The true effect of this latest round of conference change is the image of one of the world’s most powerful sports figures who “watches the phones”. That’s how a source this week described Phil Knight’s level of desperation.
A marketing genius, benefactor, philanthropist and multi-billionaire, the shoe dog himself apparently uses all his resources to find a home for Oregon, a program that Knight has created into one of the most recognizable college sports brands that a de facto offshoot of his Nike empire .
Knight has been reduced to a cold calling telemarketer. And it’s a sad situation.
The migration of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten in 2024 has made it so. In the last week, we have again been reminded of the ruthlessness of this system.
Pac-12 may or may not survive, but after the loss of the two flagship programs, it has changed forever. All this with a reminder that the ACC is trying to keep its top teams, while the Big 12 may be on its fourth reorganization round since 2010.
What we see in real time is the consolidation of the best brands at the top of the sport. Everything else be condemned. When Knight is reduced to speed dials to save his spirits, well, it takes potential exclusion to another level.
You may have noticed: The SEC and Big Ten are a Notre Dame (or so) away from hosting their own playoffs. Maybe they do not even need Fighting Irish, which in turn decides whether to attend a conference after 130 years of independence.
What you can see is that access and relevance disappear for everyone except the elites – and those who are lucky enough to be at their conferences. Some ACC schools are scary. They look to be $ 50 million a year behind the SEC and Big Ten in annual rights fees.
An industry source said it could take $ 500 million for a school to leave the ACC given the league’s iron-clad rights that keep schools in the conference until 2036. You can buy many superstar coaches, $ 1 million coordinators, facilities and swag copters for that kind of money.
Some of the pressure has shifted to boosters. Will they make the difference? Can today’s consumption be maintained?
A source at a resourceful football program says that the donors are drained.
Soon one day, the SEC and Big Ten may decide to flex by funding 95 scholarships instead of the current 85. There may be some outside the top two conferences that can follow, but at what cost?
Add to that the fact that the leadership and thinking of the four most recent Power Five commissioners – all employed since 2020 – is more varied than ever before.
Last week, CBS Sports presented a three-part series on the future of college football. One of the conclusions? The 130 FBS schools will break out of the NCAA, perhaps sooner rather than later.
Now that number seems smaller, more dangerous. Maybe 50-80 will make the cut. You can see why Knight sweats swooshes.
This always had to happen. People were intimidated when the SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina in 1991. The same for the Big Ten that added Penn State in 1990. The Southwest Conference collapsed due to several NCAA violations. The Big 12 appeared in 1996, and then almost fell apart. Only six original members remain (Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech). Big East football ended in 2013 when the conference reformed.
Now, the SEC and the Big Ten have given most of the power and influence that there has never been a collection of brands at the top of the game that have been collected at these conferences.
What remains is an insane rush from the other major conferences to pick up the biggest remaining brands. No other conference can bring to the table what the SEC and Big Ten want by 2024-25. The battle now is to see if one or more of the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 can gather enough notable programs to prevent the SEC and Big Ten from hosting a credible playoff game on their own.
That brings us back to the Knights’ cold call. It happens in a world that can leave Oregon and Washington without a chance to compete for national championships. A world that now does not think about flying volleyball players over four time zones to play a match. A world that has deprived two Power Five conferences of their souls in subsequent summers.
Oregon and Washington are the two best football programs “in play” considering that the Pac-12 is down to 10 teams; However, there is a reason why they have not been considered prominent in restructuring. Industry sources say that none of them provide the necessary value to the big ten ($ 80 million- $ 100 million per year). The Pac-12 schools that are most prominently mentioned for the Big 12 are the so-called “Four Corners” schools: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah.
The Big 12 has been told by TV rights advisers that the two most important considerations for expansion are brand and geography. Geography pushed Oregon and Washington to margins. (This does not mean that Arizona and Arizona are necessarily “brands”.)
If the Big 12 expands, it will not necessarily be for money, but rather survival and relevance. A high-profile industry source called the difference between an extended Big 12 or Pac-12 “a coin flip.” Think of the reason for the expansion more like this: Can a credible playoff game be held without Oregon and Washington being allowed to compete for a spot?
ESPN sort of answered that question when it thought nothing of throwing the Big 12 on the scrap heap last summer when Texas and Oklahoma moved to the SEC.
The network told us without telling us that the world would not end if the likes of Oklahoma State, Iowa State and TCU, among others, did not get a chance to finish in the top four of the College Football Playoff. The question was further answered when Pac-12 was marginalized last week.
Ratings mean something. They mean more when a 9-3 Oklahoma from the SEC can have a better chance of getting into a playoffs than a 12-1 Oklahoma State from the Big 12.
One industry source called Oregon and Washington “tweeners” in transition. They are certainly not USC and UCLA in terms of branding and marketability, but neither are Arizona and Arizona State. This is what change has revealed: The real things that make college football relevant to the only people who matter – TV presenters, programmers, advertisers – are exposed in increasing and specific detail.
Without Oregon and Washington, the Pac-12 could fall apart. With them, it may not matter.
Conference realignment notes
The next big focus is Big Ten, which announces its new billion-dollar television deal. It could come in a gala, maybe a rollout on the league’s media days later this month. The Big Ten may be done expanding. Read also : Your turn: Ignoring politics is a luxury we cannot afford. It does not matter, really, because Notre Dame has time and influence on its side. If it decides that the money is too big to refuse and / or access to a playoff game becomes too difficult to maintain success, it can join the Big Ten.
Any conclusion to this round of adjustment that leaves the new Big 12 whole is a victory for the league. It is happy with the 12 current teams going forward in 2025. The worst fallback for Pac-12 is a kind of hybrid fusion with Mountain West. That is what will be left for two football powers in Oregon and Washington who together have won a national championship, played for two titles since 2010 and participated in five Rose Bowls together since 2001. These two schools are also Pac-12’s only participants and CFP.
A merger between the Big 12 and the Pac-12 is still a possibility, but … a source told CBS Sports that the process of completing the membership – at least from the Big 12 side – can be completed in weeks, not months.
Of the four new Big 12 schools (BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, UCF), three are from the US. It’s part of the story of the Pac-12’s way forward when the league went on the market earlier this week for its TV rights. Why would you want to go to a conference whose membership is a quarter group of five teams? Why risk “instant” stability for the history and tradition of the Pac-12?
Why really? Pac-12 will market with ESPN and Fox with 10 teams that have not promised any loyalty to each other. The Big 12 has already hovered, ready to pick members from the west coast. But the rights holders are already asking: What are we offering? Which schools should be there?
Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina and Virginia from the ACC have been mentioned as possible dance partners for realignment, but at least they are at a conference with a TV deal. This reveals an additional reality: It really is a race now. Super conferences are here and go nowhere. Put in programs like Notre Dame, Clemson, Florida State and / or Miami, and suddenly an endgame at two conferences becomes a reality. Everything else can be an uncomfortable group of six or seven. At that time, the obvious game is that a new subdivision will be formed that will arrange its own playoffs. The money – not huge money – would be there.
