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On Thursday afternoon, terrible college sports news dropped. Our national nightmare, the will-they, won’t-they drama surrounding the Pac-12 media deal, is not going to end in the near future.

ESPN has a few more details here.

That means we’re looking at four more weeks, at least, of news stories quoting industry sources speculating that the dissolution of the conference is imminent, followed by stories mostly quoting anonymous Pac-12 sources insisting the league is fine, better-than-fine, actually, and bloggers and sports radio hosts arguing over incomplete spreadsheets over the next month and a half.

Enough! Not only is the thinly-veiled negotiating via the press obvious, but it is also boring.

I don’t want to chase every he-said-he-said over the next four to eight weeks. So instead, I’ve tried to helpfully summarize what I predict to be Future Coverage of the Pac-12 Media Deal.

And to make it more fun, I’ve asked ChatCPT to write those arguments for us.

For example, here’s special Extra Points Media Business Correspondent Stereotypical Film Noir Detective, explaining why the Pac-12 is taking a long time to get a TV deal:

Boy, sounds bad for the Pac-12! To explain why Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah could potentially be candidates to join the Big 12, let’s turn to another special Extra Points correspondent, Cookie Monster:

Thanks Cookie Monster. But boy, that explanation feels a little biased. Maybe we need the perspective from somebody a little closer to the Pac-12’s line of thinking. To get that voice, let me ask yet another Extra Points correspondent, Samuel L Jackson:

Perfect, thank you Mr.Jackson. Always appreciate your eloquence. Loved you in Snakes On A Plane.

And now finally, to help report on when we can actually expect closure on this situation, let me bring in our final expert, Groot.

Perfect. Couldn’t have summed it up better myself.

Wake me up when something actually happens on this front.

What else did we write this week?

Great question! It was a pretty good week!

If you’d rather listen or watch to something, I was on the Cover 3 Podcast over at CBS/247 Sports earlier this week, talking about NIL legislation, the future of collectives, and what Congress missed from their first big hearing:

For next week, Extra Points will celebrate our third birthday, and I’ll try to share more about where this business is going. I’ll also have some reporting to share about future NCAA Championship TV contracts, some FOIA-fun, and more.

You can get every single Extra Points newsletter with a paid subscription. But if you can’t swing eight bucks, you can also get a full subscription by referring some friends (or coworkers) to the newsletter. I also have other prizes, like notes from my book projects, a zoom call, and a shopping spree at Homefield Apparel.

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If you have ideas for future Extra Points newsletters or #tips you want to share, our new tips line is compliance@extrapointsmb.com. To sponsor a future Extra Points newsletter, please email sales@extrapointsmb.com. I'm also @MattBrownEP on Twitter, and @ExtraPointsMB on Instagram.