Five-Thirty-Eight on Evolution of Conference Realignments

Five-Thirty-Eight, the website famous for quantitative analyses of sports, politics, and culture, examines the evolution of conference realignments (link). What I found most interesting are geographical "footprint" maps for five conferences -- the Big Ten (B1G), Big 12, SEC, ACC, and Pac 12 -- in the years 2000, 2010, 2015, and 2025. Each of these conferences' land mass has greatly expanded from 2000 to 2025. The article also describes how, for each conference, each school's travel distance to the geographic center of each conference has grown:

In 2010, the average distance for an FBS team to its conference center was 336 miles. By 2021, that average rose to 365 miles. Within four years of that, the average will be 412 miles.

Once UCLA and USC (both located in Los Angeles) begin play in the B1G, their distance to the conference center will be 1,621 miles!

UCLA and USC to Big Ten

This came out of nowhere! As I started listening to a Lubbock-based sports radio show this afternoon at 3:00 pm Central, I was shocked to hear that longtime Pacific 12 schools UCLA and USC would be joining the Big Ten (B1G), effective 2024. As someone who attended both UCLA (undergrad) and Michigan (graduate school), I'm very excited about the move. Let's go to the map...

As you can see, the two Los Angeles-based schools are geographically distant from the rest of the B1G schools. It is approximately 1,500 miles from LA to Lincoln, Nebraska (previously the westernmost B1G institution). Aside from distance, however, UCLA and USC are a good fit for the B1G, athletically, academically, and culturally.

Athletically, UCLA and USC have a long history of competing against B1G schools in major events. From New Year's Day 1947 to 2001, the Rose Bowl football game always matched the winners of the Pac 12 and B1G (or their predecessor conferences). The Pac 12-B1G Rose Bowl rivalry was sometimes disrupted post-2001 to accommodate the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and College Football Playoff systems, but Pac 12 and B1G teams still met in the Rose Bowl as often as possible in more recent years. Hence, fans of USC and (to a lesser extent) UCLA have lots of memories of their teams taking on Ohio State, Michigan, and other B1G schools in the Rose Bowl. 

The Bruins and Trojans have faced off with B1G schools in NCAA-tournament competition in other sports, as well, such as men's and women's basketball, men's and women's tennis, women's volleyball, baseball, and softball (UCLA only, as USC does not participate in this sport).

Academically, UCLA and USC are members of the elite 65-school Association of American Universities, as are 13 of the prior 14 B1G members (all except Nebraska). If academics were the major driving factor of conference realignment -- rather than football success and television viewership -- then Stanford and UC Berkeley would almost certainly be joining UCLA and USC in switching from the Pac 12 to the B1G (although, Stanford and Cal's television market of San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose is No. 6 in the US).

Culturally, with enrollments in the high 40,000s, UCLA and USC resemble many B1G schools. Also, like UCLA and USC, some B1G schools are in or near large cities (Northwestern, Minnesota, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Maryland, and Rutgers). Finally, even though current and future B1G students do well academically, they also enjoy their time outside the classroom and library. In a 2021 Newsweek magazine compilation of top party schools, in fact, Ohio State ranked No. 23, Michigan State No. 19, Indiana No. 14, Iowa No. 13, Penn State No. 11, USC No. 9, Illinois No. 8, and Wisconsin No. 3. 

Spillover effects of the UCLA and USC departures on the Pac 12 are certain, along with effects on other conferences as the dominos topple. In future entries, I will examine where the Pac 12 might go from here.

ESPN.com Introduces Realignment Tracker Focused on College Hoops

ESPN.com now has a page devoted entirely to documenting universities' conference shifts, with a focus on college basketball (LINK). Basketball has far more Division I conferences (32) than does football (10), so this new tracking site will be a lot more informative than ones dedicated to football. 

Big 12 Reportedly Eyeing Four Schools to Join Conference

The Big 12 may actually have 12 schools before long. According to reports circulating yesterday, the conference may soon invite Brigham Young University (BYU), Central Florida (UCF), Cincinnati, and Houston to become members. Currently, the Big 12 has only 10 schools and with the departure of Oklahoma and Texas in the next few years, will be down to eight. Hence the four new schools would bring the total back up to 12. 

Adding schools in the East (particularly Cincinnati) will alleviate some of West Virginia's current travel burden, with all of the other schools being well to the west. Morgantown, WV and Cincinnati are only a one-hour flight apart (about five or six hours driving).

Here in Lubbock (and perhaps in Fort Worth and Waco, as well), adding Houston to the Big 12 has not been popular, as it introduces a competing school from a huge metropolis within the same state. Others, however, see Houston's status as the fifth-most populated metro area as a strength. UH has also built a new football stadium and renovated its basketball arena, and made last season's Final Four in men's hoops.

I always come back to geographic or historical rivalries, though. Thus, prospective match-ups such as Iowa State-UCF or BYU-WVU, regardless of which sport, don't really excite me very much.

Pac-12 Stands Pat "At This Time"

The Pacific-12 Conference will remain at a dozen schools "at this time," according to an ESPN.com article published this afternoon. From my location in Lubbock, Pac-12 expansion was viewed by many as a possible landing spot for Texas Tech and other Big-12 schools in the aftermath of football powers Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big-12 for the Southeastern Conference (SEC). 

Now, speculation will only intensify regarding whether the Big-12 (now down to eight schools) will expand to get back to 10 or 12 members. According to the ESPN.com article:

If the Big 12 is able to lure in valuable programs -- most likely from the American Athletic Conference -- and remain a Power 5 entity, the overall landscape would remain relatively stable. 

If the AAC is able to hold the upper hand, though, and lure Big 12 schools to make a case to become a Power 5 league, it could create another tremor that might cause the Pac-12 to rethink its position.

Instead of expanding, the Pac-12 has formed an "alliance" with the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The alliance has not been defined very precisely, but appears to include increased non-conference football games between teams in these leagues. According to the ESPN.com article, people within the Pac-12 seem to be banking on the alliance increasing its schools' visibility on a national scale, while maximizing revenue:

The hope within the Pac-12 is that the partnership with the ACC and Big Ten will allow the league to play across different time zones and form new rivalries -- all without having to split the revenue beyond the current 12 teams.

It's Official: Oklahoma and Texas Moving to SEC

That was fast! Only nine days after the first reports that Oklahoma and Texas could be headed to the SEC has the change been finalized. Both schools' boards of regents have now officially accepted the SEC's offer to join. According to the linked article:

The next step is to determine when the move will become a reality -- and what happens to the eight Big 12 schools left behind. On Monday, Texas and Oklahoma issued a joint statement saying that they intend to remain in the Big 12 through June 30, 2025, when the current Big 12 media rights deal expires -- but it's possible that the schools will attempt to exit sooner. Each university would have to pay a penalty of at least $75 million to $80 million to break that agreement or hope that the Big 12 dissolves before the contract expires.

Aside from the pun on "exit sooner," the interesting thing to me in that paragraph is the idea that OU and UT would stay in the Big 12 through June 2025. That would mean four more years of the two schools competing in the Big 12 as a sort of lame duck, which doesn't seem realistic. Some commentators have suggested that the $75-80 million-dollar exit fee would not be a major impediment to Oklahoma and Texas leaving earlier.

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About a week after I arrived in Lubbock in 1997 to begin my faculty career at Texas Tech (where I still am), I purchased a Big 12 t-shirt as shown below. Back during the 2010-2011 round of conference realignment, I started marking off schools' departures (on an image of my shirt, not the shirt itself). Losses back then included Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC, Colorado to the then-PAC 10, and Nebraska to the B1G (Big 10). TCU and West Virginia joined the Big 12 at the time to give it 10 teams. It's taken another 10 years for any new changes to occur, but now they have in the form of Oklahoma and Texas's move to the SEC. Accordingly, I have updated my t-shirt diagram...

OU, UT to SEC Looking More and More Likely

From ESPN.com, things seem to be moving forward with the potential departure of Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12 to the SEC. If completed, the move would give the SEC 16 teams. Considerable media attention has been focusing on the implications for other prominent conferences. Will the Big 10 (which has 14 teams) and Pacific 12 also try to get up to 16 teams? Will Notre Dame finally join a conference for football (the Fighting Irish are part of the ACC for other sports)?

Here in Lubbock (and in other Big 12 cities, I suspect), people are speculating on what will happen to the eight schools (potentially) left behind after OU and UT are gone (although the Big 12 started out with 12 schools in 1996, it has had only 10 schools since the last major conference-realignment shuffling about 10 years ago). Though the Big 12 could try to build back up, others believe it would dissolve and its teams disperse.

Many are speculating that the Pac 12 might want to bring its membership up to 16. If so, it could absorb up to four Big 12 schools, possibly those that are in the southwestern U.S. (Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, TCU, and Baylor). I have also seen conjecture that Iowa State and Kansas State might be of interest to the Pac 12, along with Boise State and BYU (although some observers see obstacles to BYU joining the Pac 12). 

The University of Kansas (KU) and perhaps Iowa State have been mentioned as two schools that could bring the Big 10 up to 16 teams. Both are members of the academically prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU), as are nearly all of the current Big 10 schools.

West Virginia, which alone among Big 12 schools, is in the eastern U.S., perhaps would land in the ACC.