Talk:George Kliavkoff

PAC 12 section

The discussion on what happened to PAC 12 is only loosely related to the subject of this article, it should be truncated here and discussed in-depth in the article of PAC 12.  Ordinarius Beau  03:59, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Suggested corrections and updates to George Kliavkoff bio page

Proposed corrections and additions — COI disclosure I am posting on behalf of the subject of this article, George Kliavkoff, and am disclosing a conflict of interest per Wikipedia's COI guidelines. The following are proposed factual corrections and additions, each supported by cited, reliable sources. I am not requesting promotional changes — only corrections of inaccuracies and addition of verifiable facts currently absent from the article. I am not requesting that any existing sourced critical content be removed. I welcome neutral editors to evaluate and implement any changes they deem appropriate.

1. Correction: Hulu — founding and leadership role significantly understated The article currently states that Kliavkoff "became the chief digital officer for NBCUniversal where he lateraled into Hulu." This is materially inaccurate and understates his role in several important ways.

The accurate account: When NBC Universal and News Corporation announced their online video joint venture on March 22, 2007, the official press release explicitly named Kliavkoff — then serving as NBCUniversal's first chief digital officer — as the leader of the transitional management team formed to launch the venture. The press release states verbatim: "A transitional management team led by NBC Universal's Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff, along with an experienced group of executives from NBC Universal and News Corporation, will work together to launch the site."

He subsequently served as interim CEO of the joint venture during its formation and build-out — a role confirmed by a second contemporaneous press release in which he is quoted directly as "chief digital officer, NBC Universal and interim CEO of the joint venture." He held that position until Jason Kilar was hired as the venture's first permanent CEO in mid-2007. Kliavkoff also served as a member of Hulu's board of directors and is recognized across multiple published sources as one of the individuals instrumental in founding what became Hulu.

Proposed change: Replace "he became the chief digital officer for NBCUniversal where he lateraled into Hulu" with: "As NBCUniversal's first chief digital officer, Kliavkoff was named to lead the transitional management team when NBC Universal and News Corporation announced their online video joint venture in March 2007. He served as the venture's interim CEO during its formation until Jason Kilar was hired as the first permanent CEO later that year. Kliavkoff also served on Hulu's board of directors and is recognized as one of the individuals instrumental in founding what became Hulu."

Sources: NBC Universal / News Corporation joint venture announcement press release (March 22, 2007), archived at: https://web.archive.org/web/20110101212907/http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20070322005690/en/NBC-Universal-News-Corp.-Announce-Deal-Internet Adweek / Lost Remote (May 31, 2007): George Kliavkoff quoted as "chief digital officer, NBC Universal and interim CEO of the joint venture": https://www.adweek.com/lostremote/nbcu-adds-programming-to-online-joint-venture/ Two Dice company biography (twodice.com): "NBC Universal's first chief digital officer where he co-created Hulu" Wikipedia's own Hulu article lists Kliavkoff among "individuals who were instrumental in the founding of Hulu": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulu

2. Correction: Hearst — titles and roles incomplete

The article describes Kliavkoff's time at Hearst only as working for "Hearst Communications." He held two distinct senior roles there: co-president of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication and president of Hearst Ventures.

Proposed change: Replace "He moved to Hearst Communications in 2009 where he would spend seven years" with:

"He moved to Hearst in 2009, where he served as co-president of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication (the company’s cable division that held stakes in ESPN, A&E, Lifetime and History) and president of Hearst Ventures, spending seven years at the company."

Sources: Two Dice company biography (twodice.com) Sports Business Journal, May 17, 2021: "Breadth of experience, including media, attracts Pac-12 to Kliavkoff"

3. Correction: Jaunt XR — material facts missing

The article describes Jaunt XR only as "a virtual reality content studio." It was a Disney-backed startup subsequently acquired by Verizon. Both facts are notable and independently verifiable. Proposed change: Replace "In 2016, he was named CEO of Jaunt XR, a virtual reality content studio" with: "In 2016, he was named CEO of Jaunt XR, a Disney-backed virtual reality content studio that was subsequently acquired by Verizon."

Sources:

Two Dice company biography (twodice.com): "CEO of Disney-backed startup Jaunt XR (acquired by Verizon)" Variety / Hollywood Reporter coverage of Verizon's acquisition of Jaunt XR assets, 2019

4. Correction: A&E Networks listed as employer when it was a board role

The article's lead section lists A&E Networks as a company where Kliavkoff "held positions," implying employment. His role at A&E Networks was as a board member, not an employee.

Proposed change: Amend the lead to read: "Kliavkoff previously held positions at Major League Baseball, NBCUniversal, Hulu, and MGM Resorts International, and served on the boards of A&E Networks, Cirque du Soleil, BetMGM, and others."

Sources: Two Dice company biography (twodice.com) Pac-12 Commissioner official biography (archived at web.archive.org)

5. Addition: MGM Resorts role — scope and scale

The article's description of Kliavkoff's MGM role is brief. His portfolio was substantial and verifiable: he oversaw operations across more than 35 arenas, theaters, and showrooms; MGM Resorts was the third-largest live events company in the world at the time; his portfolio included hundreds of major concerts and five concurrent Cirque du Soleil productions; and he led BetMGM's strategic growth while serving on its board.

Proposed addition to the existing MGM paragraph:

"In this role, Kliavkoff oversaw operations, finance, strategy, booking, marketing, and ticketing across more than 35 MGM venues. MGM Resorts was at that time the third-largest live events company in the world. His portfolio included hundreds of major concerts and five concurrent Cirque du Soleil productions. Kliavkoff also led BetMGM's strategic growth and served on its board."

Sources: Two Dice company biography (twodice.com) Sports Business Journal, May 17, 2021: "Breadth of experience, including media, attracts Pac-12 to Kliavkoff"

6. Addition: Board service — College Football Playoff and Tournament of Roses

The article does not mention that Kliavkoff served on the boards of the College Football Playoff and the Pasadena Tournament of Roses. Both are notable public institutions.

Proposed addition:

"Kliavkoff also served on the boards of the College Football Playoff and the Pasadena Tournament of Roses."

Sources: Two Dice company biography (twodice.com) Pac-12 Commissioner official biography (archived at web.archive.org)

7. Addition / Correction: Pac-12 tenure — structural context and board-level decisions that precipitated the collapse

The inclusion of a quote calling Kliavkoff’s time at the helm of the Pac-12 conference as “catastrophic” and putting that quote as part of the headline of his biography, rather than as part of a balanced review of his time leading the conference in the appropriate section of the biography, is sensationalistic and pejorative.

The article's current treatment of the Pac-12 collapse focuses almost entirely on Kliavkoff personally while omitting substantial, well-sourced context about the structural conditions he inherited and the role of the Pac-12's own board of presidents and chancellors in blocking multiple documented attempts by Kliavkoff and the conference staff to save the Pac-12. A neutral, encyclopedic treatment of this subject requires both be represented. The following facts are all supported by major published sources.

A. The structural context Kliavkoff inherited

When Kliavkoff took office in July 2021, the Pac-12 was already last among the five major conferences in media rights revenue — a position it had fallen into over the previous decade under his predecessor. CBS Sports reported that during the prior commissioner's 12-year tenure, the conference "slipped from first to last among the Power Five schools in media rights distribution." Unlike the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and Big 12 — each of which partnered with established broadcast networks (ESPN, Fox, or both) to launch or operate their conference channels — the Pac-12 had launched its own network independently in 2012 without such a partnership, resulting in substantially inferior cable and satellite distribution and significantly lower per-school revenue than rival conference networks. Additionally, the conference had not produced College Football Playoff participants in meaningful numbers: in fact, in the first ten years of the modern CFP era, the Pac-12 placed only two of the forty total participants. Kliavkoff also inherited a conference that was underperforming in the most financially impactful sports. Prior to Kliavkoff’s arrival, the Pac-12 conference had not won a football championship for 17 years (USC 2004) and had not won a men's basketball national championship for 26 years (UCLA 1995).

B. Board decisions that blocked documented attempts to save the conference

Kliavkoff and his senior staff at the Conference made multiple attempts to save the conference, but were blocked by certain members of the Pac-12 Board. A well-sourced Los Angeles Times investigation published August 16, 2023 — drawing on multiple sources with direct knowledge of internal negotiations — documented at least three specific instances in which decisions by members of the Pac-12 board of presidents and chancellors blocked solutions proposed by Kliavkoff that could have preserved the conference. These incidents are further corroborated by Wikipedia's own article on the 2021–2026 NCAA conference realignment. It is important that the highlights of these incidents appear in Kliavkoff’s Wikipedia biography to offset the characterization in the current biography that appear to lay blame for the collapse of the conference solely with Kliavkoff.

i. Expansion blocked by USC (2021) Shortly after Oklahoma and Texas announced their departure from the Big 12 for the SEC in 2021, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby contacted Kliavkoff to propose that the eight remaining Big 12 schools join the Pac-12, creating a Pac-20 spanning every major time zone. The Conference was prepared to recommend such expansion to its Board. The Pac-12 formed a committee to explore the proposal. According to the Wikipedia article on NCAA conference realignment — itself citing the LA Times report — "the first and ultimately only committee meeting ended after only a few minutes when USC president Carol Folt, who represented the conference's two Los Angeles schools, objected to adding more teams and expressed surprise the Pac-12 was talking about the subject." USC and UCLA may have already been negotiating to leave the Pac-12 at the time of the committee meeting. The expansion proposal died immediately.

ii. UCLA retention deal blocked by Oregon (December 2022) After USC and UCLA announced their move to the Big Ten in June 2022, Kliavkoff privately negotiated a framework with a group of UC Regents under which the Regents would vote to block UCLA's departure — provided the Pac-12 could guarantee UCLA $52 million annually under the next media rights deal (reflecting UCLA's expected net benefit from the Big Ten after travel costs). The LA Times reported that when Kliavkoff recommended this framework to the Pac-12 board, "Oregon interim president Patrick Phillips vehemently shut it down. He said he would not have the Ducks in a conference where they have to take less money than UCLA, and any conversation about the possibility quickly died." On December 14, 2022, the UC Regents voted 11–5 to approve UCLA's exit. The LA Times noted this outcome "certainly could have gone the other direction — a theme that would emerge time and again on the Pac-12's road to ruin." The value of the Pac-12’s media rights were significantly decreased with no team remaining in the large LA television market.

iii. ESPN offer rejected by a board member (Fall 2022) Despite losing the LA market, the conference staff negotiated a deal with ESPN and in October 2022, ESPN offered the Pac-12 approximately $30 million per school annually in a new media rights deal — a figure that would have moved the Pac-12 schools into third place among the Power 5 (behind only the Big Ten and SEC) and internal Pac-12 analysis suggested left room for further negotiation toward approximately $35 million per school. According to both the LA Times and Wikipedia's conference realignment article, one Pac-12 president — not identified in the Times report, but subsequently reported by other outlets to be Utah president Taylor Randall — commissioned a professor on his campus to produce an independent valuation placing the Pac-12's media rights at $50 million per school. The Board was swayed by the president’s presentation and despite Kliavkoff’s objections he was instructed to take the demand back to ESPN. When Kliavkoff presented ESPN with the $50 million demand, ESPN ended negotiations entirely and immediately closed a deal with the Big-12 for just under $30 million per school. The LA Times summarized: "The Pac-12 presidents had nixed expansion, misread the ESPN negotiation and blocked a deal that could have returned UCLA to the Pac-12."

Proposed edits/addition:

The sentence “Kliavkoff's tenure at the Pac-12 saw 10 of the 12 member schools announce plans to depart the conference, and his time at the helm of the conference was described by The Mercury News as ‘catastrophic’" should be removed from the headline paragraph of Kliavkoff’s bio.

The following should be added either to a new subsection within the Pac-12 section, or expanded contextual paragraph:

"Analysis of the Pac-12's collapse has noted that Kliavkoff inherited a conference that was already last among the Power Five conferences in per-school media rights revenue, a position it had reached over the prior decade following the independent launch of the Pac-12 Network without a broadcast network partner — unlike the conference networks operated by the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and Big 12, each of which launched in partnership with ESPN, Fox, or both. The conference had also placed only two participants in the first forty spots of the College Football Playoff's first ten years. A 2023 Los Angeles Times investigation documented multiple instances in which Pac-12 board members — the conference's presidents and chancellors — blocked proposals from Kliavkoff that could have stabilized the conference: a 2021 expansion proposal to absorb remaining Big 12 schools was shut down by USC's president before substantive discussion could occur; a framework negotiated by Kliavkoff with the UC Regents that could have kept UCLA (and thereby the Los Angeles television market) in the conference was rejected by Oregon's interim president; and an ESPN media rights offer that internal Pac-12 analysis indicated was a reasonable starting point for negotiation was replaced, against Kliavkoff’s recommendation, with a $50 million per-school demand from one board member — a figure that caused ESPN to exit negotiations altogether."

Sources:

Los Angeles Times (J. Brady McCollough), August 16, 2023: "Inside the Pac-12 collapse: Four surprising moments that crushed the conference": https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2023-08-16/pac-12-collapse-decisions-realignment-ucla-oregon Wikipedia, "2021–2026 NCAA conference realignment" (corroborates all three incidents with citations): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932026_NCAA_conference_realignment CBS Sports, "Pac-12 on brink of collapse: How college football's premier West Coast conference fell behind in realignment": https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/pac-12-on-brink-of-collapse-how-college-footballs-premier-west-coast-conference-fell-behind-in-realignment/ Sports Business Journal, May 17, 2021 (on inherited financial position of conference)

8. Addition: Post-Pac-12 career — Two Dice

The article ends with Kliavkoff's departure from the Pac-12 in early 2024 with no mention of subsequent professional activity. A brief subsequent career section is standard practice for Wikipedia articles on living subjects.

Proposed new section ("Later career"):

"In January 2026, Kliavkoff and co-founder Jennifer Worthington announced the launch of Two Dice, a platform company creating repeatable experience franchises across sports, music, and culture. Each franchise is anchored by live, ticketed events and amplified by AI-enhanced owned media that operates year-round, builds global fan communities, and creates durable, compounding IP.

Sources: Two Dice official website (twodice.com)

9. Update: Son Henry Kliavkoff — multi-sport student-athlete at University of Arizona

The article currently states that Kliavkoff's son Henry "played men's basketball at Whitman College for 2 seasons." This is accurate but incomplete. Henry subsequently transferred to the University of Arizona, where he is a Senior student-athlete playing flanker for the Arizona Wildcats men's rugby program (6'4", 190 lbs). He appears on both the 2024–2025 and 2025–2026 official rosters.

Proposed change:

"His son, Henry, played men's basketball at Whitman College for two seasons before transferring to the University of Arizona, where he is a student-athlete competing as a flanker for the Arizona Wildcats men's rugby program."

Sources:

University of Arizona Rugby, 2025–2026 Men's Roster: https://www.arizonarugby.org/mens-roster-2025-2026 Whitman College Athletics, Men's Basketball Roster (previously cited in article as ref. 33) Bellabc1 (talk) 11:39, 5 March 2026 (UTC)