Six schools that the Pac-12 should consider adding
The Pac-12 lost its two Los Angeles schools to the Big Ten in what really was the blink of an eye.
USC and UCLA who had been working in the shadows to make the move, and possibly sabotaging the Pac-12 on their way out, will now be heading to the Big Ten for the 2024 season. This has left the Pac-12 with 10 teams and fighting for their lives to simply exist as a conference.
However, recent news that ESPN backed out of media rights negotiations with the Big Ten indicates that there may be light at the end of the tunnel for the Pac-12 who are still viewed as having value for the evening time slots. That's right, conference expansion and all of the negations are based off how much value and eye balls conference's can get on the T.V. for whoever is televising the games.
Thus making it vital that the Pac-12 adds at least two more teams, but the optimal number would be six. Getting back to 12 is a must, but the conference needs to be on the offensive side of things for once and get ahead of the Big 12 and ACC when it comes to forming larger mega-conferences. The Big Ten and the SEC are already destined and in position to form their mega-conference, everyone else is playing catch-up. Now granted, there aren't any teams out there that will bring the value and prestige that the conference lost with USC and UCLA, but more teams equates to more markets, which equals more money.
Most of, if not all of the options for the Pac-12 are Group of Five schools but again do not focus on what conference they are in now, look more at where they reside.
Another thing that the Pac-12 may have to eliminate or at least loosen, are their requirements to join the conference such as being a Tier 1 research institute. They no longer have that luxury of being picky, maybe if they didn't listen to Carol Folt about not taking in Big 12 teams looking for homes, they could have been.
Either way, the conference needs to add more schools and there are still viable options that while they won't all move the needle in terms of on the field performance, they secure major markets for the conference. In honor of football starting soon, I felt it was necessary for one last realignment argument. Let's take a look at the six teams that I think the Pac-12 needs to add in order of importance/likeness to happen.