The Pac-12 Conference has its new commissioner.

As the Larry Scott era prepares to come to an end, on Thursday morning, the conference released a statement announcing George Kliavkoff, formerly the president of entertainment and sports at MGM Resorts International, as commissioner, with a five-year contract set to begin in July.

Kliavkoff certainly kept the cards close to his chest at times — fair, given he's still under contract with MGM and won't take office with the Pac-12 until July — choosing in some instances to be brief or pass on answering a question.

But more importantly, he was direct and firm in laying out his initial priorities as incoming commissioner, the strengths and weaknesses, as he perceives them, within the Pac-12 and how he in his new role can best serve the member institutions and student-athletes.

Kliavkoff was quick to identify a few items of paramount importance as he prepares to get started:

“I want to be very clear about my top three immediate priorities for the conference: first, we will protect and support our student-athletes; second, we will make decisions to optimize revenue for our member institutions, including renegotiating our media distribution deals; and third, we will do everything we can at the conference level to make our teams more competitive and revenue-generating sports, especially football.”

To say that Kliavkoff has a tall task of things to get done if the Pac-12 is to regain its competitive and financial edge among the Power Five conferences would be an understatement.

He comes from MGM, headquartered in Las Vegas, has managed the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces, and oversaw a partnership with the Pac-12 for its men's and women's basketball championships to be played at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Not to mention, Kliavkoff was also prominent in the move to bring the Pac-12 football championship game to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for 2021 and 2022.

On that note, it has been speculated widely that the Pac-12 relocating its headquarters from San Francisco, where yearly rent is by far the most out of all the Power Five conferences, to Las Vegas, a city with endless branding and sports betting opportunities, and which the conference's new commissioner has countless ties, could be a logical move for the immediate future.

The original 11-year lease inked early into Scott's tenure as commissioner will end in 2022.

As that date approaches, perhaps the Las Vegas relocation idea could come to fruition.

But for now, Kliavkoff declined to go into details."I want to be clear that I am, with my family, relocating to San Francisco and will be working full-time in San Francisco," he said. "I think the emergence of Las Vegas as a sports capital of the world is significant and I think having our two major championships there is a good first step. I'd like to see us do more with Las Vegas."

Kliavkoff also talked at length about media rights and the state of the Pac-12 Network, offering some fresh air in terms of honesty on the latter note.

Originally proclaimed to be the crown jewel within the Pac-12 Conference itself, the league's namesake television network has long faced issues with respect to simple distribution.

While a wave of mid-pandemic layoffs hit the Pac-12 Network at the direction of Scott, questions arose as to whether it would survive long enough for the eventual media rights deal is inked became reality.

For Kliavkoff, some restructuring will certainly be in the Pac-12 Network's future, but as an entity and asset of the league, he views it as remaining important.

"With respect to the Pac-12 Network, I believe it's part of the future of our media distribution strategy," he said. "Today, the Pac-12 Network has far fewer subscribers than any other comparable network and we have to fix that. I think there's a way to fix that through structuring and relationships."

"But we have to get the Pac-12 Network distributed every place on every place and our fans want to be able to consume that content."

More from Kliavkoff below:

"The Pac-12's greatest strength is the member institutions and the student-athletes. We have some of the greatest institutions, not just in the country, but in the world. The value of a Pac-12 education could not be overstated. And we're going to make a big deal about making that very, very public. The greatest weakness, if we’re being honest with ourselves, is the number of years it’s been since we won a football or men’s basketball championship. We’re going to do everything we can at the conference level to fix that.”

"I believe personally (that) the solution to elevating Pac-12 football is a combination of addressing structural issues and a more focused approach on recruiting...I've been pushing to expand the CFP. I believe that it's not good for college football and the vast majority of college football fans when 20 out of the 28 CFP bids, 71% go to just four schools. Think about the fact that in every NCAA sport, an athlete has an 18-25% chance of participating in their sport's postseason every year. In football, the number is 3% because of the current structure."

"I take a lesson from this year's men's basketball tournament. The Elite 8 teams included 6-seed USC, 11-seed UCLA and 12-seed Oregon State. We just need chances. Structurally, we also need to review and address non-conference and conference scheduling, game times and any other competitive decisions made at the conference level. Everything is up for review to make us more competitive."

"...With respect to recruiting and being competitive in recruiting, I think there are lessons to be learned from public and private institutions that make their lifeblood on being able to retain and attract great talent...We need to make sure that high school athletes understand the lifetime value of a Pac-12 education. We need to be more aggressive of teaching the legacy of the Pac-12 as the Conference of Champions."

"I want to be clear, we know where the bread is buttered. We're focusing on the revenue sports and winning in men's basketball and football."