Pac-12, ACC discuss loose partnership; an alliance of convenience to counter Big Ten, SEC?
The pieces keep moving.
It’s clear that the Pac-12 isn’t just ready to roll over and die. The Conference of Champions confirmed they’re looking at potential expansion opportunities. They’ve kicked off negotiations for their new TV rights and hope to not lose too much of the pie.
Their first proactive move since the departure of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten?
A loose partnership with the ACC.
Sigh, yes. You could call it an alliance.
John Canzano first reported it. Both Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports and Jon Wilner confirmed it was the ACC being courted.
From Canzano’s discussion with a former Fox Sports President.
What would a “loose partnership” with the ACC look like? It could include a shared media rights deal with ESPN, who currently works with both entities. Also, it could result in the 10 remaining Pac-12 teams sticking together and the winner of that “10-team division” playing in an ACC vs. Pac-12 championship game in Las Vegas at the end of the season. Also, there could be some attractive regular-season crossover games between the entities in football and men’s basketball.
“Geography aside,” Thompson told me Tuesday, “(the ACC) has significantly better TV markets than the Big 12.”
The partnership seems to make financial sense due to the ACC’s larger TV markets and could provide both conferences with enough geographic bandwidth to perhaps wrangle some more money out of a TV deal.
The ACC itself is also feeling quite vulnerable and can perhaps see its inevitable fate in the near future as both the Big Ten and SEC will look to acquire its most valuable schools in the near future. Duke, North Carolina, Virginia in basketball/academics, Clemson, Miami, Florida State, Virginia Tech for football, Georgia Tech for prestige, Boston College for the market, are all attractive targets.
If it weren’t for the Grant of Rights deal that runs through 2036 that ensures that ACC schools will have to surrender ALL TV revenue to the conference in the case of a move to departure, the ACC would be in danger of dissolution rapidly quickly.
This is all while there are rumored reports of as many as six Pac-12 teams in discussion with the Big 12, and Washington and Oregon still waiting for how the Notre Dame & Big Ten tango concludes.
You can see the issues though.
It’s not a pact. Nothing is binding.
At this point, it’s just a loose partnership.
Oregon and Washington can have their pick of conference and can choose to go at any point in the next year or two. No way would they surrender their rights to independent movement for this odd confederation.
The Pac-12 South teams are easily as likely to deal with the larger Big 12. While that conference has its own share of problems and is running a distant fourth in future TV deals without Texas and Oklahoma, Arizona, ASU, Colorado and Utah could find the attraction of being near the top of the pecking order too good to be true.
And at some point the ACC giants are going to see the growing pies elsewhere and recognize that it might be worth surrendering some revenue to avoid being left behind. Luckily there’s still a decade-plus left which makes that decision financially troubling at the moment, but why pursue a partnership with a conference teetering on the brink?
That leaves only several teams (Cal, Stanford, Oregon State, Washington State) as the ones who truly benefit from this arrangement long-term by preventing full-on destruction and maintaining a short-term facade of stability. Is that nearly enough to carry weight?
Finally, it’s safe to say this arrangement with the ACC would keep Cal football and Cal Athletics on the mend for the time being, but it’s probably not sustainable long-term. The Bears need to be in a conference with a robust TV rights deal to reconcile their own financial troubles, and a staggered Pac-12 in cohoots with the ACC doesn’t provide enough juice to keep things flowing for more than a few years.
Debt was the reason UCLA made the jump in the first place. Cal could be in a similar place very soon.
This could happen. But it’s not the answer for the Bears to compete beyond another decade or two. Cal must keep pushing for inclusion into the Big Ten, because their athletic tradition cannot survive being left behind.
Meh.
It's a legitimate football conference and, with the right media deal and good logistics, a true merger could be interesting. Being bi-coastal also effectively expands TV viewing hours. But I don't see how some loose arrangement has much upside since the real benefits come with actual integration.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.