What is next for realignment?
The news of a defection by Pac-12 stalwarts USC and UCLA to the Big Ten on Thursday sent shock waves throughout the college landscape. It’s the latest realignment move that will drastically change the look of college football in the future — and it’s most likely not the last.
How several of the conferences stand after the latest round of realignment news:
Big Ten: USC and UCLA will join in 2024, expanding the conference to 16 members and creating a footprint that extends from New Jersey to California. It includes lucrative television markets in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. But some don’t believe the league is finished.
With a new media rights deal in the works, now might be the time for the Big Ten to look to expand to 20 members. If so, there are a few choices — perhaps other Pac-12 schools such as Oregon, Washington and Stanford or maybe the ultimate piece in Notre Dame. The school has relished its independence, but could forgo it and join a conference.
Big 12: When Thursday’s news broke, the ink hadn’t even dried on new Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark’s contract. Yormark won’t have long to get settled before he faces more concerns over realignment. The DNA of the conference is changing with the addition of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF in 2023, even as the league is about to lose blue-blood programs in Texas and Oklahoma in 2025.
With a new media-rights deal on the horizon, perhaps now is the time to get aggressive. The Pac-12 is on shaky ground at best, and the Big 12 could provide more value to television partners by adding Arizona and Arizona State.
Or Yormark could shoot higher and propose a merger with the remaining Pac-12 members, forming a super conference with 20 or 22 members.
SEC: The SEC started this process by inviting Texas and Oklahoma to join the league in 2025. It’s a move projected to pay each league member $117 million by 2029. That would be most in the Power Five conferences, ahead of the Big Ten’s projected $100 million.
If the SEC wanted to continue to grow, it could look toward the ACC, where Clemson, Florida State, Miami and North Carolina would fit its southern footprint. The only catch would be the ACC’s Grant of Rights, which runs through 2036.
ACC: Realignment hasn’t been as real as it is now for the conference. It has several attractive member schools (see SEC), and if its Grant of Rights is nullified through the courts, it’s anybody’s guess what could happen.
That doesn’t mean the ACC could choose to stay pat. The league could pursue Notre Dame, trying to convince the school to join as a fullfledged member instead of just a partial member. The addition of the Notre Dame football program could go far in solidifying the conference.
If the ACC chooses to expand, it would run the risk of nullifying its Grant of Rights deal, which would open the door for schools to leave without penalty.
Pac-12: Commissioner George Kliavkoff thought forming the Alliance between the Big Ten and ACC would help solidify his conference standing. That’s clearly out the window.
The conference’s standing is tenuous at best. Even with the two L.A. schools, the Pac-12 was projected to see its revenue per school grow to only $62 million by 2029. Without them, that figure surely will be much less.
The Pac-12 could stay put with its remaining 10 member schools, or it could add schools such as Boise State, Fresno State or San Diego State.
But those wouldn’t provide enough cache to convince the other schools not to look elsewhere. If Oregon, Washington and Stanford are convinced to join a league such as the Big Ten, then all bets are off.
Group of Five: It’s safe to say that the five non-autonomous conferences are playing the waiting game. What inevitably happens to the Pac-12 would have a ripple effect that could stretch into the G5 landscape.