A lot has been happening in the college football world lately. As you probably already know there has been a lot of moving pieces, schools moving to different conferences and leaving their old conferences in the dust. Most notably is the PAC 12, we saw the first two pieces fall earlier in the summer with USC and UCLA announcing their move to the Big Ten.
However, conference realignment has been in discussion for the past couple years now and is certainly nothing new to the sport. In 1971, South Carolina left the ACC after being "treated unfairly" by the league office. Then in 1978, Arizona and Arizona State joined the PAC 8, now known as the PAC 12. Georgia Tech then joined the ACC in 1983 and in 1991 the Big East formed a football league with Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College, West Virginia, Temple, Rutgers, Pitt, Syracuse and later UCONN, USF, Louisville, and Cincinatti. In the following season, 1992, Arkansas and South Carolina joined the SEC and Florida State joined the ACC. Then in 1993, Penn State joined the Big Ten. Three years later, the Big 8 expanded to the Big 12 with the additions of Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor and Texas Tech.
Fast forward several years to 2004 and we saw the ACC add Miami and Virginia Tech to the conference. A year later, Boston College would also join the ACC. Fast forward again to 2011 when the Big Ten added their 12th team in Nebraska. Colorado and Utah then joined the PAC 12 in the same year. The following year, Texas A&M jumped ship to the SEC along with Missouri and the Big 12 added West Virginia and TCU. In 2013, Syracuse and Pitt joined the ACC, and the Big East ceased their football operations. Then in 2014, Louisville joined the ACC and Rutgers and Maryland headed to the Big Ten.
Alright, that's enough history. Now to answer the big question and I'll keep it PG here on the odd chance that this blog has reached a younger audience, but what the heck is going on with college football?
Earlier in the year, Texas and Oklahoma announced they were going to join the SEC at the beginning of the 2024 season. So, how did the Big 12 respond to losing two powerhouse members? The conference quickly added several more schools set to join immediately in Cincinatti, UCF, BYU and Houston. This helped keep the conference safe from further realignment moves.
Talks of further realignment then started to heat up as the PAC 12's contract with Fox is set to expire at the end of the 2023 season and Fox has stated that they do not intend on extending the contract with the conference. This ultimately effects how much money the athletic programs bring in annually. In response the PAC 12 was trying to get a contract done with Apple TV that would have brought in $20 million annually to each school, the contract would have also had incentives built in. However, this is still a way lower number than other conferences. In the Big Ten, each school receives approximately $58.8 million, in the SEC the number is $49.9 million, the Big 12 is $42-44.9 million and the ACC is around $37.9-41.3 million per school.
With that in mind, USC and UCLA kick started the exodus from the PAC 12 and are set to the join the Big Ten at the start of the 2024 football season. A couple weeks later another PAC 12 team left with Colorado moving to the Big 12. Soon after, Oregon and Washington announced they too will join the big Ten in 2024. This left the PAC 12 with just seven members. However, it wasn't short after that that Arizona, Arizona State and Utah all joined Colorado in their move to the Big 12.
As it stands right now, the Big 12 will have 14 teams for the 2023 season, that includes four new members, but, in 2024 the conference will lose Texas and Oklahoma and bring in Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State to bring the conference to a total of 16 members. The Big Ten will have18 members starting in 2024, including 4 new members. The SEC, as of right now, still looks the same as it did a year ago and will add Texas and Oklahoma at the beginning of the 2024 season. However, with all these moves the PAC 12 is left with just four members and is on the brink of folding. So, what's next for the PAC 12?
There's a limited number of options left for the PAC 12. If they want to remain a conference, they need to add more schools. The option of merging with the Mountain West conference has been thrown around, but that won't strengthen the conference and won't help them compete with the remaining power conferences.
Instead, what they could do is broaden their region and bring in the bigger and better group of five schools. These schools could include SMU, Memphis, San Diego State, Tulane (who just last season beat USC in the Cotton Bowl), Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State, and UCONN (who is currently independent for football). There are more schools that could be a possible addition to the PAC 12, but these eight seem to be the most appealing and outside of UCONN are somewhat still regional, at least more so than the Big Ten.
More recently, talks of Florida State and Clemson leaving the ACC for the Big Ten or SEC have seemed to gain traction, but it is unclear when or if they will leave the conference. Florida State has said it's not a matter of if but when they will leave the ACC and have been working with JPMorgan to help find investors to help pay the price of leaving the conference. We will have more updates on this as more news comes out.