The why is easy: It was a top-down cash grab.
The Pac-12 presidents, aghast at the growing revenue gap and fearful of falling further behind peer conferences, instructed new commissioner Larry Scott to cut the best media rights deal possible in the spring of 2011.
On the other side of table, with checkbooks at-the-ready and airtime to fill, ESPN and Fox asked for the rights to televise an unprecedented number of football games at 7 p.m. Pacific or later.
Not only that, they wanted the flexibility to set the kickoff times for conference games either 12 or six days in advance, to ensure the best matchups would fill the choice windows.