All Eyes Turn to Arizona in Big 12 vs. Pac-12 Conference Duel

Tuesday features two key meetings as the Big 12 presses its advantage after poaching Colorado.

In a college sports landscape where the only stable thing seems to be instability, the third straight summer of realignment rages on, with all eyes now on the state of Arizona to see whether one, or both, of the Pac-12 schools will follow Colorado’s lead and bolt to the Big 12. A Big 12 source reiterated to Sports Illustrated on Monday that Arizona, Arizona State and Utah remain the priority for the Big 12 to add. But the key first domino will be the University of Arizona, the school that not only has the highest athletic pedigree of the group but also fits multiple other strategic aims of the quickly re-forming conference. Most notably, the Big 12’s desire to emphasize basketball and appeal internationally.

On Friday, Big 12 sources told SI that the conference’s expansion targets were “on the clock,” but a league source walked that back, to a degree, on Monday, saying there wasn’t a hard and fast deadline for a decision to be made. Clearly, though, the Big 12 is eager to press its advantage over the Pac-12, moving aggressively to add from its ranks, while the venerable west coast conference has largely sat on its hands. Nabbing a school like Arizona—and perhaps a couple of others—could both solidify a remade Big 12 and spell major trouble for the Pac-12, which is already preparing to wave goodbye to Big Ten–bound USC and UCLA.

There is an Arizona board of regents meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, but a potential Pac-12 exit for the Wildcats may not be as simple as an up or down vote. Arizona and Arizona State are both governed by the board, which may want to ensure that the Sun Devils don’t get left behind in a weakened conference. It is unclear whether this all will be discussed in Tuesday’s meeting, as the only item listed on the docket, as of Monday night, was an “executive session,” which is behind closed doors.

The Pac-12 has remained steadfast in not looking to add any schools until its TV deal is done, a decision that may have brought the conference to a break point. A meeting of Pac-12 CEOs, also Tuesday, is expected to feature an update on the ongoing media rights saga the league has been going through. If commissioner George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12’s brass can produce a deal proposal that is satisfactory, it may entice schools with a wandering eye to stay put. If it misses the mark, there’s a notion within college sports that all bets will be off. A substandard deal may be one that either fails to keep up with the per-school dollar figures in the Big 12 deal—around $32 million annually per university—or one that relies too much on putting games behind the paywall of a streaming service, as opposed to a linear or broadcast network. The league has reportedly been in talks with Apple TV+ for months.

Big 12 commissioner Yormark, left, has put pressure on his Pac-12 counterpart Kliavkoff to produce a media rights deal that will satisfy its remaining schools :: Jerome Miron/USA TODAY Sports (Yorkmark); Kelvin Kuo/USA TODAY Sports (Kliavkoff)

The thought is that Arizona makes the most sense for the Big 12 out of the three remaining four corners schools. Arizona is a basketball school first, and the obvious draw of the Wildcats is that they’re a hoops blueblood in a league determined to elevate basketball, which Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark believes is underleveraged monetarily. The league already has arguably the best collection of men’s basketball programs in the country, and the Wildcats would only add to that. Arizona, just 70 miles from the Mexican border, also helps the league as it looks to continue to deepen ties in Mexico in the long term and develop an international appeal. Arizona also would give the Big 12 its own version of a four corners footprint after adding Colorado and BYU, and would continue to extend the conference’s reach west of Lubbock in the Texas panhandle. The Wildcats (or any Pac-12 school) would come in earning a full share of television revenue as existing Power 5 schools.

Adding the Wildcats would not significantly enhance the Big 12’s football product. Arizona is certainly not a program where it is impossible to have modest success, but they’ve infamously never been to a Rose Bowl despite being in the league since 1978, and have finished in the top 25 only once since the dream ’98 season, where they went 12–1 and would have played for a national title had they not lost to UCLA. Their No. 4 ranking at that season’s end was one of two top-10 finishes ever.

Arizona also does not enhance the Big 12’s football television audience, as it ranks near or at the very bottom of average viewership among Pac-12 schools, according to data reviewed by SI. But adding a school that is not a football behemoth is its own strategic play by the Big 12. While it’d certainly take an Oregon or a Washington (which seem much more focused on the Big Ten), the Big 12 having parity among its football programs avoids the issue it had for years when two brands (Oklahoma and Texas) had an outsized influence on league policies and could effectively hold the rest of the conference hostage. And in a 12-team Playoff world, access to the postseason will not be an issue. The Big 12 school presidents surely noticed in May, when the two ACC football behemoths, Florida State and Clemson, put their thumb on the scale at ACC meetings to the advantage of their universities.

All of this tees up a dramatic decision in Arizona—and a potentially dramatic board of regents meeting Tuesday. It’s doubtful that the regents would let the University of Arizona make a move without a plan in place for Arizona State. Surely, if Wildcats brass is set on leaving, they have their own proposal in mind, whether that means lobbying for the Sun Devils to come with them or reaching a financial consideration. In a similar situation, a divided California board of regents allowed UCLA to go to the Big Ten, but only for a significant price. The regents forced the Bruins to agree to pay Cal, their sister Pac-12 public school in the UC system, between $2 and $10 million per year. (Big Ten’s TV revenue will likely be at least double on a per-school basis than the Big 12’s.)

What may also be different this time around is that leaving a sister school in the Pac-12 is a dicier proposition with each team that departs. Arizona leaving would be a major perception hit, but it’s one the Pac-12 could potentially weather by adding schools like Boise State or San Diego State to get numbers back up to 10. But if Arizona goes, with Arizona State tagging along, and then if they brought Utah along with them, the Big 12 would immediately be able to boast strong rivalries between the Arizonas and Utah’s deep animus for BYU. And such a move would cause even further instability and could even be a fatal blow to the Pac-12.