The ACC/B1G/Pac-12 Alliance Announced

Thanks a lot, Oklahoma and Texas.

Because those two schools have chosen to flee to the SEC the Big Ten, Pac-12, and ACC have decided they needed to make a counter move. Yes, we are edging closer to the top of the FBS football level breaking away like this:

The good news is that Purdue, as an OG member of the Big Ten, is safe (for now). Today we got the eminent announcement of... something:

The alliance includes a scheduling component for football and women’s and men’s basketball designed to create new inter-conference games, enhance opportunities for student-athletes, and optimize the college athletics experience for both student-athletes and fans across the country. The scheduling alliance will begin as soon as practical while honoring current contractual obligations. A working group comprised of athletic directors representing the three conferences will oversee the scheduling component of the alliance, including determining the criteria upon which scheduling decisions will be made. All three leagues and their respective institutions understand that scheduling decisions will be an evolutionary process given current scheduling commitments.

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.

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.

That’s just the on the field stuff, as there was a bunch of fluff about ”the collegiate model and opportunities for student-athletes as part of the educational missions of the institutions,”, but let’s be honesty here is one reason for doing this:

The SEC made a move that will get them more money. The Big Ten, Pac-12, and ACC just did the same, and the cannibalized corpse of the remaining eight Big 12 universities are going to come hard after the other three conferences now to stay on that money train. It is probably only a matter of time in that regard.

As far as the scheduling, there is nothing concrete laid out in the release, but at least for football Pete Thamel mentioned this earlier today:

An agreement where each football team in the three conferences would play one opponent from each of the other two leagues on an annual basis. In most cases, the opponents would rotate. This could help maximize revenue in upcoming television deals for the Big Ten and Pac-12, which have expiring media rights deals in upcoming seasons. (The Big Ten deal is through the 2022 football season and the Pac-12 through the 2023 football season.)

There is no set timeline on that, either:

There was also talk in his article of the Big Ten going from 9 conference games to 8 (and when we inevitably go to 16 teams because we all know it is happening, who knows how that will work) so that there will be room for four non-conference games. Between the guaranteed ACC and Pac-12 games each year, that leaves two spots (or less if there is an existing ACC contract.

How does that work for Purdue? Well, there is something at least partially in place already, as Purdue has the following ACC/Pac-12 football games scheduled:

2022

at Syracuse (ACC)

2023

at Virginia Tech (ACC)

Syracuse (ACC)

2024

Notre Dame (sort of in bed with the ACC)

at Oregon State (Pac-12)

2025

at Notre Dame (sort of in bed with the ACC)

2026

Wake Forest (ACC)

Notre Dame (sort of in bed with the ACC)

2027

at Notre Dame (sort of in bed with the ACC)

North Carolina (ACC)

2028

at Wake Forest (ACC)

Notre Dame (sort of in bed with the ACC)

2031

at North Carolina

There is also the return game at Vanderbilt in 2029, the series with Ole Miss in 2033 and 2034 (provided Mississippi isn’t underwater from global warming by then), the return game at TCU in 2030 (which could be a conference game by then), and maybe a rescheduled return game with Boston College that was cancelled last year.

In basketball we already have the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, so that is natural. Seeing some home and homes with the Pac-12 (hi, UCLA and our shared John Wooden history) could be nice. In other sports we could have some interesting mixups too. A natural one is baseball, where the Big Ten, where Wisconsin doesn’t have a program and Pac-12, where Colorado doesn’t have a program, each have a natural spot in their weekend conference games each year.

So, TL:DR, there is now a B1G/Pac-12/ACC alliance, it was done to make sure there is still a shitload of money in college sports going forward, and we get to be part of it.