Pac in, Pac out 

Just a few short months ago, fans of the University of Utah Utes were exhilarated. Their beloved football team had won its first-ever Pac-12 championship, landing a coveted berth in the Rose Bowl.

Other Utes sports teams were also finding new success. By the end of the 2021-22 season, Utah's programs had achieved one of their best overall seasons in 20 years. This was what everyone dreamed of when the mighty Pac-12, the so-called Conference of Champions, plucked the Utes from the middling Mountain West in 2011.

But flash forward to the summer of 2022, and University of Utah Athletics suddenly faces baffling uncertainty, with the Pac-12 losing glamour universities USC and UCLA to the Big Ten conference.

College sports—a vast money-making machine primarily dominated by football—is in the midst of a rapid consolidation. And many observers believe that when the dust ultimately settles, two mega-conferences—the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference, known as the SEC—will emerge dominant, gobbling up eyeballs, TV contracts, industry dollars and titles.

Where will that leave the Utes? The U, for now, remains in the weakened Pac-12, which may add a few new, less-prestigious members. Or perhaps Utah will reunite with its love-to-loathe rival Brigham Young University by joining the Big 12 or in a new conference formed through mergers.

Spence Checketts, a prominent voice in local sports radio for nearly two decades, says that this summer's new sense of conference precariousness is a "depressing reality" for Utes fans. "They just won the PAC-12—and now this?" he said.

The known—and potential—transitions might be a stomach punch, but this period in college sports also offers an opportunity to scrutinize the Utes' first decade in the Pac-12, and to examine the programs beyond men's football, the proverbial 800-pound gorilla.

A City Weekly analysis shows that most of the U's teams—despite recent successes—have generally struggled against the tougher competition of the PAC-12 when compared to the prior decade of Mountain West play.

Utah Athletics officials and players point out—and rightly so—that the ratio of wins to losses is an overly narrow criteria on which to judge a sports program's success. And several university teams are achieving victories with greater consistency in recent years.

They, and the school's fans, are hopeful that with a challenging decade behind them, the Utes have built a strong foundation for success—in whatever comes next.

Scoreboard Stats
Checketts currently hosts The Drive With Spence Checketts on ESPN 700. It's his job to take the pulse of the local fan, and he said he's hearing "a tremendous amount of worry and anxiety" from the Utes sports community.

Diehard fans could barely enjoy their recent Rose Bowl berth before the Big Ten's poaching of USC and UCLA fired a flaming arrow into the middle of their conference. The Utes again find themselves on uncertain footing, with the looming possibility of digressing back to a lower level of athletic competition.

"If [Utah] football will now be playing San Diego State instead of USC, that's a big step in the wrong direction," Checketts said.

Fans were in no way pessimistic a decade ago when the long-held dream of joining the Pac-12 became a reality. Michael Lewis, a sportswriter at The Salt Lake Tribune for nearly 20 years, covered the Utes then. He recalls "unanimous approval" of Utah joining the West Coast's most celebrated teams and programs.

And the step up in travel destinations didn't hurt, either. Supporters were itching to see college football games in the impressive stadiums of Los Angeles and Seattle, a marked improvement from the likes of Laramie and Fort Collins.

Athletes, too, were encouraged by their new conference digs, Lewis said, once they began to visit the best programs in California and beyond. "They were excited to play in places that felt big-time," Lewis said. "You're at this world-class softball complex or diving facility, and you think, 'You have to be good to be here.'"

Lewis wrote several prescient Tribune stories warning that the path might not be easy, even as the athletes were enjoying their surroundings. The Conference of Champions had won more national titles than any other, with schools such as Stanford, USC and UCLA dominating sports like men's track, tennis and volleyball.

"The Utes are basically the small-town tourist stepping into the big city for the first time," Lewis wrote in May of 2011, "thrilled and awe-struck at the chaotic excitement of it all, yet also slowly realizing that—whoa—they might not be navigating their way across town as easily as they once did."

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The Utes currently participate in 19 varsity sports, but many cannot be neatly compared across the Mountain West and Pac-12 eras. Women's beach volleyball and men's lacrosse have only recently launched their programs and, in other sports, athletes may compete individually or in tournaments, not necessarily in head-to-head team matches against other schools. This includes men's and women's tennis, men's and women's swimming and diving; women's track and field (indoor and outdoor), women's cross-country and men's golf.

Two other sports programs have unquestionably thrived at the University of Utah in both the Mountain West and PAC-12 eras. Those programs are women's gymnastics and men's and women's skiing, which are regularly ranked among the best in the country.

University of Utah skiers have won four national titles in just the past decade and Utah gymnastics—#GoRedRocks!—is consistently among the Top 5 programs in the U.S. Conference affiliation has had no clear effect on the ongoing success of these sports.

This leaves seven sports that can be compared easily over time. In the first era—from the 2000-01 season through 2010-11—these Utes teams competed in the Mountain West Conference. In the second era—from 2011-12 through the present—these programs have been in the Pac-12.

Those seven sports are football; men's and women's basketball; baseball; softball; women's soccer; and women's volleyball. These are the classic American team sports, played across the country.

How have those Utah programs fared since joining the Pac-12? Not great.

Six of the seven programs saw worse overall records after the realignment. And when looking specifically at in-conference performance, all seven Utes teams are winning less since the move to the Pac-12. [See graphic on page 17 for more detail.]

In the Mountain West era, these programs won an average 61% of their games. During the first decade of Pac-12 play, they won 52% of the time.

When it comes to in-conference records, the differences are even starker. The Utes won 63% of games against Mountain West teams from 2000 to 2011. Since then, against the Pac-12, Utes teams are only winning 42% of matches.

Those programs, as they warily eyed their new rivals, knew they would struggle in the conference at first, then-athletic director Chris Hill told the Tribune. But as the effect of more money, better facilities and stronger recruiting began to emerge, the programs hoped to be able compete with anyone.

"Everything you hear—week after week after week in every sport—is it's going to be tough," Hill said at the time.

Big Games, Bright Lights
Many optimistic predictions have certainly come true. From just 2010 to 2015, Utes sports more than doubled their revenue, from $30.9 million to more than $62 million, according to press reports. The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc with budgets, but income has reportedly continued to grow, projected to be well above $100 million this coming season.

Those dollars have resulted in real improvements for Utes athletes and teams, officials say. They point to investments in coaching, nutrition, mental health, conditioning, facilities, sports medicine and academics.

Utah Athletics officials are confident that their programs are on the rise after predictable, early struggles. And one handy, third-party metric backing up that claim is the Learfield Directors' Cup, an effort to measure schoolwide athletics success by awarding points to colleges and universities for their postseason success in every sport—from football to fencing.

Last year, the Utes achieved its highest Learfield finish in more than 20 years, ranking 44th in the nation. Eight Utah sports programs made it to NCAA postseason tournaments, the most since joining the Pac-12.

One program on the rise appears to be women's basketball. By wins and losses, the team had a difficult decade, a significant step back from the program's earlier successes. The Utes made their postseason tourney a dozen times between 1995 and 2011, but missed it every year during their first decade in the new era.

But last year, Utah's women's basketball team jelled late in the season before going on to compete in their first Pac-12 championship game and landing a berth in the NCAA tournament, where the Utes advanced to the second round. Freshman Gianna Kneepkens was named the best freshman in the Pac-12, and several other underclasswomen played big minutes.

Daneesha Provo grew up in Nova Scotia before moving to the states as a teenager to pursue her dream of playing Division 1 college basketball. She caught the eye of scouts due to her success on Canada's junior national teams and began her college career at Clemson, before transferring to the U, where she played from 2015 to 2020.

"I heard the U loved Canadians," Provo said, laughing. "It was true!"

The U's women's basketball team lost more games than it won during Provo's tenure. However, Provo said she and her family had a "great experience," even if the team didn't always get the result they had hoped for.

"Playing in the Pac-12, everyone was watching," Provo said. "It felt like every team was ranked. Every team was a tough battle. Every WNBA team is watching you. You get a chance to get your name on the board and get recognized."

Lewis, the former Tribune writer, agreed that it's important not to reduce a program's value or an athlete's experience to just a win-loss record. "A giant assumption on the part of the public is that athletes are there to win and nothing else in the universe matters," he said.

All athletes want to win, of course, but they are also motivated to play against better opponents so they can improve their own skills and catch the eye of scouts. And while most NCAA athletes end their competitive careers in college, that's not true of all. Many hope to compete for a spot on a national team, competing in the Olympics or for other cups. Some hope to play professionally in sports with pro leagues.

Provo says her playing days are "not done yet." Now 26, she's recovering from a serious Achilles injury last year and hoping to soon compete for spots on her national team or, perhaps, with a pro club in Europe.

'Pageantry and Cynicism'
For years, Utah was seen as a basketball school, more so than a football one. But as Utah football has comparatively thrived under Coach Kyle Whittingham, its once-mighty men's hoops squad has floundered.

Men's basketball often won berths in the NCAA tournament—aka March Madness or the Big Dance—and Utes players repeatedly went on to shine in the NBA. The team reached its peak in the 1990s and early-2000s, when Coach Rick Majerus and stars Keith Van Horn, Andre Miller and Andrew Bogut led their teams to a dozen NCAA tourney berths in a 15-year stretch.

Since the Utes joined the Pac-12, they have been invited to March Madness just twice in 11 years. Several squads in the mid-2010s (led by future NBA players Delon Wright, Jakob Poeltl and Kyle Kuzma) did well, but since then, the program has again slumped.

Checketts says it's because the Utes have not been able to find the right coach, like the program had during its salad days of the never-dull, oft-controversial Majerus. "They've not been able to find the next Rick," he said. "It's that simple."

If the Utes do ultimately join the Big 12, or some version of that conference, it would offer tough new competition in men's hoops. Kansas is one of the country's strongest basketball programs and many other conference members are often successful at the sport's highest levels (Baylor, for example, won the national title in 2021).

Despite the mixed track record of the last decade, Checketts says that Utes fans remain steadfast supporters of University of Utah Athletics, buoyed as ever by football and its winning streak, bowl game appearances and glamorous opponents.

"The [fans'] attitude seems to be, 'We love our football team so much that we're not worried about our basketball team,'" Checketts said.

A move to the Big 12 would also reunite the University of Utah with BYU. Some Utes fans would relish an opportunity to ensure competition with the Cougars every single year, while others prefer fewer head-to-head contests, knowing that their beloved Utes would otherwise be competing in a superior environment.

Whatever is next, college sports are sure to remain a quintessential American institution—a beloved, yet deeply flawed tradition increasingly ruled by the almighty dollar. And we're talking about real money.

The U.S. Department of Education recently estimated that college sports bring in more than $14 billion in revenue each year—more than any individual professional sports organization except the National Football League.

It's hard to find too many fans excited by the shift toward mega-conferences. Conference realignments have sliced through traditional and regional rivalries and every team not currently in the SEC or Big 10—the Utes appear unlikely to join either—worry they will be unable to compete at the sport's highest levels, effectively exiled to the kids table of college sports.

It also seems unlikely that the conference officials ultimately making decisions about the future of college sports will prioritize the so-called "nonrevenue" programs, including most women's sports.

The NCAA knows that it privileges football and men's basketball over all other programs. The massive nonprofit organization—which governs more than a half-million athletes across the country—recently hired an independent law firm to investigate gender equity issues.

Its conclusion, released this year, was surprisingly clear and damning: Women's teams get the short end of the stick in the NCAA because the entire institution is wired from top to bottom to milk as much money as possible out of top-dollar sports, primarily football and men's basketball.

The dollars generated by those sports are so critical that the executives and administrators who make the biggest decisions feel forced to always reach for the biggest check. And by definition, that choice ignores how other activities and sports fare.

The only real "winners'' in this consolidation trend of college sports appear to be broadcasters, eager to lure the greatest number of eyeballs possible. But many fans have struggled to stay connected to college sports as it grows increasingly commodified, moving farther and farther away from its beloved traditions and local connections to students and alumni.

"It's all there!" Lewis said. "The crisp fall air and the marching bands and the tailgating. And, yes, at the highest levels, a system that chews people up. The pageantry and the cynicism, both real, both present."

Checketts may be a mainstay of local sports radio—not typically the mouthpiece of the American left—but even he sounds like a Marxist when he talks about college sports. "It's a sweatshop built on the backs of young men and women who are not paid," he said. "All this system does is to line the pockets of the old men in charge."

The Utes future, Checketts fears, is in the hands of individuals who have a single, depressing focus. "They care about one question—how much money can your market generate?" Lewis said. "That's all that matters: not how well your program has been run; not whether your kids graduate; not if fans are happy."