Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC Form Alliance to Preemptively Prevent Chaos

Huge football match-ups, attractive TV rights and sporting peace are byproducts of the historic agreement.

The Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC announced on Tuesday they have formed an alliance among their three conferences to offset what could become a chaotic athletic environment, especially in football, with Texas and Oklahoma divorcing the Big 12 for the SEC.

This arrangement brings together 41 schools from Seattle to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that will now try to schedule each other in football and men's and women's basketball when existing contracts permit.

This consolidation, which is basically a handshake agreement involving 60 percent of all Power 5 schools, should protect their conferences from imploding into an expansion free-for-all, which seems to be the fate of the Big 12, which could disappear.

"One expansion of a conference has usually led to another and another and another," ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said, citing the need for some sort of proactive stabilization. 

Said Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff, "The foundation of college sports, in many respects, is in turmoil. We get to hit the reset button."

As the SEC continues to build its football fiefdom, these three conferences have answered with strength in numbers. The Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC will pursue the scheduling of classic non-conference football match-ups that give the SEC more competition for top-dollar TV rights fees and they expect early or midseason basketball events to do the same.

Already these leagues have 68 football crossover games scheduled amongst themselves through 2035, or 103 when counting Notre Dame, an independent with an ACC football affiliation. 

The alliance, in effect as of Tuesday, more than doubles the SEC's eventual membership of 16 counting the additions of Texas and Oklahoma by 2025 if not sooner.

"Hopefully this will bring some much needed stability to the college landscape," Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said. "It will enable everyone to understand where everyone stands."

Further conference member expansion for the Pac-12 and the others hasn't been ruled out, but the alliance should keep leagues from being raided for members and come unhinged.

Most changes wrought by this agreement won't show up for some time. For instance, the Pac-12 must continue to play nine conference games until 2024, or until its ESPN and FOX media contract expire. That is, unless the networks, of course, tear up these deals and encourage an earlier shift to eight league encounters to provide more national TV-ready crossovers.

"We are bullish on the schedule alliance because it will enable our profile coast to coast," Phillips said.

With the conference partnership in place, the three leagues together can promote their desires for an expanded college football playoff and confer on name, image and likeness discussions to best benefit their schools, among other agenda items.

With so much changing on the college level in such a short time, this facilitates collective discussion by the Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC of where everything collegiate sports is heading in 5, 10 or even 15 years. 

"This is an historic moment," Kliavkoff said, "but the beginning of a long journey."

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