How will Big 12 be affected by USC, UCLA move? What’s ahead in conference realignment

Nearly a year ago, the Big 12 found itself fighting for survival after Oklahoma and Texas announced they were departing for the SEC.

Now, two programs have again rocked the college sports landscape with Thursday’s news that USC and UCLA intend to leave the Pac-12 and join the Big Ten starting in 2024.

While it’s the Pac-12 now scrambling to secure a sustainable future, the Big 12, like all conferences, will again be impacted. Over the past year, the league and its eight continuing members appeared to stabilize by adding four new members.

What does this mean for the Big 12 as the next chapter of conference realignment unfolds?

What this means for the Big 12

Max Olson, senior writer: Welcome to your new job, Brett Yormark. If you thought this was going to be a nice, smooth transition from now until Aug. 1, when your reign as commissioner begins, well, sorry about that.

The Roc Nation COO knew he was jumping into college athletics at a transformative and turbulent time when he pursued the job. Now he really knows just how wild this industry is these days. The business acumen and connections he’s accumulated over 30-plus years in pro sports need to be put to good use right away. Chaos is a ladder. Instability in the Pac-12 has given the Big 12 an opportunity to strengthen its position.

Here’s the key question for the conference going forward: Is the Big 12 going to play offense or defense?

As outgoing commissioner Bob Bowlsby told The Athletic in an interview on the day he announced he was stepping down, “The thing is, we’ve been just exclusively playing defense. There hasn’t been any opportunity to play offense.”

Here it is. The Big 12 can capitalize on this situation by making a move for these Pac-12 schools. The timing works since the Pac-12 grant of rights expires before the Big 12’s does. Adding Power 5 schools would presumably help the Big 12 make more money on its next TV deal, which is absolutely critical. The geographical “fit” factor doesn’t matter, and the Big 12 already has BYU on the way.

Obviously, there are bylaws that must be obeyed and Pac-12 schools would have to initiate the contact with the Big 12. But now that their league has lost USC and UCLA, doesn’t this suddenly make more sense?

Earlier this year, The Athletic surveyed more than 1,500 Big 12 fans and asked which schools they’d prefer to add if the conference pursued additional expansion. Arizona State (62.5%) and Arizona (61.9%) were by far the most popular potential targets. That’s probably where the conversation should begin, even if it somewhat depends on the status of Oregon and Washington.

But it certainly seems logical to wonder whether the end game for the Big 12 should be expanding to 16 teams by inviting Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah. As Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff liked to say last summer when he publicly flirted with the idea of growing his league, all options should be on the table for the Big 12.

Does the Big 12 need to worry about getting poached again?

Olson: The conference’s grant of rights expires at the end of June 2025, and as the Oklahoma and Texas defections made clear, the conference is in no way motivated to offer a discount on the hefty exit fees associated with these departures.

You have to assume some of its members will inquire about their opportunities in the SEC and Big Ten, just as they did last summer. Both leagues can go in a few different directions if they’re determined to keep growing, and it seems safe to assume they are. But could Kansas, for example, end up emerging as a Big Ten target? It would be naive to say that’s not possible. If those leagues decide they want Big 12 schools, there’s not much anyone can do to stop them, especially as the financial gap keeps growing.

That’s the larger question that should concern Yormark and the Big 12: What are those conference’s grand plans and where is this all heading?

Have the tables turned for Big 12, Pac-12?

Sam Khan Jr., senior writer: A year ago, Big 12 schools like Baylor, Oklahoma State, TCU and Texas Tech would have taken a call from Kliavkoff if he had interest in bringing those schools West. Bowlsby showed interest in joining forces with the Pac-12 to keep his league afloat. Kliavkoff decided against such a move and instead joined “The Alliance” with the Big Ten and ACC.

Ironically, Kliavkoff preferring that handshake pact over Pac-12 expansion gave Bowlsby the opportunity to keep the Big 12 together and create some stability by quickly adding four new members. Now the tables have turned.

The Big 12 is in a position of strength relative to the Pac-12 and one source told The Athletic that the schools that would have jumped at the chance to join the Pac-12 last year probably won’t now if the league inquired.

“I think the Big 12 holds the cards,” the source said.

Said another source: “If you’re Arizona, Colorado and Utah, you’re looking toward (the Big 12) right now.”

BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF are set to join the Big 12 in 2023. The latter three schools finalized their buyout with the American Athletic Conference on June 10 to officially join next July, timing that looks astute now that realignment is churning again.

The Big 12 won’t be in the same stratosphere financially as the Big Ten and SEC (no other conference will be). And though things can change quickly, current Big 12 members feel more comfortable about their future now than they did in the aftermath of Oklahoma and Texas’ departure.

How does having a new commissioner affect things?

Olson: The timing of all this is certainly fascinating. Would the Big 12 be in a better position to pounce right now if it hadn’t encouraged Bowlsby to move on? Probably so.

But Texas Tech president Lawrence Schovanec and the Big 12’s board believed in April they’d arrived at the right moment for a transition in leadership. Schovanec did deliver on his prediction that they’d have a new commissioner hired before Big 12 media days. They got the search process done as quickly as possible. But the timetable for this transition just became less than ideal.

Now the Big 12 is, in many ways, in the same predicament that Kliavkoff and the Pac-12 were in last summer. The new commissioner has just been hired. He’s still getting settled in and has a lot to learn about his league. Is he prepared to make defining long-term decisions about expansion right away?

The Big 12’s presidents and chancellors chose Yormark because he’s a proven dealmaker. They hired him for moments like this, trusting he has the skills and experience to navigate the conference through these tumultuous times and make all the right moves. We’ll see if the board is ready to get moving on another round of expansion.

What this could mean for Cincinnati, UCF, Houston and BYU, set to join next year

Justin Williams, Cincinnati beat writer: It’s been just 20 days since the three departing AAC programs finalized an early buyout settlement with the American, and it’s already old news in the ever-twisting conference realignment saga.

The four newcomers are no doubt better positioned in the college football landscape than their previous predicaments, but are suddenly entering the Big 12 on far less stable footing than anticipated. The gap between the Big Ten, SEC and the rest of the Power 5 was already evident. But the most pressing question for the fresh-faced Big 12, with a brand-new, media-savvy commissioner and renegotiated TV rights deal on the horizon, was to what degree the league could mitigate that gap and potentially gain a foothold over the Pac-12 and ACC. Regardless, the new Big 12 additions were set to see a significant bump in revenue, even before becoming full members in 2025, along with the myriad benefits and relative security of the power conference lifestyle.

Now? It feels like the same track from last summer’s Texas and Oklahoma departures is playing on a loop, with all the anxieties and uncertainties that come with it. Is the Pac-12 done for? Will it try to raid the Big 12? Will the Big 12 try to raid the Pac-12? Is a Super League-style breakoff inevitable? What’s the next domino to fall, and where is it landing?

Another wave of power conference jockeying has already begun, and BYU, Houston, Cincinnati and UCF haven’t officially moved in yet. What will the outlook even look like by July 1, 2023? Less than three weeks ago, those four schools — and plenty others — probably assumed they were brokering the last act in this latest round of realignment. As it turns out, it was only a brief intermission.

(Photo: Jerome Miron / USA Today)