Big Ten reportedly exploring adding Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Washington

As conference realignment burns the college football atmosphere, the Big Ten looks again to the rumored four Pac-12 schools.

The realignment rumor mill keeps turning. A year after reportedly exploring the option of Cal to the Big Ten, the Big Ten is again exploring the possibility.

Jeremiah Hunter vs Oregon via calbears.com

More from Nicole Auerbach of the Athletic:

A subgroup of four Big Ten university presidents met virtually on Wednesday as part of exploratory discussions about potentially expanding membership by two or four teams, two sources briefed on the call confirmed to The Athletic. It was not the only call they have had in recent weeks.

The two sources reiterated that discussions are in the early stages and are very preliminary, and that the Big Ten could decide to stay at 16 members and not expand further. The four schools under consideration are Oregon and Washington (if the Big Ten wants to expand by two) plus Cal and Stanford (if it wants to expand by four). All four schools are current members of the Pac-12.

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports also described that the Big Ten isn’t doing this with the desire of having an imminent decision. As mentioned above, the tires are being kicked on Oregon and Washington, just to feel if the league wants to expand to 18 teams as opposed to the 20 teams that would factor in Cal and Stanford.

Another avenue to look at is obviously the Big Ten media deal. Currently, if these West Coast additions were provisionally put into the Big Ten, they won’t have the full revenue share of 50 million per year, according to Adam Rittenberg, but more along the lines of new member deals like Rutgers and Maryland are currently under. Despite this, this is miles ahead of the reported Apple TV media deal that George Kliavkoff presented this week, which was reliant on subscription numbers for an add on service.

Where Oregon State and Washington State fall into this is anyone’s guess. Dominoes are being setup. No one knows when they will fall, but rest assured, we are already on that roller coaster.