ESPN insider explains what milestones could factor into the next move in conference realignment

With so much movement among college conferences of late, many are wondering what the next realignment domino to fall could be. There has especially been focus on the destination for the remaining teams in the Pac-12 after USC and UCLA reached a deal to join the Big Ten by 2024.

Some reports have indicated that the Big 12 could add up to six teams from the Pac-12, though nothing has been confirmed yet. ESPN’s Pete Thamel joined the Paul Finebaum Show on Monday, where he explained that the outcome of the Pac-12’s negotiation for a new media rights deal will ultimately decide the conference’s next move.

“The Pac-12 just opened up its negotiating rights, thought to be 30 days,” Thamel said. “Do they figure something out? If the Pac-12 gets a new TV deal and a grant of rights, that could calm things down.”

It isn’t just the Pac-12 that is working toward a new deal, however. The Big Ten is also working toward a new television deal and anticipates reaching an agreement within the next month. What happens with that could have a drastic impact on the Pac-12’s decision and conference realignment as a whole.

“That is kind of another mile marker in where this is all going because that’s gonna dictate how much money is left for everybody else quite frankly,” he said. “There’s some big thumpers be it NBC, CBS, Amazon and now Apple joined the fray who are gonna be bidding on the next tier of Big Ten rights. FOX is kind of chopping off to them. Those are gonna be big-number deals. So who wins that battle and who the Big Ten/FOX chooses as the secondary partners is gonna dictate who can go after what other inventory.

“Is the money enough in the Pac-12 for schools like Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah to say, ‘Hey, let’s bond together and make another run of this for 10 years.’ Or is the Big 12 able to project a big offer and maybe lure some of those schools?”

Thamel also provided some insight on what’s next for the ACC, which has remained in tact in spite of the sweeping changes over the past two years. The conference may need to look at getting involved in realignment adding some Pac-12 teams if it hopes to keep things that way.

“Obviously, the ACC — if it wants to do something here — would have to poach. They’re running the numbers now on what some sort of ACC/Pac-12 arrangement could look like. The numbers, my sources have told me, are gonna be pretty underwhelming. So the thought is the ACC could go make a big predatory play. That would obviously shake things up significantly. I don’t think there’s a yearning or urgency to do that, but if revenue and trying to catch up in some semblance to the Power 2 is what the ACC focuses on doing, that’s the most likely way to more revenue streams.”

More conference realignment seems almost inevitable at this point, with some experts even predicting megaconferences consisting of 20 or more members apiece. The only questions that remain are what teams will land where, which should become a lot more clear after both the Pac-12 and Big Ten’s television negotiations.