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The ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 are set to officially announce an alliance, which, pending final approvals, could take place as early as Tuesday, sources told Yahoo Sports. Athletic first flagged the possibility of an announcement this week.
The Alliance will focus on a shared vision for the future governance of collegiate athletics. For now, the Alliance will mean that the three leagues can, among other things, form a voting bloc that dulls the growing influence of an enlarged SEC. It also allows three leagues that see themselves as like-minded to gain a right to vote on issues as the NCAA’s influence wanes.
Discussions at the university presidential level have been important and give the alliance the potential to be much more meaningful. Those discussions have focused on both regular season programming and how an expanded college football playoff works, sources told Yahoo Sports.
How the Alliance would shape programming in Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC
With 40 different schools, three league offices, and multiple TV partners spanning coast to coast, consensus on important issues can be elusive. But as the Leagues deepen discussions, the Alliance’s more ambitious scopes could include the following:
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A deal whereby each football team from the three conferences would face an opponent from each of the other two leagues on an annual basis. In most cases, the opponents would turn. This could help maximize revenue from upcoming TV deals for the Big Ten and the Pac-12, which have media rights deals expiring in coming seasons. (The Big Ten deal lasts until the 2022 football season and the Pac-12 until the 2023 football season.)
As part of such a plan, the Big Ten could cut its conference schedule from nine games to eight and require each school to play one game against an ACC and a Pac-12 team every year. Wisconsin, for example, would play Virginia and Oregon one year, Florida State and UCLA the following year. Big Ten schools would be allowed to schedule additional non-conference games as they see fit.
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If passed, the Big Ten conference season would consist of six games in the East or West Division and two crossover games. There are currently three cross games.
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The ACC teams, which already play eight conference games, would schedule a Big Ten and Pac-12 opponent each year.
The ACC adding value to its TV rights is the tricky part, as it is stuck in an imbalanced deal with ESPN until 2036 which it signed in order to get a TV network. The Alliance should not help the conference exit the ESPN deal.
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The Pac-12, which currently have nine league games, would also consider upgrading to eight, or just using two of the Alliance’s three non-conference games.
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Any Big Ten or Pac-12 team already playing at Notre Dame, which has its own programming deal with the ACC, could count the Irish as its ACC opponent.
Members of the Pac-12 USC and Stanford have annual playoffs with Notre Dame. The Big Ten Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Purdue programs also have future series scheduled with the Irish.
Dull the SEC and have a stronger voice in shaping the college football playoffs
The new programming is expected to create additional marquee games and possibly increase TV money, while potentially reducing the SEC in non-conference programming.
Four ACC teams have annual games with SEC rivals in the state – Clemson-South Carolina, Georgia Tech-Georgia, Florida State-Florida, and Louisville-Kentucky. Those games would continue, but there would be a decided lack of available non-conference dates for other SEC teams looking for major opponents.
When it comes to college football qualifiers, the leagues seem to prefer a 12-team pitch like the one that has been proposed, but the Alliance is more interested in having a say in how this model unfolds. This current plan, which has not been agreed upon, was devised over a two-year period by a group of four made up of SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson and Director Notre Dame sportsman Jack Swarbrick. . The ACC / Big Ten / Pac-12 now want more of a voice in how a 12-team playoff is built.
One possible trick the group could come up with would be to push certain playoff games to be controlled by conferences, not necessarily boules.
This would, for example, allow the Big Ten to host a playoff game at a neutral site within its footprint. This could happen inside the domed stadiums in Indianapolis and Detroit, or maybe outside in Cleveland or Chicago. This would replace the use of traditional boules sets, which are located in the South or West.
Alliance seeks to influence the power of television and stop total control of ESPN
How playoff TV rights would be auctioned, the number of networks allowed to broadcast the games and how teams are selected could also be discussed. The Alliance is wary of ESPN, which owns the exclusive rights to all SEC games from 2024, also having full control of the playoffs. ESPN has playoff rights until 2025 and an exclusive trading window. There has long been a strong feeling within the sport that several networks broadcasting the playoffs would be better financially and for exposure.
It remains to be seen exactly to what extent the above becomes the official Alliance position. With so many teams and so many opinions, any plan is subject to change.
However, just over a month after the rumor broke in the Houston Chronicle of Oklahoma and Texas seeking to join the SEC, the three remaining major conferences are working together and boldly thinking about what they can do. do in the future.
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