Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould on rebuilding a conference from scratch: ‘This is about transformation, not transaction’

When Teresa Gould was asked to take over as Pac-12 commissioner in March 2024, the conference was three months from losing 10 member institutions to realignment. Friends and colleagues had a blunt assessment.

“They often say, ‘Why the heck did you decide to captain the Titanic?’” Gould said on the Big Business on Campus podcast, powered by Playfly Sports. “Like, people have said that to me.”

Her answer was rooted in student athletes at Oregon State and Washington State who she felt deserved someone in the foxhole.

“What I saw were two storied programs and a group of student athletes on these campuses that quite candidly deserve to have somebody step in and fight on their behalf,” Gould said. “These student athletes on these two campuses deserve to have somebody who’s going to get in the trenches and fight to forge a successful path forward for them.”

With the new Pac-12 set to launch this summer with nine member institutions, Gould is focused on making sure nobody underestimates the conference again.

Old Pac-12 vs. new Pac-12

Gould had a front-row seat to the old Pac-12’s collapse as deputy commissioner. She says the lessons are shaping everything about the rebuild.

“As a brand, I feel like historically the Pac-12 played a lot of defense,” Gould said. “That’s not who we’re going to be as a new Pac-12. We want to be on offense. We want to be proactive. We want to always be thinking about what is coming next.”

That offensive posture extends to the conference’s identity. Gould describes the new Pac-12 as a place “where tradition meets transformation” — and she’s deliberate about drawing the line between eras.

Asked whether the conference would continue using its historic “Conference of Champions” moniker, Gould was direct.

“We intend to be champions, Corey. We intend to continue to be champions, but Conference of Champions will not be an ongoing moniker in the new Pac-12,” she said. “We’re very, very proud of that legacy and history, and we’ll embrace that. But it is a new Pac-12.”

Pac-12 Enterprises: the asset nobody else has

The conference’s most significant competitive advantage may be the asset Oregon State and Washington State fought to keep when everything else was falling apart: Pac-12 Enterprises.

The for-profit entity — rebuilt from the infrastructure of the old Pac-12 Networks — is a production facility and technology hub that no other conference in the country can match. It produces all of the Pac-12’s live games for media rights partners and sells production services to outside clients in professional and college sports.

“There’s no other conference in the country that owns and operates a for-profit entity like Pac-12 Enterprises,” Gould said. “I believe in this time period where content is everything, where storytelling is everything, having a production facility with that kind of capacity and that kind of technology will benefit us not just from a storytelling perspective, but from a revenue generation perspective.”

Gould was blunt about the financial realities facing conferences across college athletics.

“Conferences can’t live off of media rights anymore,” she said. “They just can’t.”

The conference also recently announced a data rights and integrity partnership with Genius Sports — a conference-level deal covering real-time game data for gaming operators, with revenue flowing back to the league. Gould said the Pac-12 went further than what other conferences have done in the data rights space and sees significant growth potential where fan engagement, live events and sports betting intersect.

“I think we see a ton of potential in that space,” she said.

Beyond Genius, the Pac-12 is exploring jersey patch sponsorships at the conference level, conference entitlement deals, ticketing and merchandising strategy and 110 years of archived video as a licensable revenue stream.

“We have the benefit of 110 years of archived video to leverage as a revenue stream that is incredibly valuable because of the history and legacy of this league,” Gould said.

Media strategy: linear first, digital on deck

The Pac-12’s media rights deals with CBS, CW and USA Network are all linear partnerships — a deliberate choice, Gould said, driven by accessibility.

“It was critically important to us that our games, particularly our football and basketball, be easily accessible to fans across the entire country,” she said.

But Gould also signaled that a direct-to-consumer digital offering is coming. The conference still controls some men’s and women’s basketball inventory and most Olympic sport content.

“You can expect because of Pac-12 Enterprises for us to do some things where we can directly engage with our audiences and really leverage that direct relationship with our fans,” Gould said. “Fan engagement is an important strategic priority for us moving forward.”

Expansion stays on the table

With seven new members joining Oregon State and Washington State, Gould says the conference got who it wanted. But the door stays open.

“There will always be a seat at the table for an additional member or members that add value to what we’re doing,” Gould said. “And the add value part is more than just economic value. That’s certainly part of it, but it’s competitive value. It’s brand relevance. It’s mindset alignment.”

Asked whether the musical chairs at the Group of 6 level have stabilized, Gould was candid.

“I don’t know that the musical chairs will ever stop,” she said. “Stability in this business is a thing of the past at all levels.”

That includes member retention. Gould acknowledged that keeping current members happy — including founding members Oregon State and Washington State — is a direct lesson from watching the old conference fracture from the inside.

“Retention of your current members and making sure that we are building a new Pac-12 as a home that meets the needs of our student athletes and our member institutions will always be a priority,” she said.

Geography still matters. Gould was clear that the West Coast identity remains central to the conference’s vision.

“The West Coast needs a preeminent league, one league in the West that’s kind of rooted and anchored in the West and captivates the fan interest of the West Coast again,” she said. “I certainly think that’s a space we aspire to fill.”

Startup mentality — and the flex schedule to prove it

Gould rejects comparisons to legacy conferences. The new Pac-12, she says, is a startup — and she means it literally.

“We wound everything down on June 30th of 2024,” Gould said. “We’re rebuilding a team, rebuilding an infrastructure. We don’t have these fancy San Francisco offices anymore.”

The conference has leaned into that identity, encouraging what Gould calls “thinking wrong” — challenging assumptions about how conferences have operated for a century.

“It’s about trying to find a better path forward to serve student athletes and serve our members,” she said.

The flex week football schedule — a first-of-its-kind format no conference had attempted before — is a direct product of that mindset.

‘In a lane of our own’

Despite launching with schools from the Group of 6, Gould refuses to identify a competitor league or accept any label.

“We feel like we’re in a lane of our own,” she said. “When you look at the competitive metrics of football, basketball since the NIL era and the transfer portal came online, the metrics show that we continue to be a top five league.”

She said the conference doesn’t spend time comparing itself to other leagues.

“We’re very focused on building what we need to build to be who we want to be and achieve what we want to achieve,” she said.

CFP expansion, the portal and what Washington wants

On the College Football Playoff, Gould referenced ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips — someone she said she has “an incredible amount of admiration and respect for.”

“He said something to the effect of if you look at team number 13, 14, 15 or 16 and those are teams that have the ability to win a national championship and compete for a national championship, they shouldn’t be left out of the playoff,” Gould said. “And I think he’s right.”

She endorsed a format that “allows any program and any conference that wants to invest and compete to have access and opportunity” — a position that aligns directly with Group of 6 conference interests.

On the transfer portal, Gould supports student-athlete movement but said the current system needs guardrails.

“It really has undermined the foundation of what we’re doing in college athletics both for them personally and what we’re doing as an industry,” she said.

And on President Trump’s executive order addressing college sports, Gould welcomed the attention.

“I very much appreciate the fact that he’s showing leadership in this space because I think it is absolutely critical,” she said. “We need to get something done and we need to get something done soon.”

The will to survive

Asked what people will look back on in five years and realize they missed about the Pac-12, Gould paused before answering.

“Maybe our will,” she said. “There are a lot of people in the rooms that I walk into that didn’t think we would be sitting here right now. There are a lot of people in those rooms that probably didn’t want us to be sitting here right now.”

She credited the leadership at Oregon State and Washington State and the seven incoming presidents and athletic directors who saw value in the brand.

“We’re here, and we have this incredible historic opportunity to do something really special,” Gould said. “And I think there’s a lot of people in our industry that underestimated our will to get that done.”

The full interview is available on the Big Business on Campus podcast by JohnWallStreet, powered by Playfly Sports.