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An interview with:

COMMISSIONER LARRY SCOTT

THE MODERATOR: I'd like to introducePac-12 commissioner Larry Scott.

COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Good morning,everyone. As you can tell from the video, there'san awful lot of excitement about Pac-12 basketballthis year, a lot of great storylines.

Let me start by welcoming you to the Pac-12 offices, our new arena here. Also appreciateeverything you do to cover Pac-12 basketballduring the season.

I want to extend a special welcome tothree new coaches to our league, Cuonzo Martinfrom Cal, Ernie Kent from Washington State, andWayne Tinkle from Oregon State. It's going to bea lot of fun to see what these three great coachesbring to their programs, part of a lot of excitingstorylines we have this year.

I also enjoy welcoming ourstudent-athletes to this stage. It's fun to interact

with them. They don't get to do this very often.The student-athletes with us today are a greatexample of not only very talented basketballplayers, but what they do on their campuses. Wehave some of the best and brightest with us today.

I'd like to briefly discuss Pac-12 basketball,our outlook for the season, speak to you aboutsome of the off-court issues going on today, someof the milestones we're reaching as a conference.

Exciting year for the Pac-12. A lot ofmomentum in basketball. Each of the last twoyears, five and six teams, respectively, making theNCAA Tournament. The trajectory of theconference is going in just the right direction.

Of course, last season we had a recordeight teams with 20 wins. None of our teams hada losing record at home. The depth andcompetitiveness of this conference is really on therise.

Once making the tournament, we had a lotof success last year. Our teams that made theNCAA Tournament proved their worth highlighted

by Arizona, UCLA, and Stanford making the Sweet16, and of course Arizona making the Elite 8.

The success of Pac-12 basketball is goingto continue. Stocked with a lot of new talent, anindication of the talent in this Conference, the Pac-12 had the most NBA Draft choices this pastseason with nine, more than any other conference.It gives you a sense of the talent and depth at thislevel and the next level as well.

There's so much exciting basketball aheadof us. Last year, in addition to the strong regularseason, the depth of competition, we enjoyed a

great end of the Pac-12 regular season with ourPac-12 Men's Basketball Championship in LasVegas. It was the second year of a three-yearagreement.

We reached a new milestone last year withfour of the sessions being sold out, delighted withthe atmosphere for our student-athletes, ourprograms, our fans. That's set to continue. We'regoing to our third year of our agreement this yearand we'll be talking to our friends in Las Vegasabout the future.

This year, one of the new features isextending our relationship with New York Life that

came in as presenting sponsor for the men'sbasketball tournament last year. We've extendedour partnership and it's going to include thewomen's basketball tournament in Seattle, as well,which we're delighted with.

Everything we're able to do for ourstudent-athletes and fans around the tournamenthas a lot to do with the support we get from ourbroadcast partners and sponsors like New YorkLife.

Our broadcast partners are a critical factorin the success of the Pac-12. Not only do we havegreat coaches, improved facilities, great recruits,but more of the country is getting to see more Pac-12 basketball than they've ever seen before.

The exposure of Pac-12 men's basketballis really unprecedented. This year there will be 44games on the ESPN family of networks, 22 gameson FOX Networks, two games on CBS, and 147games on the Pac-12 Networks. Every men's

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basketball game held at one of our campuses isgoing to be telecast and available nationally.

In addition to the live broadcast, we havean unprecedented amount of studio programminggoing on around basketball, features, which iswhat our vision was. This would be the go-to placefor 360-degree coverage of our fans' favoriteteams. This year it's going to come to life with newfeature programming we're doing, taking a conceptthat's worked incredibly well in football, The Drive,behind the scenes look at our programs, oncampus, practice, behind the curtains type ofcoverage. We're extending that to the basketballseason this year. The Drive is a show that will gobehind the scenes with all 12 teams during theseason. The idea is to bring fans closer to theaction, get to know the coaches andstudent-athletes. We've gotten a great reaction tothis type of programming, which is really thehallmark of why the conference network exists and

the types of things that we can do.Another very interesting development this

past year was the first-ever Pac-12 men'sbasketball All-Star Team that went to China, underthe direction of Larry Krystkowiak. We had greatstudent-athletes from our schools play againstChinese university teams and professional teamsin China.

The student-athlete experience wasincredible. The sight-seeing they were able to doin Beijing and Shanghai, some of the other townsthey visited, was terrific. There was an academicdelegation that came with them, held high-level

meeting with academic administrators andgovernment officials over there. Our division forthe development of the Pac-12 brand, our schools'brand in China is really starting to develop.

The next big leap will involve basketball.In November 2015, we'll be the first league ever,professional or collegiate, to host a regular-seasongame in China when the University of Washingtontakes on the University of Texas for the openingtip-off game in November of 2015 in Shanghai.This is going to be a fantastic breakthrough eventthat we'll support with academic initiatives. Shouldbe an amazing experience for the student-athletes,

but a great opportunity for alumni and broadeningthe reach of our universities in China.Beyond what's happening on the court and

around the sport of basketball, a lot happening inintercollegiate athletics generally and specificallyaround reform. Recently, of course, fiveconferences have been granted autonomy topropose legislation as a group of five or individuallyin areas that would benefit student-athletes. This

is an opportunity that the Pac-12 is pursuing withgreat relish.

Our presidents put out a letter to ourcolleagues in the four largest conferences in springoutlining a new agenda for things we wanted to do.Now we have the opportunity to start acting onsome of those things. You would have seen thenotice we put out October 1st, the first date wecould notice our intentions, outlining the areaswhere we intend to provide greater benefits for our7,000 student-athletes in our conference.

Those things include increasing the valueof scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance,guaranteeing scholarships, providing for continuingeducation so student-athletes that are underscholarship can finish their degrees if they leaveschool and want to come back and have thosecosts covered, and improved medical expensesand coverage for any injuries incurred asstudent-athletes.

On top of that, we're working on a nationallevel as well as a conference level on moreinvolvement for student-athletes in the governanceprocess. This is a very dynamic time, importanttime. I certainly felt that progressive and significantreform is possible within the current structure.Now with some of the flexibility that's beenafforded by the NCAA to the five conferences toact collectively or individually, I think you'll start tosee some meaningful and concrete decisionstaken in our conference starting next week.

We've had meetings over the last month,meeting outlining some of the changes that we've

intended to make, working with them on some ofthe specifics. Next week we meet with the boardof directors, presidents and chancellors of ouruniversities proposing that we enact some of theproposals I outlined here this morning. I think youcan expect some concrete news coming from usnext week. I believe this is representing animportant new day for student-athletes in ourconference as well as nationally.

Thank you for being here today. I knowwe have a full slate of coaches andstudent-athletes up here talking to you. But I thinkwe have a few minutes to answer any questions

that you have. I'm happy to take them now orthroughout the day.

Q. Do you have an estimate of how much it'sgoing to cost each school to provide the full


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scholarship benefits that we're talking about?COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Yes, we do

have a good idea. Been working closely with ourschools.

I think the important thing to underscore isthe costs to fully implement everything will bedifferent at every school. The gap between thecurrent aid and full cost of attendance is differenton every campus. The cost of attendance issomething determined by each university, eachuniversity's financial aid office. It's verified by theFederal Government. That gap is different.

If you're looking for a general estimate, itcould change from something like $2,000 to$5,000 per student-athlete. That's about the rangeI've seen in working with our campuses in terms ofwhat that delta would be that would now becovered under the cost of attendance.

Some of the other things we're proposingin terms of medical expenses, those will represent

additional costs, as well as some of the foodpolicies that have recently been changed.Obviously our schools will comply with any of therulings from any of the court orders if those are notoverturned on appeal.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the costswill be for student-athletes because some thingsare still unresolved.

Q. Where do things stand in relation toDIRECTV?

COMMISSIONER SCOTT: No new newsin terms of our discussions with DIRECTV.

They're not engaging in any negotiations ordiscussions with us at the moment, which I know isfrustrating for our fans and us. We're hopeful thatthey change their mind, especially when they seethe slate of amazing basketball games that wehave.

I think every school will have their homeopener on the Pac-12 Networks, every school willbe involved in high-profile games, the men'sbasketball tournament in Las Vegas will be on thenetwork. We hope this is something they decidethey don't want to deprive their customers ofanymore.

Beyond that, we're monitoring very closelyDIRECTV's proposed sale to AT&T. If thathappens, that will kick off new discussions with anew parent. A parent we have a very goodrelationship with. AT&T is amongst our mostsignificant partners, they carry the Pac-12Networks on U-verse. They're the officialtelecommunications sponsor of each of our 12schools as well as the Pac-12 Conference.

A lot will change over the next year. I'mhopeful this is something we'll be able to provide toour fans.

Q. How will the proposal with the boardnext week differ at all from what we've seen inprevious releases?

COMMISSIONER SCOTT: What you'veseen from us so far in the letter our presidents andchancellors put out in the spring, then what we putout October 1st, was our intentions, what we planto do.

The significance of October 1st was,according to the NCAA autonomy rule change, thatwas the date for us to indicate what we're planningto do either individually as conferences or as agroup of five collectively. On the first dateavailable we put out our intentions to act in theareas that I described today.

The significance for our meeting next week

with our presidents and chancellors is we have theopportunity to start formally enacting some ofthese things. To move from intention to action, Ithink that will be the significance of what we talkabout next week coming out of the meetings.

What we're deciding to do as schoolsindividually as a PAC-12 conference and what weare going to be formally proposing as a group offive. The picture needs to become more clearabout exactly what's going to happen and when.

Thank you for being here today. Lookforward to seeing you all later.

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