The Alliance, the Pac-12 linchpin and the lifeboat

The ACC/B1G/Pac-12 Alliance has been formally announced.

Essentially they promise to schedule each other more often, to not poach from one another, and to work together to focus on all aspects of all college sports. Essentially 41 votes to 16 SEC votes on the future of college athletics in general and college football in particular.

It’s a look in the eye and handshake agreement. Nothing contracted.
Nothing to keep any of the three from deciding to go their own way if the circumstances warrant it.

Essentially a paper alliance that gives lip service to the idea of the continued existence of a healthy Big 12.

The big plus out of this for the remnant 8 Big 12 schools is that if expansion continues, they will be prime targets, as the 3 conferences agree not to poach from each other.

IF expansion continues…

And the Pac-12 may just be the linchpin to realignment now or realignment down the road, if ever.

The Pac-12 has a committee currently examining whether or not that conference should expand, and it is projected to have a formal recommendation for conference members this week. If the recommendation is expand, expect things to go pretty quickly, with both the B1G and the ACC probably following suit. If the decision of the weakest of the remaining P4 conferences is to not expand, the B1G and the ACC will be less likely to do so.

Berry Tramel, writing in today’s Oklahoman, talks about OSU’s options, and acknowledges that Kansas just may have a lifeboat that can get it to another home… or possibly keep a watered down Big 12 viable.

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Staying in the Big 12 might be Oklahoma State's best option in conference realignment
Berry Tramel in The Oklahoman, August 25, 2021

When news broke that OU and Texas were bound for the Southeastern Conference, the Big 12 was declared dead by most pundits.

Seemed like an accurate assessment of the situation.

It’s as if Chrysler lost Dodge Rams and Jeep Cherokees, leaving a bunch of Plymouths on the lot.

It’s like when the Andy Griffith Show lost Sheriff Taylor and Barney Fife, leaving Mayberry with a bunch of Howard Spragues.

Think Chicago Bulls, without Jordan and Pippen.

But a month removed from the Sooner/Longhorn shockwave, the prospects for the Big 12 are not as dire as first believed.

Oh, things aren’t rosy in Middle America. The Big 12 remnants face an uncertain future. Their economic models could be in disarray.

OSU, the Kansas schools and Iowa State, West Virginia and the Texas schools, are scrambling to secure their status, eventually with media-rights contracts that keep them, if not in the fast lane of college football, at least on the freeway.

But the two proclaimed scenarios — that the best of the Big 12 would jump into other-conference lifeboats and the rest would slink off to the American Conference — are not necessarily assured.

Either could happen. The Pac-12 might decide to expand, either soon or nearer 2024-25, when the Big 12’s television contracts expire. That could be a landing spot for OSU and three Big 12 friends. Maybe the Big Ten takes Kansas or even, less likely, Iowa State. Maybe the Atlantic Coast adds West Virginia to get to 15 football schools and waits on Notre Dame to make it an even number.

Such a scenario could banish Baylor or Kansas State or both to lesser leagues like the American or Mountain West.

But each Big 12 school is standing with a foot each in two rivers. The remaining Big 12 schools have pledged their bond, but they’re sitting around a table, knowing that if any of their phone rings, the phone will be answered and the answer will be yes.

So the Big 12 stuck in purgatory. Fortifying the Big 12 while also alert to jumping to another conference.

The former might be the best option. If the Pac doesn’t come calling, OSU’s best play is making the Big 12 the best it can be. Same with West Virginia and the ACC. Same with KU and same with them all.

The truth is, most Big 12 schools want the conference to survive. They are like-minded institutions. They are familiar faces. They have shared histories. They get along and will get along better now that the conference bullies are headed to Dixie. The Big 12 remnants are great in basketball and can stay great. OU and Texas don’t affect that.

But it’s all about the money.

My sources figure the current Big 12 contract, if OU and Texas are sliced off, would mean a $15 million annual decrease per school. That’s a gut punch no school wants to consider, and that’s why the Big 12 plan is to hang onto the Sooners and Longhorns for four more football seasons and collect all the loot guaranteed in the contract.

That would give the Big 12 time to recalibrate. Figure out a negotiating strategy with networks. Expand back to 10 or, less likely, 12.

Amplify the Big 12’s strengths. Work on the weaknesses.

No one is saying the Big 12 will retain its current status as the No. 3 Power 5 Conference. But the Big 12 would like to retain its status in the Power 5 and the autonomy granted a few years ago by the NCAA.

And that is possible. Here’s why.

It’s not only the Big 12 that is scrambling, uncertain about the future. Put the Pac-12 in that group, too.

The Big Ten/ACC/Pac-12 Alliance, officially announced Tuesday, is mostly a big ball of fluff and, according to ESPN, was pushed most by the Pac-12.

That makes sense. The ACC’s TV contract with ESPN goes through 2036. Who knows how that will age, but for now, it gives the ACC a certain degree of security. The Big Ten doesn’t worry about finances, even with its media rights up for grabs in a couple of years. The Big Ten is an economic force to rival the SEC, even if the SEC almost always has the upper hand competitively and creatively.

But the Pac-12 has no such solid ground. Its media rights soon will enter the market, and the Pac doesn’t have much more to sell than does the Big 12 remnants.

Don’t believe it?

Researcher Zach Miller has jumped full scale into realignment data. He has produced two recent lists. One is the Power 5 schools’ (and potential expansion candidates) estimated value, based on attendance, market size/share, the Wall Street Journal’s 2019 estimated program valuation and social media following. The other list is average television viewers over a five-year span.

In TV viewership, OSU ranks 19th nationally and TCU 24th.

“If you’re an Oklahoma State or TCU fan holding out hope for a Pac-12 invite, these rankings are something to point to,” Miller wrote. “The Cowboys and Horned Frogs outranked every Pac-12 team except USC.

“Same for West Virginia fans hoping for an ACC invite. The Mountaineers outranked every ACC team but Clemson, Florida State and Miami.”

True. Southern Cal ranked 16th. And if you combine both lists, giving 50 percent weight to each, the top brands among the Big 12 and Pac-12 are USC, OSU, Oregon, Washington, UCLA, West Virginia, Texas Tech, TCU, Stanford, Utah, Arizona State, Iowa State, California, Baylor, Kansas State, Washington State, Colorado, Arizona, Kansas and Oregon State.

The Pac-12 is stronger on that list. But not by much. That list is more than just evidence the Pac might want to poach the Big 12. That list shows that the Big 12 is in no more long-term trouble than is the Pac, unless the Big 12 implodes.

Heck, the recent report that the Pac-12 might reduce its conference schedule to eight games is an admission that Pac football is not as marketable as necessary. The Pac might appeal to networks more with non-conference games.

That’s what I’ve been saying the Big 12 programs should do. Load up on the non-conference schedules. No more Incarnate Words or Dakotas or Duquesnes.

The networks want real games. The Big 12 should offer them real games.

And here’s a Big 12 advantage.

If streaming becomes a bigger component in the next negotiations — and streaming will become a bigger component in the next negotiations — the Big 12 has a hole card the Pac-12 does not.

Kansas basketball.

We’ve been conditioned to know that basketball doesn’t matter in all this realignment talk.

But we also know that television rights have changed in a decade. The last realignment – Missouri and Texas A&M to the SEC; Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers to the Big Ten – were fueled by cable households.

How else to explain the Big Ten adding Rutgers? A woeful football program, a nondescript basketball program. But Rutgers is the state university of New Jersey, and New Jersey has 8.8 million residents, and most of them had cable in 2012. That’s what the Big Ten Network needed then.

Now, America is unplugging and cable households is not such a big thing. Eyeballs matter more. Which teams can produce a fan base that will follow the action even into the nebulous world of the internet?

Hello Jayhawk basketball. KU hoops are a national brand. Not necessarily like OU football or Texas football. But Kansas basketball has tens of thousands of fans all over the globe who will play $6.99 a month to watch the Jayhawks in winter.

That’s something you can sell.

The Big 12 remnants might not be in the selling business. One or four might bolt for the security of another conference, and then the Big 12 is no more.

But the Big 12 might stay together, out of necessity, and it at least has a fighting chance to make it work.