Big 12 expansion news: Pac-12's Arizona, ASU, Colorado, Utah contacted amid potential conference realignment
The Big 12 has been in contact with Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah of the Pac-12 amid another possible round of conference expansion, CBS Sports confirmed. This spring represents the final school year for the 10-team Big 12 before BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF arrive for the 2023-24 academic year; Texas and Oklahoma will then depart on July 1, 2024, with the league scheduled to dip from 14 teams down to 12 at that time.
If the Arizona schools, Colorado and Utah were to join the Big 12, the conference would end up at 16 teams — the same number as the future Big Ten and SEC mega-conferences. The Pac-12, meanwhile, would be down to six schools with USC and UCLA scheduled to join the Big Ten in 2024. In this scenario, the Pac-12 would be down to California, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State.
Realignment chatter is arguably the strongest around the Pac-12 right now. League commissioner George Kliavkoff has yet to secure a new media rights deal for the Pac-12 once the current deal is up in 2024.
The Big 12 was already reported last summer as having interest in adding any additional Pac-12 defectors, and that talk has not gone away. Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades told 365 Sports on multiple occasions in the past 10 days that the Big 12 will be proactive if the Pac-12 media negotiations hit a wall and schools look to move.
"Those that want to believe we are trying to dismantle the Pac-12, they can believe that," Rhoades said in a recent interview with 365 Sports. "But that is not what we are trying to do. But we also are going to be ready. And shame on us — we would not be doing our jobs if we were not ready if there was an opportunity."
At the same time, the Pac-12 could pick off a key Mountain West member should the league survive and add new members to strengthen its value. San Diego State is reported as one of the primary targets for the Pac-12 should it take the expansion route, as SDSU would allow the Pac-12 to still have a member in Southern California, even if not in the Los Angeles media market. American Athletic Conference member SMU is the other school.
4COMMENTSThe Pac-12, however, is not the only conference dealing with uncertainty about its look moving forward. The athletic directors at Clemson and FSU recently expressed concern about the Atlantic Coast Conference's outlook — the league's exclusive deal with ESPN does not expire more than decade — and suggested that changes will be needed for their respective institutions to compete at a high level.
Dean Straka contributed to this report.
Leyd Bayard
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