a West Coast-focused content event built more for social media than hotel-ballroom tradition. It could have leaned into the “Pac-12 After Dark” idea and turned the relaunch into something different.
The choice did not have to be expensive tradition or nothing.
The Pac-12 chose closer to nothing.
That creates poor optics because the conference is trying to prove it is ambitious, stable and ready to matter again. Passing on the one event every other FBS league is using to promote itself does not help that argument. It makes the Pac-12 look quieter at a time when it should be louder.
There is a counterargument worth acknowledging. Once football starts, the media day decision may fade. If Boise State is in the playoff race, if Oregon State and Washington State remain competitive, if San Diego State bounces back and if the league produces strong television windows, nobody will spend October talking about a skipped July event. The sport has a short memory when games are good.
That is fair.
But the issue is not whether media days decide a season. They do not. The issue is whether the Pac-12 is using every available tool to sell its relaunch. For a conference trying to regain national relevance, passing on a preseason event removes one tool it could have controlled.
That is where the decision fits into a larger concern.
The Pac-12 has already faced criticism for missing on American Athletic Conference targets, settling for a different expansion group, building a media deal that lacks the same traditional college football platforms and changing pieces of its brand identity during a relaunch. Some of those criticisms may be overstated. Some may look less important once games begin. But together, they create a question about whether the league fully understands the position it is now in.
The old Pac-12 could act like a power conference because it was one. The new Pac-12 has to sell itself like a challenger.
There is a difference.
A challenger cannot rely on reputation alone. A challenger has to be aggressive. It has to court media attention. It has to give reporters reasons to talk about its teams. It has to explain why its champion should be viewed favorably against the American, Mountain West and other Group of Six contenders. It has to understand that perception will affect rankings, playoff conversation, recruiting and long-term value.
That does not mean the Pac-12 has to beg for attention. It means the league has to create it.
Media days are one of the few predictable moments when conferences can do that before the season. Every league gets its turn. Every coach gets asked about expectations. Every commissioner gets a chance to frame the year. Every conference creates a news cycle, even if it only lasts a day or two.
The Pac-12 opted out of that cycle.
That decision also places more pressure on the league’s top programs. Boise State now becomes even more important as the football face of the relaunch. Oregon State and Washington State have to prove they are more than survivors of the old structure. San Diego State and Fresno State have to show the jump from the Mountain West comes with a higher ceiling. Colorado State and Utah State have to avoid looking like filler. Texas State has to prove the geographic reach has a football payoff.
Those stories are worth telling before kickoff.
A media day would have helped create those introductions. It would have allowed the Pac-12 to explain why these eight football programs make sense together. It would have allowed the conference to turn the relaunch into something tangible instead of leaving it as a schedule graphic and a television package.
The conference may believe its in-season plan will do that better. Hart indicated the league could use the money that would have gone toward traditional media days on promotional events during the season. That approach may produce better content once games are being played. It may allow the Pac-12 to attach promotion to real matchups rather than offseason talking points.
But the preseason window is still valuable because it sets the frame.
By the time the season begins, the national conversation already has lanes. The SEC and Big Ten will dominate the playoff discussion. The Big 12 and ACC will fight for their own respect. The American will sell itself as the top Group of Six league. The Mountain West will try to prove it survived realignment. The Pac-12 needed its own moment to define where it fits before others define it for them.
It passed on that moment.
This is not a fatal mistake. It is not proof the relaunch will fail. It does not mean the Pac-12 lacks money, ambition or football quality. It does not erase the value of Boise State, Oregon State, Washington State or the other additions. The new league can still become the strongest non-power conference if the football supports the claim.
But relaunches are not only built on the field.
They are built through attention, access and repetition. They are built by making people hear the same message enough times that the new version starts to feel familiar. They are built by creating moments before the season, not waiting for the season to create every moment.
The Pac-12 had a chance to do that this summer.
It passed.
Maybe that decision fades once the games begin. Maybe the league’s champion makes the playoff conversation and the skipped media day becomes a forgotten July note. But for now, the move reflects a larger question around the Pac-12’s relaunch.
Does the conference understand how much work it still has to do to sell itself?
The old Pac-12 could afford to assume people were paying attention.
The new one cannot.
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