By Brett Daniels
On July 1, 2024, the latest round of realignment in college sports was completed. The SEC welcomed Texas and Oklahoma; the ACC welcomed California, Stanford and SMU; the Big 10 welcomed USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington; and the Big 12 welcomed Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado. After all this change, conference realignment is surely finished for a while, right? Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your allegiances) rumors of the next wave of realignment are already upon us with whispers of Florida State and Clemson leaving the ACC for the Big 12.
At the Big 12 media days, Commissioner Brett Yormark told reporters that the Big 12 was “open for business” and that it was his goal to make the conference “the number one conference in America.”” Yormark, who has a background in sports entertainment working for NASCAR and Palace Sports and Entertainment, among others, is not shy about trying to expand the conference. According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, the Big 12 will possibly use private equity investment money to bridge the gap between the current Big 12 contract and the money that teams in the SEC and Big 10 are making. Dellenger also speculated that the Private Equity investment may constitute a new Grant of Rights agreement spanning 10-15 years, which could be a deterrent in the fast-changing landscape of college athletics.
It is no secret that Clemson and Florida State want out of the ACC as it is currently constructed. The 18-team league was third in revenue for the 2023 fiscal year, with $707 million and an estimated payout of $43.3 million to $46.9 million per school. This lags well behind the Big 10 ($60.5 million) and SEC ($51.3 million), and those numbers are going to continue to go up with new TV deals. Dellenger says that those two leagues would be the first and second choice of Clemson and FSU should they gain their release from the ACC Grant of Rights agreement. However, with the SEC already having teams in Florida and South Carolina, and neither Clemson nor FSU holding membership in the prestigious American Association of Universities (AAU), Big 10 and SEC invitations are unlikely. The move to the Big 12 would be a third option but would require the Big 12 to contribute to the exit fees of both schools from the ACC, along with an unequal amount of revenue sharing with other Big 12 schools. The Big 12 had a similar agreement with Texas and Oklahoma much to the disdain of the other conference members.
Regardless of whether these rumors are true, or any of these moves come to fruition, it is a warning sign that conference realignment is not over, and every conference will do whatever it has to do in order to survive.
