But there’s no real path for which conference would take them. Meanwhile, Florida State is doing everything it can to maneuver out of the ACC. But Washington State and Oregon State could be looking at a move into the Mountain West. The academics could make them attractive to the Big 10, who still consider their conference academically focused.

Cal and Stanford are in a precarious spot, as they’ve fallen on hard times athletically, but are both still considered to be elite academic institutions. The Huskies and Ducks stuck together for the Big 10 and the other three are looking as likely to the Big 12. Suddenly Washington and Oregon, along with Arizona, Arizona State and Utah all were looking for a soft landing spot. Without UCLA, USC, and Colorado on board, the Pac-12 started teetering. Or by the time this publishes, it’s already happened. Once the Buffs left for the Big 12, coupled with the lagging negotiations from the Pac-12 office around their media rights deal, it became clear that there could be a run. In the mid-90s, the Big 8 became the Big 12 when Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, and Texas A&M left the disintegrating Southwestern Conference for the Big 8 merger. The Buffaloes were one of the original Big 8 teams along with Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Kansas, and Kansas State. If you had somehow missed it in all the hubbub, this all kicked off (well, the most recent spate of news anyway) when Colorado announced they were departing the Pac-12 and returning to the Big 12. By the evening, it was all done with the Big 12 announcing the three new additions to the league. Then later in the afternoon, Arizona State and Utah joined Arizona in applying for the Big 12. That didn’t really hold up very long since Washington and Oregon accepted the deal to move to the Big 10, joining UCLA and USC, who had announced their moves already. Apple and AppleTV+ had a deal on the table for the Pac-12 and was an attempt to save the league as we know it. As of late Friday morning, the Pac-12 tried to force a Grant of Rights deal upon the remaining Pac-12 Presidents in an effort to keep the league from disintegrating. I’m not going to post any more ‘newsy’ tweets for additional context here because it really feels like things are changing by the minute. And I think that sucks- Matt Brown August 4, 2023 This entire story is yet another example of how the people who actually screwed up won't face meaningful consequences, but a LOT of other people will, all in the service of making a few people wealthier.

One of the better writers on the financial side of these things is my former boss at SBNation and FOIA expert, Matt Brown. for now.īut more than anything, realignment is about the security of the money.

After all, as Missouri fans, we can watch from the sidelines during times like these and take comfort in the knowledge that we’ve got our spot.

Having a strong deep conference with a big and valuable media rights deal evenly split is a nice feeling. The media money is lucrative and a major reason for these moves, but at least some of the movement is also because of security. Now, I’m not completely cynical about this. Now it’s the wild west, with schools owning historical regional rivalries and throwing them aside to chase the media money. But for the most part, things stayed pretty static. “But Sam,” you say, “Aren’t most of the decisions made in a quest to win?” And I’d reply, “100%, you are right! But because winning means more and more money!”Ĭonference realignment was really small-time stuff for many years. And chasing money has led programs, administrators, coaches, boosters, and virtually everyone associated with high-level collegiate athletics to make decisions largely motivated by money. For as long as College Athletics have been around, money is king.

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