Who will the Pac-12 and Big 12 add to their conferences? | College Football Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss all the schools, and the factors surrounding movement in and out of the Pac-12 and Big 12.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: At what point do either of these two factions say, maybe the Big 12 is better for us? We detailed that last week, George Kliavkoff the Pac 12 commissioner, attended a horrible SMU-Temple basketball game. Which may have scared him back to the West Coast. I don't know, in trying to figure out. What are they going to do? How do they get to 12?
Who do they add, right? Will-- SMU, San Diego State seem to be the favorites right now over Boise, Fresno State. UNLV is a possibility in that area, too. They-- certainly, a huge television market and a very kind of Pac 12-ish city. So many Californians living in Vegas, and good recruiting turf, too.
Here's what I want to know. At what point as this Pac 12 deal lumbers, lingers, since they're not done, do either of these two factions say, maybe the Big 12 is better for us? And we take the current 12-team Big 12 and just jump and make it a 16-team. And I would say the four corner schools, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State.
Or the four teams in the Pacific Northwest, if they can't break free. Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State. And maybe Oregon and Washington can jump without them, I don't know. But is there any possibility that this slow play of the Big-12 Championship or television revenue could lead to that kind of a seismic shift where the Pac-12 could be losing a bunch of teams.
Or they just say, you know what? Hey, man, we're Arizona schools. We're-- being in Texas is good. We're not really in Southern California anymore. Maybe this is our move, and we're the late night window every week on ESPN and Fox, which Big 12 has to deal with that. Pat?
PAT FORDE: I mean, I would be concerned if I were in the Pac-12 and wanted to stay in the Pac-12. Just because the, yeah, we got this sort of vibe that had come out-- been coming out hasn't been followed with any real action. And they may still be saying those things. They may still be talking a good game. But we got to see them play the game. We've got to see a media rights deal. And then we've got to see the expansion.
Or maybe those-- the cart is now in front of the horse. We've talked about, that it was always going to be, here's the meteorites deal, then here's the next round of expansion. And maybe now it's we've got to expand first to secure the media rights. If you're sitting there, especially if you're Oregon, Washington, and you have some pretty desirable properties, and if you're the four corner schools that you mentioned. And you could really pretty theoretically easily see yourself fitting into the Big 12. I think you've got to be saying, all right, George, what do we have here, exactly?
What's the plan? What are we going with? Where's the money coming from, and who else is coming in and out of those people that are coming in, who's going to help us? So I would have to think there's a little bit of stress at Pac-12 leadership right now. They may still feel like they've got everything under control. But again, we've got to see it. We have-- time to put cards on the table.
ROSS DELLINGER: Yeah, and it's about-- I think it's twofold, this decision from Pac-12 schools, the four corner schools, about what they do. Money and it's visibility, as far as the decision from these Pac-12 schools. So are they going to get the kind of money that the Big 12 will get from its TV deal, which I believe is around 31 million?
Just in TV distribution, not counting all the other NCAA tournament and college football playoff, and that'll send it over 40. Should send it over 40, maybe to 50. Are they going to be able to get that money? And also who are they going to get that money from? What platform will their games be on? The Big 12 has got Fox and ESPN.
Big platforms, everybody gets those channels, linear, all that stuff. And it seems like the Pac-12 is having trouble getting linear. And is streaming more than half of your games, is that enough visibility for schools? The fact that year-- and we talked about this last week, like Dan said. But the fact that you're courting SMU and San Diego State to come into your league to in order to get a better TV deal might be a little concerning for some.