The conference that:
- commanded the largest media contract in college sports after expanding to 12
- refused to sell a percentage of its network to a media giant like the B1G did to drive distribution, avoid all of those infrastructure costs, and draw almost pure profit with little expense against it
- located its production studios in the Bay Area despite literally having Hollywood in your conference (or as an alternative, in Las Vegas which is low cost, in the geographic center of the conference, and is residence for many of the top event & showbiz people on the planet)
- located its corporate office in the financial district of San Francisco, one of the most outrageously expensive real estate & labor markets in the country
- located its football championship game in San Francisco with disastrous attendance which embarrassed the conference (later moved to Las Vegas, thankfully)
- refused to consider unequal revenue based on performance (like being picked up for national broadcasts or your regional PACN outperforming others) - which killed UT negotiations since the conference wouldn't give them extra for LHN among other things
- unbalanced the schedules by initially treating the CA schools differently by having them all play each other every year... but we're too dumb to promote other rivalries which could have been done from the start with 3 regional pods & a championship game of the 2 highest finishers overall at the end instead of divisions
- wasted tremendous resources and squandered current opportunities by pursuing Asian markets including conference games in Australia and China and by focusing on tech companies for media deals long before they were ready to enter the sports business
- moved to a 9-game schedule with FCS opponents vigorously discouraged, which resulted in 54 extra losses from conference games each year along with a higher probability of non-conference losses with most members ending up with at least 1 additional FBS opponent per year
- voted against extending an invitation to OU and OSU because while each were R1 neither was AAU and they would have reduced academic prestige of the conference
- voted against moving on Big 12 and G5 targets when the Big 12 was completely destabilized (I have no doubt that at that time it could have become a Pac-16 through UH, TCU, OSU and KU)
- never was able to negotiate a "Conference Challenge" in hoops with any other Power 6 conference
- allowed a corrupt Commissioner organization which manipulated referees, grifted from the conference, and stole from cable partners
- likely voted against adding SDSU and SMU after media companies said they saw value in making DFW and SoCal part of the footprint
- failed the PR and branding side of things so badly that the conference was a national punchline despite having CFB media allies in Klatt and Fowler from CU alone
Wilner was a cheerleader and water carrier for all of this.