The Pac-12 is parting ways with George Kliavkoff as its commissioner after the former MGM executive oversaw the demise of the once-powerful conference during a wave of realignment last year.
The board of directors for the conference announced the move Friday in a two-sentence news release, saying the Pac-12 and Kliavkoff “mutually agreed to part ways, effective February 29, 2024.”
“More details about new leadership of the Pac-12 will be announced next week,” the release read.
Kliavkoff was a surprising and unconventional choice in spring 2021 when he was hired to succeed Larry Scott. Kliavkoff has been the president of sports and entertainment for MGM Resorts International in Las Vegas since 2018.
He was tasked with rebranding and boosting a conference that had taken a hit to its reputation under Scott’s leadership, especially in football. He leaned into being a disruptor and outsider, slowing down the process of College Football Playoff expansion after it was revealed in 2021 the Southeastern Conference planned to pull Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12.
But in 2022, Southern California and UCLA announced plans to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, a move that turned out to be the beginning of the end for the West Coast-based conference.
Kliavkoff was unable to land a new media rights deal that remaining league members believed would keep them competitive with their peers in other power conferences, and the Pac-12 had eight more schools depart over the course of less than two months late last summer.
Oregon State and Washington State are the only remaining Pac-12 schools, and they’re also the only members of the conference’s board of directors. Those two Pacific Northwest programs plan to keep the conference up and running without any other schools for at least another year or two as they try to rebuild the league.
Kliavkoff, though, won’t be part of that process.