FORT WORTH, Texas — What the SEC started in 1991 — when Arkansas left the Southwest Conference to join that league — has us here today in a world where conference realignment is more interesting than a conference game.
Less than one year after the SEC stole Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12, the Big Ten is doing to the same thing to the Pac-12.
According to Jon Wilner of the Pac-12 Hotline, USC and UCLA are negotiating with the Big Ten to join that league as early as 2024.
A Big 12 source confirmed this move is being discussed. He said, “It’s not done but this is probably over.”
Disregard the inane logic and insulting costs of UCLA flying five hours from Los Angeles to New Jersey to play Rutgers in a midweek men’s soccer game.
The future of college athletics is a game of wealth consolidation, which leaves schools like TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, Wake Forest, Oregon State and a few dozen others praying they can somehow remain in the Power 5.
If UCLA and USC going to the Big Ten is anything like Oklahoma and Texas moving to the SEC, this is all a formality and an exchange of financials.
Ultimately, if they want to go, they’re going.
The Pac-12 will soon lose all of Southern California. Washington and Oregon, the floor is yours.
The remaining Pac-12 schools will soon fantasize that the Big Ten will expand again and take them, too. Ask the Big 12 how this goes.
The Big Ten got the schools/market it wanted. Sorry, Arizona State.
The next time your favorite conference loses a conference member, don’t blame the conference commissioner.
There is nothing a conference commissioner can do when one of the league’s biggest members chats with another league about leaving.
UCLA and USC to the Big Ten is about Fox Sports expanding its footprint with its college football package, and that league having more to offer other TV broadcast partners that crave live programming.
The immediate question is what happens to the remaining Pac-12 schools, and how it possibly affects the Big 12 or even the ACC.
The Pac-12 without UCLA and USC is as catastrophic to that league as the Big 12 losing Texas and Oklahoma.
The irony is the Pac-12 hired entertainment executive George Kliavkoff in May of 2021 to strengthen that league, which ostensibly fell apart under his predecessor, Larry Scott.
Just like former Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby discovered when UT and OU announced their plans to leave the league last summer, there is nothing anyone in these positions of “power” can do when it comes to decisions such as these.
They’re not running these leagues; the college presidents and network executives are the ones with the power.
FYI: The Big 12 just made a similar hire as Kliavkoff by hiring former sports entertainment executive Brett Yormark as its new commissioner.
He’s likely a smart, capable man who will do just as well as most of these guys.
Yormark’s task is to keep the Big 12 viable enough to remain in the Power 5/college football playoff structure; to negotiate a broadcast rights contract with a major carrier that wants to give the Big 12 hundreds of millions of dollars to televise Iowa State versus West Virginia.
Kliavkoff originally discussed expanding the Pac-12 last summer, which sources said would have been TCU and Houston.
The Pac-12 historically does not want to have conference members that are religiously affiliated. At this point, ideological aspirations are out, and millions of dollars are in.
One of the Pac-12’s major issues is its invisibility in the Central and Eastern time zones. Conference games against TCU and Houston would have provided some assistance.
The league said it would not expand “at this time.”
The Pac-12’s broadcast deal expires in the summer of 2024. As of today Kliavkoff would negotiate without USC and UCLA as conference members, any presence in Los Angeles, and nothing of note east of Salt Lake City.
The Big 12’s media rights deal expires in the summer of 2025.
Perhaps there is some type of affiliation/partnership between the remaining Big 12 and Pac-12 schools. It would be a split league consisting of teams from Seattle to Orlando.
With Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina, Miami and Duke, among others, the ACC fits in this discussion somewhere, too.
Of course it’s all stupid. Also stupid: USC at Maryland in a women’s basketball game on Thursday night.
In major college athletics realignment, Stupid has VIP Platinum Seats to nearly every single game.
That is the only reason why USC and UCLA to the Big Ten make any $ense.
At this point, we are numb to news such as USC and UCLA moving east to the Big Ten.
The power college leagues are hoarding the best regional rivalries, and brands, to build their conferences into global super powers that land the biggest national TV contracts.
It’s created a situation where conference realignment is more exciting, dramatic, and sometimes painful, than the actual games.
