A corollary to the truth that “every man has his price” is the fact that someone has to be willing to pay that price for the price itself to matter, and as details continue to emerge about conference realignment, we’re learning more and more about conference budgets, both proverbial and literal. Two major things to learn/be reminded of, from ESPN’s Pete Thamel (with the note that ESPN is an active, interested participant in conference realignment, making them not at all an unbiased reporting agency here):
- TV rights deals for the Pac-12 and Big 12 expire soon. The Pac-12’s expires after this upcoming academic year. The Big 12’s expires after these next two upcoming academic years. The ACC’s doesn’t expire until 2036, and based on a quick Google search, it looks like the Big Ten’s expires next summer (like the Pac-12’s) while the SEC starts a new one in 2024 that runs for ten years.
- The Big Ten is not interested in adding Washington or Oregon. How do we know this? The Big Ten hasn’t added them. The money there must not be enough to increase revenue for existing Big Ten members.
Going off all of this, the reason it’s unlikely we see an ACC school immediately poached is that the expense would be extraordinary. Thamel labels Clemson, UNC, Miami, Florida State, and Virginia as brands which could appeal to the Big Ten and SEC (I’m surprised Virginia’s on there rather than Duke, but maybe there’s something about Washington D.C. which would help the SEC, and I’m certainly prone to overestimating the value of men’s basketball), and says to expect a shift in the ACC’s revenue sharing agreement which incentivizes these brands to stay. Thamel either speculates or reports that the ACC could try aggressive expansion of its own, listing TCU, Oklahoma State, Houston, and Cincinnati as potential targets from the new Big 12, and Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Cal, Arizona State, and Colorado as potential targets from what remains of the Pac-12.
For the Big 12, Thamel reports that brand new commissioner Brett Yormark “has been aggressive,” and—in something every Iowa State fan reading this will probably love—“has impressed the league’s athletic directors and leaders with his humility and willingness to admit he knows what he doesn’t know.” Could this be some water-carrying by Thamel? Sure, that’s always possible with unnamed sources, but at the very least, the Big 12 is winning the narrative, and that’s better than losing it. Thamel goes on to either report or speculate that adding Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah is a logical expansion move, and that Washington and Oregon could be willing to accept unequal revenue sharing at their own expense if it gets them into the Big Ten.
What to make of all of this?
The speculation that the Big 12 will add Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah is widespread. Passing sixteen teams in one conference feels to me like crossing the Rubicon, but these additions would leave Washington, Oregon, Stanford, and Cal all as potentially attractive targets for both a beefed-up Big 12 and the ACC, which has fifteen teams if you count Notre Dame but only fourteen in football, where the number of teams more directly impacts scheduling than in any other sport (in a 22-team conference, it’s hard to see any scheduling setup that doesn’t look a whole lot like two separate conferences with one combined champion).
Then, there’s the matter of Washington State and Oregon State, remaining Pac-12 schools whom no one but certain members of their own state legislatures are calling attractive. Personally, of course, I hold some love for these two. They’re cultural cousins to Iowa State. But at the same time, sometimes schools are left behind by realignment. This isn’t a recent development, either. Cincinnati played more football seasons as a member of a BCS conference than they’ve played in the Group of Five. It can happen. The question is whether the pair can persuade the other remaining Pac-12 schools to bring them along or try to keep the league alive. I don’t think these two are done for, but I do think the answer to that question is “no.” (For what it’s worth, Thamel labels the possibility of a “merger” as “complicated,” saying there are “too many mouths to feed to get a blockbuster [TV] deal.”)
What’s going to happen, then? Two core scenarios seem plausible: The Pac-12 survives, or the Pac-12 disbands. It depends what the Big 12, ACC, and Pac-12 all do.
If the Big 12 and any Pac-12 schools want said Pac-12 schools to join the Big 12, those schools will join the Big 12. It’s easy to believe Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado will join. All are attractive candidates individually, it mostly makes sense on a map (especially if you don’t zoom out far enough to see UCF), BYU and Utah would give the league one of college sports’ biggest rivalries, Arizona would contribute to the league’s men’s basketball heft, Colorado’s an old friend. This isn’t an attempt to discredit anybody’s work, but there’s an aspect to all the reports about these four meeting with the Big 12 where even if the reporter is accurate in their reporting, it’s possibly because one can just speculate this with a high probability of accuracy. You don’t need a reporter to tell you Kirby Smart’s staff watches a lot of film on Alabama. Some things, you can guess for yourself.
This doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen. Someone might take charge in the Pac-12, put together a confident plan for short-term survival, and leave the schools more satisfied together than in the Big 12. The ACC might come in with a better offer for two or more additions. The Big 12 might decide that sixteen is its number and court applications from all ten Pac-12 schools, then take the best four.
If it does happen, though—if the Arizonas, Utah, and Colorado do together join the Big 12—then Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, Oregon State, and Washington State are going to need homes. The four likely destinations are the ACC, Big 12, Mountain West, and Pac-9 (or some other number). It would be unsurprising for the ACC to add two, three, or four. It would be unsurprising for the Big 12 to add two or four more. It would be surprising, if anyone else does leave the Pac-12, for Oregon State and Washington State to end this realignment cycle still residing in a power conference. The only ways that seems possible is through the Pac-12 remaining an existent power conference or the Pac-12 merging with the ACC or Big 12 (which is, again, unlikely).
For Washington, Oregon, Stanford, and maybe Cal (it’s possible Cal belongs more with Oregon State and Washington State than with Washington and Oregon in this discussion—and Stanford’s an entirely different beast), I’m curious if some brief pseudo-independence is a possibility, with joint scheduling agreements and some joint TV rights but no actual membership in a football conference (if it’s possible to add these four to the WCC, you’ve got a fascinating league in the non-football sports). The question each has to answer, whether independence is on the table or not, is whether they can survive for a few years and hope for a big change in the landscape, or if they need to get to the Big 12, ACC, SEC, or Big Ten immediately, through whatever means necessary, to preserve their own survival as power programs. The possible discounted-rate-Big-Ten-membership is, like the sixteen-team threshold, a Rubicon. There is no returning. Additionally, if one school crosses it, you can expect others to follow.
Want a prediction? This is haphazard, but my guess is that the Big 12 comes out of this as a twenty-team league, and that Washington State and Oregon State join the Mountain West, and that this is only the status quo for a few years, but that this short-lived iteration of the Big 12 does some unconventional things, for both better and worse. If you’re getting a short-term solution either way, it makes more sense for the Arizonas, Colorado, and Utah to join the Big 12 than for those to stay in a league four other teams could immediately leave. If those four do join the Big 12, Washington & Oregon & Stanford & Cal need a home, and it makes more sense for the Big 12 to take them than for either the ACC to take them or the Big Ten to try unequal revenue sharing (something Thamel notes has been proposed before, but has always resulted in “leagues falling apart”). A 20-team conference might actually make scheduling easier than it would be in a 16-team conference, because it would make it more necessary to put teams from the Eastern Time Zone (UCF, West Virginia, & Cincinnati) in a separate division from those at least sometimes in Pacific Time (Arizona & Arizona State in the 16-team scenario). Picture a Big 12 with two leagues—West and East—and four divisions: Northwest (Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal), Southwest (Utah, BYU, Arizona, Arizona State, Houston), Central (Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Cincinnati, West Virginia), and South (TCU, Texas Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma State, UCF). That’s manageable for scheduling (in football, nine conference games, with four against each division opponent, three against league opponents outside the division, and two “interleague” games leaves every school playing on every league campus at least once every four years and playing on every conference campus at least once a decade; in basketball, you could do a “straightforward” 23-game schedule), and it’s set up well for either a conference championship or, as the SEC recently proposed for itself, a conference playoff.
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We’re out of time for today, so apologies to fans of professional sports and to those looking for any news on college sports I’ve missed these last few days. I’m not sure I’ve said this before, but if you’re looking for something to be addressed in these notes, please ask. We’re trying to tailor these to the reader. But also, you know, to ourselves (if you don’t like realignment talk you may not like these notes the next few weeks).
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Viewing schedule tonight, second screen rotation in italics:
- 4:10 PM EDT: Seattle @ San Diego, Gilbert vs. Clevinger (MLB TV)
- 6:40 PM EDT: Anaheim @ Miami, Syndergaard vs. Alcantara (MLB TV)
- 6:40 PM EDT: New York (NL) @ Cincinnati, Scherzer vs. Lodolo (MLB TV)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Tampa Bay @ Boston, Springs vs. Pivetta (TBS)
- 7:20 PM EDT: St. Louis @ Atlanta, Pallante vs. Anderson (MLB TV)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Cubs @ Milwaukee, Hendricks vs. Alexander (MLB TV)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Minnesota @ Chicago (AL), Winder vs. Kopech (MLB TV)
