*** The Pac-12 Hotline newsletter is published each Monday-Wednesday-Friday during the college sports season (and twice-a-week in the summer). This edition, from Dec. 23, has been made available in archived form.

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Empty Seats Everywhere

Here’s the big, bold, screaming headline from the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser: “2019 SEC home football attendance drops to lowest average since 2001”

Yep, even for the kingpin of college football — even in the land where it just means more — game-day crowds are shrinking.

The SEC experienced a year-over-year decline of 3.0 percent, to an average of 72,735 fans per game. According to the Advertiser, that’s the lowest level since the 2001 season.

“Issues related to attendance are not unique to college sports,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told the outlet.

“There are challenges that are common across sports, college and professional, such as viewing options through enhanced at-home and mobile technology and a new generation of fans with a changing set of attendance habits

Of note: The Pac-12’s year-over-year attendance decline was only 0.5 percent, to an average of 46,176 per game.

(The raw numbers, from the NCAA: total attendance of 3,555,586 over 77 home games.)

However, that’s the seventh consecutive decline for the Pac-12, which has been hit harder in that area than any Power Five conference.

Since the 2012 season, when the Pac-12 drew 53,679 fans, attendance has dropped by 13.9 percent across the board:

2012: 53,679
2013: 53,619
2014: 52,702
2015: 51,880
2016: 50,073
2017: 49,601
2018: 46,442
2019: 46,176

Certainly, the 2019 numbers were undermined by the tens of thousands of empty seats in the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl as the Los Angeles schools struggled to lure fans to the conference’s biggest stadiums.

But the problems aren’t limited to the Trojans and Bruins.

Hotline special contributor AJ Maestas, the CEO of Navigate Research, addressed the steps schools should consider in order to regain traction with fans in our three-part series on the issue, which included a detailed look at the Pac-12’s plunge.

Wrote Maestas: “Leveling the playing field with the home viewing experience, timely video board replays, mobile phone connectivity, better food and beverage experience — those are just a few examples of possible in-stadium improvements. Facilitating great tailgating encourages people to come early and stay late to avoid or minimize the traffic, while at the same time lowering fans’ sensitivity to wins and losses.”

Attendance is an issue to watch, both next season and over time, because it impacts athletic department budgets and helps frame decisions on non-conference schedules which, in turn, impact access to the College Football Playoff. — Jon Wilner

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Hot off the Hotline

• Saturday Night Five reaction column examined a variety of topics, from the Huskies’ victory and Chris Petersen’s career record to Arizona’s new defensive coordinator, the top unsigned recruits and the mixed non-conference results on the basketball court.

• Jimmy Lake officially took charge of the Washington program on Sunday. We asked a coach who has walked the same path from coordinator to corner office about the challenges awaiting Lake. “You can’t try to be Atlas and hold up the world,” David Shaw said.

• ICYMI: The Hotline’s Friday newsletter addressed a Wall Street Journal report that the Pac-12 has engaged in preliminary discussions with Apple about a media rights partnership. Previous editions of the newsletter are available in archived form.

Support the Hotline: Several Hotline articles will remain free each month (as will the newsletter), but for access to all content, you’ll need to subscribe. I’ve secured a rate of $1 per week for a full year or — introductory offer alert! — just 99 cents for the first month, with the option to cancel anytime. Click here. And thanks for your loyalty.

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State of Affairs

Perspective on the conference from beyond its borders …

• In his power ranking of the conferences, CBS Sports columnist Barrett Sallee slotted the Pac-12 fourth, ahead of the ACC. That’s indisputable — the latter was downright awful (aside from Clemson). Whether the Pac-12 should be behind or ahead of the Big 12 is definitely a matter for debate, in our opinion.

• Two Pac-12 players made Yahoo’s all-decade team. Neither was named Luck or Mariota, and one was honored for his work on special teams.

• And two Pac-12 games were included in USA Today’s list of the top-10 games of the decade. Both were non-conference affairs.

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Huddle Up

(Note: The Hotline newsletter includes links to sites that could require a subscription once the number of free views has been reached.)

• Washington delivered a stellar performance in Chris Petersen’s final game, which was filled with emotion for Petersen, his players and his successor.

• Oregon cornerbacks Deommodore Lenoir and Thomas Graham are two of four Ducks defensive starters to request evaluations from the NFL Draft’s advisory board.

• Arizona’s quarterback depth chart for 2020 starts with rising sophomore Grant Gunnell. “Everybody else is really in a competition to see where they are,” Kevin Sumlin said.

• Meanwhile, the Wildcats’ new defensive coordinator, Paul Rhoads, plans to focus on the basics.

• The 2020 quarterback competition in Salt Lake City has taken a few interesting twists — and added a new participant — in recent weeks.

• For the first time in years, Arizona State is without clarity at tailback. Eno Benjamin is skipping the Sun Bowl, leaving the Devils to examine an array of options that include moving receiver Kyle Williams into the backfield.

• Washington State coach Mike Leach says defending Air Force’s triple option is “the ultimate in executing your job.” We’ll see how the Cougars perform in the Cheez-It Bowl in a few days.

• No surprise here: Oregon receiver Brenden Schooler is headed to Arizona as a graduate transfer. He’ll spend one season with his brother, Colin, a Wildcats linebacker.

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Coaching Carousel

• New Washington coach Jimmy Lake wasted no time initiating staff changes: The Huskies parted ways with offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan on Sunday, as well as tight ends coach Jordan Paopao. “I believe it’s in the best interest of our program to make these changes to align with the vision we have for our team moving forward,” Lake said. His decision on a new offensive playcaller will be the most important of his first year.

• Meanwhile, Washington’s video tribute to Petersen is fantastic: “You changed this program. You changed this university. You changed college football.” (As the Hotline wrote earlier this month, imagine college football in the west over the past 15 years without him.)

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Media Landscape

• While college football attendance declined this season, TV viewership increased. The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel examines the data and the likely reasons for the increase, which include Fox’s new “Big Noon Kickoff.” Writes Mandel: “The strategy injected meaning into what was often a yawner window in recent years and made the later windows less cluttered.” The Pac-12 needs to get itself a piece (albeit a small piece) of that Big Noon action.

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Key Dates

Select men’s basketball games included (all times Pacific)

Dec. 27: Holiday Bowl: USC vs. Iowa (FS1, 5 p.m.)
Dec. 27: Cheez-It Bowl: WSU vs. Air Force (ESPN, 7:15 p.m.)
Dec. 28: Peach Bowl: No. 1 LSU vs. No. 4 Oklahoma (ESPN, 1 p.m.)
Dec. 28: Fiesta Bowl: No. 2 OSU vs. No. 3 Clemson (ESPN, 5 p.m.)
Dec. 29: Kansas at Stanford (ABC, 12 p.m.)
Dec. 30: Redbox Bowl: Cal vs. Illinois (FOX, 1 p.m.)
Jan. 13: National championship (ESPN, 5 p.m., New Orleans)
Jan. 20: NFL Draft early-entry deadline
Feb. 5: National Signing Day (regular period)

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On the Hardwood

• Colorado upset No. 13 Dayton in Chicago on D’Shawn Schwartz’s buzzer-beater in overtime, a major win for both the Buffaloes and the Pac-12. “It felt like I was in a game of NBA 2K,” Schwartz said.

• UCLA lost to North Carolina in what Daily News columnist Mark Whicker called “a battle of tattered scrapbooks, with hallowed uniforms worn by hollow teams.” The Bruins had 14 turnovers and 23 points in the first half.

• Arizona continues to underperform away from home, which isn’t surprising given its heavy reliance on freshmen. The latest example: a neutral-court loss to St. John’s.

• USC recorded a rare non-conference win over a Power Six opponent. Now the Trojans need LSU to perform well in the SEC so the result counts for something on Selection Sunday.

• A few days after its upset of Kentucky, Utah got overrun by San Diego State.

• Oregon is No. 7 in the latest top-25 from CollegeBasketballTalk (too low) while Arizona is No. 17 (too high)

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Money Matters

• Something you don’t often see: A school filing a lawsuit against its former athletic director for breach of contract. But that’s the evolving story out of Corvallis, where Oregon State has reportedly sued Todd Stansbury (now at Georgia Tech) for not repaying the full amount of his buyout.

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Medal Stand

A section devoted to content on Pac-12 Olympic sports.

• Stanford swept Wisconsin to win the NCAA volleyball championship for the second consecutive season. News flash: Kathryn Plummer is good.

• The Pac-12 has six teams included in ESPN’s latest Bracketology, with both Oregon schools on the top line. A seventh team, Colorado, is in the ‘First Four Out’ category.

• Former UCLA gymnast Sadiqua Bynum is making a career in Hollywood as a stunt double for Regina King in HBO’s “Watchmen.” Writes the L.A. Times’ Thuc Nhi Nguyen of the former All-American: “The 26-year-old is one of the youngest and most successful black stuntwomen in an industry that is just beginning to experience the trickle-down effect of efforts to increase diversity in all of Hollywood.”

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Looking Ahead

What’s coming on the Pac-12 Hotline:

• With the decade ending, the Hotline plans a multi-part look at the conference’s top players, coaches and teams from 2010-19 — in both football and men’s basketball. That content rollout will begin later this week.

• Please have a happy and safe holiday season.

The next newsletter is scheduled for Friday. Enjoy it? Please forward this email to friends (sign up here). If you don’t, or have other feedback, let me know: pac12hotline@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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*** Pac-12 Hotline is not endorsed or sponsored by the Pac-12 Conference, and the views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the Conference.