What you need to know about the new alliance between the Pac-12, Big 10 and ACC

BOULDER — Change is coming to college football.

The Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC announced Tuesday the formation of an alliance comprised of the three conferences. The goals of the alliance are vague and lack details of what exactly will be accomplished.

For example, member schools will schedule inter-conference games against each other, but details like how many games per year, when the games will begin and how matchups will be chosen are still to be determined.

While the lack of firm plans has sparked skepticism about the alliance, it’s worth remembering that the point of the new alliance—which just officially began Tuesday—is to create those plans; how would an alliance that was just formed already have created newsworthy change?

The alliance was formed on the heels of two major shifts; first, Texas and Oklahoma’s decision leave the Big 12 in favor of the SEC widened the gap between the SEC and the rest of the college conferences, at least on the football field. The new SEC is the largest of the major conferences and includes many of the most valuable brands in the sport, which is likely to result in even bigger paydays for media rights going forward.

The second shift is the NCAA falling out of favor with fans, student-athletes and member universities. As the NCAA’s power is reduced, many have called for a new central body better equipped to manage the changing landscape of college athletics, including changes in transfer policies, athletes’ ability to profit off of their name, image and likeness, and several major court decisions.

Much of the talk from the conference commissioners during a one-hour call with reporters and Colorado athletic director Rick George’s media conference on Tuesday was about “preserving the college model.”

“There’s a lot going on in our industry. I think everybody knows that,” George said. “I think this alliance allows us to collaborate on these issues, and brings stability to college athletics and the collegiate model. We’re excited about it. It’s going to be interesting as we move forward.”

These are primary focuses of the alliance, according to the release the Pac-12 sent out Tuesday morning:

• Student-athlete mental and physical health, safety, wellness and support
• Strong academic experience and support
• Diversity, equity and inclusion
• Social justice
• Gender equity
• Future structure of the NCAA
• Federal legislative efforts
• Postseason championships and future formats

Tuesday’s news didn’t include anything that will impact what fans see when they turn on their TVs to watch college athletics in coming years. Instead, it was an announcement that a new group has been formed to make decisions that will absolutely make changes to the public-facing side of college sports in coming years.

So what should fans—particularly Colorado fans—expect to see change over the next few years?

Here’s what we learned:

The College Football Playoff situation is up in the air

This spring, representatives of the Division I football conferences agreed on a preliminary plan to expand the College Football Playoff from four teams to 12 teams.

But those discussions were held under a very different set of circumstances than today’s. For example, George Kliavkoff hadn’t taken over as the Pac-12’s commissioner, leaving Larry Scott as the league’s representative while serving out his final months as a lame duck commissioner, and Texas and Oklahoma were still part of the Big 12.

Both of these pieces are vital.

For one, the Pac-12 wants a seat at the table.

And secondly, the events of the past few months—including the preliminary decision to triple the number of CFP teams—favor ESPN, either coincidentally or corruptly depending on who you ask. The Big 12 even sent a cease and desist letter to the network last month.

“I have absolute certainty that they (ESPN) have been involved in manipulating other conferences to go after our members,” Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told The Associated Press at the time.

Without getting to deep into the weeds of the situation, here’s one reason why expanding the playoff in the near future is contentious:

• The current CFP media rights deal runs through 2025
• ESPN has the exclusive rights to broadcast the CFP
• If the CFP is expanded before the deal expires, ESPN receives the rights to additional games
• ESPN would have to pay slightly more per game than the regular-season per-game price for the media rights to the additional CFP games
• The rights to those games are worth significantly more than that amount

Does it make financial sense for conferences to send one or two more teams to the playoff instead of high-end bowl games, which could hurt their bottom line? It may be beneficial to wait until 2026 to expand, when the CFP can sell its rights in a wide open market.

Plus, further realignment is probably on the way. The initial 12-team playoff was set to include the six conference champions ranked highest at the end of the season and the six highest-ranked non-champions. Do those numbers change now that the Big 12 doesn’t have Oklahoma and Texas as anchors? What about two years from now, when it’s possible that anywhere from a couple more teams to dozens have committed to changing conferences?

“The Pac-12 is 100% in favor of the expansion of the College Football Playoff, but there are some issues at the margins,” Kliavkoff said Tuesday.

While nobody admitted it on Tuesday, there’s a good chance the primary initiative for the alliance was to put a pause on expanding the CFP—at least for now.

More dates against Nebraska could be on the way

A few years from now, there’s a good chance that the alliance is best known for its impact on non-conference scheduling for the three conferences involved.

As noted above, the details haven’t been finalized—and the discussions are likely still in preliminary stages—but one potential outcome is each football team in each conference playing one game per year against a team from each of the other conferences. For example, every Pac-12 team would play a Big Ten and ACC opponent each year.

This line from Tuesday’s press release gives a hint:

“The football scheduling alliance will feature additional attractive matchups across the three conferences while continuing to honor historic rivalries and the best traditions of college football.”

For Colorado fans, there’s one historic rival in an allied conference that immediately comes to mind: Nebraska.

“It’s too early for us to have those discussions on who we play more often but we certainly like our tradition and rivalry that we have there,” Rick George said Tuesday when asked about potentially adding more Nebraska matchups thanks to the alliance. “I think one thing this alliance will do is, one, we will protect those historical rivalries. But at the same time we will probably create some rivalries as we move forward.”

Back when Colorado and Nebraska were both part of the Big 8 and then the Big 12, the game was traditionally played on Thanksgiving weekend.

“It’s an incredible opportunity for us to really put some great marquee games out there every year—maybe to start the season, finish the season, mid-season—but again we’ll look at all of that as we start moving forward on this alliance,” George said.

Colorado currently has games scheduled against Nebraska in 2023 and 2024.

An eight-game conference schedule?

Colorado currently has games booked as far out as 2038 and its next open date isn’t until 2029.

So how will the scheduling alliance work?

Well, first of all, it’s worth noting that CU already has a Big Ten opponent scheduled in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026 and 2027. CU also has games scheduled against Georgia Tech, an ACC opponent, in 2025 and 2026.

While one option is to wait until teams have open dates on their schedules to start filling in alliance matchups, the Pac-12 and Big Ten have another option on their hands: reducing conference schedules from nine games to eight.

Kliavkoff brought up this possibility at Pac-12 Media Day in July, when discussing potential changes the conference to make to become more competitive at the highest levels of college football. The change may make even more sense now, since it would leave every team with one more open date every year, which could be used to schedule alliance games.

The Big Ten also plays a nine-game conference schedule and could make the same change.

Some complications remain, like how this would impact TV deals which are currently signed for nine-game conference seasons, but a workaround shouldn’t be hard to find.

“We want to look at it all. We want to see how it fits for us,” Rick George said. “We’ve been very comfortable with the nine-game schedule. Could we get comfortable with an eight-game schedule and adding another opponent in the future? We can get comfortable with that too.”

George also mentioned the value of playing games in all four time zones. As CU’s football program expands to recruit the east of the Mississippi more than it has in the past, adding games in locations like Tallahassee, Atlanta, Miami and Clemson could be beneficial.

The scheduling alliance will impact more sports than just football

While football is the top draw, there’s more to the alliance than just the gridiron.

Here’s what we learned from the release:

In women’s and men’s basketball, the three conferences will add early and mid-season games as well as annual events that feature premier matchups between the three leagues.

The three conferences will also explore opportunities for the vast and exceptional Olympic Sports programs to compete more frequently and forge additional attractive and meaningful rivalries.

The ACC doesn’t provide much outside of Clemson when it comes to football, North Carolina and Duke are two of the most prolific programs in college basketball history.

“In all of our sports I think you can create some multi-team events, whether it’s men’s or women’s basketball or if it’s soccer or cross country,” George said.

Who knows what any of this will actually look like when it’s all said and done, but imagine an annual, 41-team basketball tournament just before conference play gets underway. Maybe each team has three alliance games during the non-conference season that serve as pool play to determine who gets the byes, since 41 is such a weird number.

Would people fill out brackets? Would they bet on the games? Could the alliance essentially create a second March Madness?

So many options are on the table and if the three conferences can’t find a way to put some really cool and innovative products together, then maybe college sports just can’t be saved anyway.