Arizona State president Michael Crow recently gave Pac-12 Conference leadership a well-planted public vote of confidence.

Sorry, I couldn’t help but shake my head.

Crow is one of Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott’s closest supporters. The other is Oregon State president Edward Ray, who is also on record saying he’s also comfortable with the direction of things. UCLA’s Gene Block is also, mostly supportive of Scott. Those three are holdovers, the only sitting presidents who happened to be around when Scott was hired.

Anyone else find it interesting that nine other conference leaders aren’t as public in support of Scott?

Let’s face it, the thing that Scott is most skilled at is promoting and protecting Scott. It’s how he ended with a salary that is double what SEC commissioner Greg Sankey is being paid. Also, it’s why the conference headquarters are in downtown San Francisco, near Scott’s home, at a cost expected to bloat to $1 million a month by the end of the current lease.

Also, Scott has directed his strongest allies in the Pac-12 CEO Group to help the rest of his bosses understand how great they have it. One such email exchange was captured by a records request after Oregon State’s Ray had “replied all” to the university leaders, and backed Scott.

“Thanks for your note and sharing with the group," Scott wrote privately to Ray in an email. "We’ve got some CEOs new to this environment with angry sports blogger mob, and I’m sure some are more sensitive and reactionary to it. So your not (being sensitive and reactionary) was very helpful indeed.”

The Pac-12 has been a financial disappointment. It’s failed to adequately support major revenue-producing programs. College football and men’s basketball, which represent 97 percent of the revenue generated in major college athletics departments nationally, have been a tremendous disappointment.

But the Pac-12 is crushing it in the sports responsible for the other three percent.

In fact, Crow gave a sermon on why he supports Scott to the Arizona Republic.

He preached patience. He emphasized strategy. And he pointed out, “Conference income is a tiny part of everybody’s income. It’s just a piece of everybody’s income. You have your own advertising, conference income, donor income, athletic revenue themselves, other sources of income.”

Except, Crow is flat wrong -- conference income isn’t a “tiny” part of everybody’s income. It’s a huge revenue stream at every member institution. In fact, the conference distribution accounted for 39.8 percent of Oregon State’s total athletic department revenue of in the fiscal year ending in 2017.

The Beavers raked in $78,959,875 in 2017, per internal documents.

OSU’s costs that year: $82,730,626

No matter how well the Beavers perform in women’s basketball and baseball, the bottom line in Corvallis is still ugly. It’s why Oregon State was subsidized in 2017 by student fees ($2.7 million) and was handed another $4 million in support from the general fund to bail it out.

Even with that, it still fell short of break even. OSU’s athletic department is carrying $40 million in accrued debt. That figure will top $50 million by the end of 2019. And so if you’re on the Board of Trustees at Oregon State, you’d have to wonder what the Beavers' athletic department might do if the Pac-12 had a media-rights deal on par with its Power Five Conference peers.

Spoiler: OSU would be profitable.

Also, it would be more competitive.

The presidents and chancellors hold the power here. They’re Scott’s bosses. When he talks about “being transparent” he’s not talking about the media, the athletic directors or fans. He’s talking about managing only his bosses.

The Pac-12 hired a high-profile crisis management team to help manage its brand. It’s considering taking on private equity investors to help bail out the members with a $500 million cash infusion. And Scott has Crow and Ray doing his public bidding.

Scott was the right hire in 2009. The conference needed vision and someone to navigate expansion and the first lucrative television-rights deal. But the leadership need has shifted in the decade since that hire. The Pac-12 has a much different kind of need now. And I suspect a growing majority of Pac-12 leaders know it.

Those 12 votes are the only ones that count.

Years ago, I covered college basketball as a beat reporter. A team I covered, coached by the late Jerry Tarkanian, had a player named Tito Maddox who was ruled ineligible for the first eight games of the 2000 season by the NCAA. Maddox had accepted cash and benefits from an agent.

The following game, four of his teammates suited up, but wore “Free Tito" T-shirts during warm-ups.

The protest became a big headline.

Everyone saw them. Everyone talked about them. Everyone noticed them.

Funny, but today, I’m thinking about the eight players on that roster who didn’t join the protest.

They made a strong statement too, didn’t they?