On the conference realignment front, expect an 'unsettling' summer ... again

Two summers after Texas and Oklahoma decided to move to the SEC, one summer after UCLA and USC opted to bolt for the Big Ten, the realignment winds are howling once again. 

Just how fierce those wind gusts prove to be, how disruptive and how many dominoes, if any, fall in the process, remain to be seen. The focus is squarely on two leagues – the distressed Pac-12 and the forward-thinking Big 12 – but any moves in either league will very likely trigger further shuffling across the landscape. 

The Pac-12 remains in search of a media rights deal to stabilize itself and then perhaps add one or more schools. The Big 12, meantime, is aggressively looking to bolster a league already considered the nation’s best in men’s basketball. With selective additions, it could potentially position itself as the third mega-league alongside – and certainly still behind – the SEC and Big Ten. 

And the entire college sports ecosystem awaits which conference, if any, strikes first.

“This summer will be unsettling,” one conference commissioner told On3. “Something’s gotta give. There is a lot of uncertainty right now.”

‘Can you get blood out of a stone?’

The Pac-12’s hunt for a new media rights deal has dragged on interminably. But there is a deadline of sorts looming, which could provide some indication of when a deal for the league may finally be consummated: June 30.

San Diego State has been linked to the Pac-12, viewed as a natural addition if the league chooses to expand. Adding SDSU would enable the league to maintain a Southern California presence after UCLA and USC depart for the Big Ten next summer. If the Aztecs give the Mountain West Conference a one-year notice of their plans to leave by June 30, their exit fee is the equivalent of triple the most recent annual payout per MWC school, or roughly $17 million. 

However, according to MWC bylaws, if San Diego State bolts after June 30 for the 2024-25 academic year, the exit fee doubles to $34 million.

“Common sense would tell you that if they’re going to take them,” the conference commissioner said, “they would want to take them and avoid a huge increase in the exit fee.”

That appears to be the most likely domino to fall. But the Pac-12 is signaling that it wants to secure the media rights deal before addressing expansion.

A word of caution: This has been an unpredictable ride, especially with how the league has handled things from a messaging standpoint. On Feb. 13, the league issued a statement of unity, saying it looked forward to landing a rights deal in the “very near future.”

It is now almost June. No new media rights deal has been announced.

Pac-12 officials remain confident that the league will sign a deal that matches or eclipses the $31.7 million annual payout each Big 12 school will receive as part of its new rights deal with ESPN and Fox. The Pac-12 continues to navigate a fast-changing media landscape that involves emerging Big Tech companies – Amazon, Apple, etc. – looking to bolster their live sports portfolios, as well as traditional linear potential partners finding themselves squeezed on various fronts.

The Pac-12 needed to try to maximize dollars or exposure. Now it’s an open question whether the league will achieve either objective.

“Can you get blood out of a stone? I don’t know,” a TV source said. “You have a distressed product.”

Big 12 ‘outflanked’ the Pac-12

ESPN could use Pac-12 inventory for late Saturday evenings in the fall, heavily promoting the product all day starting with College GameDay. But two TV sources said that window wouldn’t necessarily be a Tier 1 package. And the New York Post‘s Andrew Marchand said recently that ESPN has had “no substantive talks with the Pac-12 in a while.”

“You’re not going to get the kind of money you need from just that [late-night] package,” one of the TV sources said. “It is a tough situation for him [Commissioner George Kliavkoff]. Because even though they’re the only guys left out there, what’s the demand?

“ESPN has got plenty of product now, even though they lost the Big Ten. The Big 12 outflanked the Pac 12. You’ve got to give Brett Yormark a lot of credit. He got in there and got a deal done. It’s a deal that maybe ESPN wouldn’t even do now.”

That references the Big 12 moving swiftly to secure a rights deal last October – a six-year extension with ESPN and Fox Sports for $2.3 billion – just three months after Yormark began his tenure as commissioner. Since then, ESPN has implemented waves of layoffs and Bob Iger, the CEO of parent company Disney, has signaled that the company would become more selective in its rights acquisitions.

In the meantime, San Diego State President Adela de la Torre told the San Diego Union-Tribune last week that she remains confident of the school’s future in a Power 5 league. It’s a similar message San Diego State athletic director John David Wicker told On3’s Andy Wittry last week.

“I’m also confident that, when we talk about the Pac-12, they need to get the best deal possible for us to get the pro rata share we deserve …,” she said. “I know we’re the No. 1 (expansion candidate), that they believe in us, that they see their future with us. I’m optimistic. But there’s never a straight line to success.”

When and If the Aztecs gain entry into the Pac-12, the muscle of a Power 5 conference is expected to bolster San Diego State’s athletic teams in promotion, exposure and recruiting. The effect of Power 5 membership is not insignificant.

“As it grows and becomes competitive in the Pac-12, general media interest will grow with them,” another TV source said. “If you only judged a G5 school’s media value based on G5 media audiences, then no school would ever be deemed worthy. That’s a mistake I’ve seen many in the media make: ‘Why would the Pac-12 want San Diego State? They barely average 400,000 viewers.’ Of course, that’s all!

“Playing average G5 competition on ESPN2, ESPNU, FS1, CBS Sports Network, in time slots against multiple big games on major platforms, what do people think they should be averaging? That’s why other factors are important – market, financial resources, facilities, athletic investment, academics, culture. The school will rise to the conference, not the other way around.”

All eyes on Colorado

There are plenty of reasons for the Big 12 to expand. 

It could hammer home the argument that it is the nation’s premier men’s basketball conference. It could become the only league whose footprint extends to all four time zones. And at the same time, it could play the long game, working to assemble the third super conference in a future world in which the SEC, Big Ten and, hypothetically, the expanded Big 12 levitate above everyone else.

The Big 12 has supposedly shown to interest in two basketball heavyweights, Gonzaga and UConn, according to Sports Illustrated. As a perennial national title contender, Gonzaga has flirted in recent years with joining a P5 conference. WCC senior associate commissioner Connie Hurlbut told On3 that the league in recent years tweaked its revenue distribution model for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament to give advancing teams – namely, Gonzaga – a larger slice of the revenue pie.

“To recognize that advancing institutions also have advancing costs and recognition of what their what their program was accomplishing,” Hurlbut said.

Despite the WCC’s attempts to make life in a non-P5 league more palatable for Gonzaga, overtures by the Big 12, or another league, may one day prove too financially enticing.

The Big 12 has also reportedly maintained varying degrees of communication with the so-called Four Corner schools – Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. The Big 12 has been in “substantive” talks with Colorado specifically, CBS Sports reported Tuesday.

Any defection by a Pac-12 school could destabilize the entire league. It’s a scenario Colorado hasn’t exactly closed the door on entertaining. Last week, Rick George, Colorado’s athletic director, told BuffZone.com, “In a perfect world, we’d love to be in the Pac-12. But we also have to do what’s right for Colorado at the end of the day. We’ll evaluate things as we move forward.”

The Pac-12’s hope: A relatively attractive rights deal, perhaps a short-term one, could dissuade schools from leaving. Meantime, George is keeping Colorado’s options open.

And the potential for summer realignment chaos remains. The winds are blowing. The next couple of months will determine how far the gusts carry and any residual effects, if any, felt across college sports.

“You saw all the dominoes falling the last few years, and it tends to affect virtually every conference at some point,” one TV source said. “That’s college sports these days.”