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PAC-12 MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAY

October 21, 2016

Larry Scott

San Francisco, California

COMMISSIONER LARRY SCOTT: Good morning, everyone. Delighted to see the room full. So many of you here and for those of you who were here for Pac-12 Women's Basketball yesterday, that was great to have you here as well, and get two days of great access to our coaches and players. So I'm delighted to kick off today's activities by sharing with you some updates on the conference and previewing the upcoming season.

Pac-12 Men's Basketball is enjoying a great trajectory right now. It's been fun to be at these Media Days the last few years and see the steady progress of our conference on the journey back to where we belong as one of the elite conferences in the country. In fact, the Pac-12 is the winningest conference in the country with 16 NCAA titles. We share that. So it's very proud heritage and tradition of basketball in this conference, a great legacy that we're building upon.

So last year was our deepest year ever, having seven teams make it to the NCAA Tournament. It's the most we've ever had, and we were tied with two other conferences for having the most teams from a conference in the country.

It is the third season in a row that we had a team make the Elite Eight. We're hoping that this is a great foundation to build upon.

Part of that foundation is the star power that comes through this conference, and a great barometer of that is of course what we then see in the NBA. Pac-12 has had 28 first-round draft choices over the last four years, and just this last year, three lottery picks. For those that watch the NBA Finals, that watch the Olympics certainly would have seen great representation from Pac-12 student-athletes with seven players in the NBA Finals from the Pac-12. Players like Klay Thompson, Kevin Love, Andre Iguodala. So in terms of the depth, in terms of the elite caliber of the student-athletes coming through the conference, we're in a great spot to build upon.

The bedrock of this success is, of course, our coaches who we'll hear from today. We've had great continuity in our coaches' group right now. 11 of our 12 coaches are returning. It's a pleasure today, of course, to welcome our newcomer from Stanford, Jerod Haase, who is going to build upon this great legacy we have of Pac-12 coaches.

One of the things we really concentrate on as a conference, our schools have concentrated on is competing against the best and having compelling and attractive non-conference schedule before the juggernaut which is the Pac-12 Conference schedule.

This year, our teams in the non-conference season are going to be playing 26 schools that were in the NCAA Tournament last year. We've got teams like Butler, Xavier, Virginia. And a lot of these games are neutral-site games or away games, showing the toughest test that you can have. This is going to be another prolific year for the conference in terms of the exposure that we're able to give for our programs.

We're going to have well over 220 games telecast on television, 70 of which will be on ESPN, FOX, and CBS. Over 150 games will be telecast by the Pac-12 Networks, including many, many hours of the studio shows and other programming that you'll see.

We've come to the Pac-12 Networks, some exciting news to share with you today. Happy to announce that the Pac-12 Networks is now on charter in Los Angeles and Dallas through their new Spectrum service. This is great news for many of our fans in L.A. that have been with Charter previously that are now able to get the Pac-12 Networks through Spectrum.

Today's announcement about Charter and Spectrum follows a series of other announcements we've made over the last few weeks about expanded distribution and coverage for the Pac-12 Networks throughout the country, which is great for our fans to see this moving in the right direction, especially if technology is transforming the world of distribution, providing many more opportunities for us to get the great content that's on the Pac-12 Network out to our fans.

A little about this season, for the Pac-12 it's going to start in a very exciting way, and it's going to end in a new and very exciting way. The start of the season will happen for the second year in a row in Shanghai, China, where we have Stanford playing against Harvard for the opening tipoff game. It will be broadcast live on ESPN back here in the U.S. It's an amazing, transformative, life and educational experience. For our student-athletes, highlights what you need to think about the Pac-12 and universities and our global footprint, and we are seeing very steady and exciting progress in terms of our activities overseas in China and beyond.

The season is going to then end again in Las Vegas but at a new venue, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Newest, state-of-the-art, indoor venue in this country. It's going to be really exciting step forward for our fans, for our student-athletes and other media that are able to attend the event.

For those that haven't been to T-Mobile Arena yet, I think you'll be very impressed. As the conference continues to elevate and get deeper, our games are more exciting and compelling than ever. We're going to be one of the most exciting venues for basketball in the country.

But the attention of the college basketball world is going to stay west after that. For the first time in a while the conference is involved in hosting the NCAA West Regional, which is going to be right here in San Jose. Of course we've got the Final Four back out west, in Phoenix, at the end of the year. Arizona State's going to be involved in co-sponsoring. So I believe it's going to be a very, very exciting year for Pac-12 men's basketball. The attention of the country is very much going to be focused west in the postseason. And I want to thank you all for not only being here today, but for following the Pac-12 throughout the year and bringing attention to the great things happening in this conference.

Q. I saw this morning that there is something new with DIRECTV, and after reading it I was even more confused than when I started. Can you maybe break it down a little simpler with us?
COMMISSIONER LARRY SCOTT: I'm not sure.

Q. John Werner reported it. You haven't seen that? Is there anything new about DIRECTV?
COMMISSIONER LARRY SCOTT: No news today about DIRECTV. What we've announced in the last few weeks -- and there is a little confusion because there's been a lot of activity and positive momentum in terms of Pac-12 distribution. Just in the last month, or at least in the football season, we've announced for the first time Pac-12 Networks is carried by Frontier in the L.A. market, which bought Verizon. So all of the former Verizon FIOS customers in the L.A. market are, one, getting the Pac-12 Networks now, are getting the Pac-12 Networks. We've announced last week I think it was that we've extended with Dish, one of the largest satellite companies in the country, an extension of our agreement through 2024, including them adding us to their Expanded Basic tier in the rest of the country, adding what is estimated to be about 4 million new households.

We announced in the last couple of weeks our first what's called over-the-top deal with Sling TV, which is the first of several I think you'll see us do. But what's significant about Sling is that regardless of who your cable or satellite company is, you can sign up for this app that will give you access to the Pac-12 Network and other networks for approximately $25 a month. You can start wherever you want, so you're not tethered to your cable or satellite provider if you want to get the Pac-12 Networks for anyone, anywhere in the country. That's an internet connection or telephone connection that can access the 150 men's basketball games.

The other thing we've announced since the start of the season is that the Pac-12 national network is now going to be covered on Expanded Basic in HD, when it's with Comcast, Cox, something that's referred to as The Flip, which is great news for our fans. Means that every football game, every men's basketball game for customers with Comcast and Cox are going to be able to get in HD on Expanded Basic. For the first time we're announcing here, just a few minutes ago, that Charter, one of the largest cable companies in the country and certainly the largest in the L.A. market, they bought Time Warner. And as part of that, they've just launched us on their new Spectrum service in L.A. and Dallas. So all that has happened in the next month. So I can understand why you're confused. Kind of a steady flow of deals and momentum, which is encouraging and more to come.

Q. Some of the rule changes over recent years, and I know we'll talk to Bobby, too, but to clean up the game and make the game more exciting and increase scoring, what is your take on how some of that's been (indiscernible)?
COMMISSIONER LARRY SCOTT: I certainly encourage that directionally. I think there was a sense a couple years ago that our game was -- the college game was favoring the defensive players a little too much. We were losing some of the excitement, some of the flow, some of the athleticism, some of the scoring that fans seemed to want, and the difference between an NBA game and the collegiate game was going a little bit more stark in nature. So I think we've encouraged some of the rule changes that have freed up the flow of play and shifted the balance a little bit more to the offense.

Q. Just to follow up on yesterday. You mentioned being in discussions with your partners in China. Do you have an idea of when you would hope to decide on whether a team will start in China next year?
COMMISSIONER LARRY SCOTT: Yes, so what she's referring to is we initially announced a two-year agreement to play our opening tipoff game in Shanghai, working with one of China's leading companies, Alibaba, who is our presenting sponsor. It's telecast throughout China, and a lot of cultural activities around that. The opening tipoff game last year was University of Washington against Texas and this year is Stanford against Harvard, which will take place February 12 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai.

I expect that around the game this year in Shanghai we'll announce our plans for the future. We're in discussions with current partners, and others, about what next. It's going well. We've gotten good feedback, but I don't have anything for you today. But I expect by the game this year, we'll be able to talk about what's next on our China plan.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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