The ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 have formed an alliance. What does that mean?
.JPG "Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner Jim Phillips speaks during the NCAA college football ACC media days in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday, July 21, 2021.")
The ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 announced Tuesday that they had formed a long-rumored alliance, bringing three of the biggest college athletics conferences under one informal umbrella, although they’ll continue to operate independently.
The idea: To bring some stability to the topsy-turvy world of college athletics while reacting to the SEC’s expansion to 16 teams with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas.
“Hopefully this will bring some much-needed stability to college athletics,” Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said during a news conference via Zoom on Tuesday.
“The ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 recognize the unique environment and challenges currently facing intercollegiate athletics, and we are proud and confident in this timely and necessary alliance that brings together like-minded institutions and conferences focused on the overall educational missions of our preeminent institutions,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said in a statement. “The alliance will ensure that the educational outcomes and experiences for student-athletes participating at the highest level of collegiate athletics will remain the driving factor in all decisions moving forward.”
Here are some questions, and answers, about the alliance.
Alliance? What the heck does that mean?
In the wake of the SEC’s poaching the two biggest football schools from the Big 12 earlier this summer, the three remaining power conferences have joined forces to work as a group on everything from scheduling to governance as a counterweight to the growing power of the SEC.
It may be easiest to think of the schism between the expanding SEC and the new ACC-Big Ten-Pac 12 alliance as the beginning of a two-party system to govern college football, if not college sports altogether.
How binding is this alliance?
Interestingly, the three commissioners did not sign a contract in constructing this alliance.
“It’s about trust,” Phillips said during Tuesday’s news conference. “We’ve looked each other in the eye and made it an agreement.”
All three commissioners said they have buy-in from their 41 school presidents and athletics directors who are interested in bringing stability to college athletics.
“We are aligned in how we want to approach this,” Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff said Tuesday. “But there is no contract. There is no signed document. And there doesn’t need to be.”
What are the practical impacts?
Immediately, not many. While the three conferences agreed in principle to focus on playing each other in nonconference games, football schedules are often set years, if not decades out. The commissioners of the three leagues said Tuesday they will not “blow up existing contracts.”
Basketball and other sports, where opponents are set year-to-year, have more flexibility. The three leagues will explore more games against each other’s schools there, including early season or mid-season events like the popular and long-running ACC-Big Ten challenges that take place annually in men’s and women’s basketball.
“We are really at the beginning stages of this,” Warren said.
But the three-conference voting bloc should slow down the pace of CFP expansion, which at one point looked like an expansion to 12 teams would be rushed through as soon as possible, and at the very least forestall another round of conference expansion and realignment.
Phillips, Kliavkoff and Warren have pledged to not raid each other’s leagues in order to expand their own leagues.
As for playoff expansion, the next meeting where it will be discussed is next month. This alliance appears to give the ACC, Big 10 and Pac-12 a louder voice in the room. While Kliavkoff said the Pac-12 is in favor of expanding the playoffs, Phillips said the group has yet to decide how many more teams should be included.
“Whenever a decision is made,” Warren said, “we need to make sure we have an inclusive voice. We need to make sure we keep our student-athletes at the center of all our decisions, do the right thing by them.”
What’s the NCAA’s role?
June’s Alston decision in the Supreme Court against the NCAA — which raised serious antitrust issues for the NCAA — has provoked a total reassessment of the NCAA’s role governing college sports. The NCAA already plays a very small role in college football, where the conferences, bowls and CFP wield most of the power. That’s different from other sports where the NCAA runs the championships, controls the television rights and distributes the revenue, like March Madness.
The Power 5 conferences have already been allowed to set their own agenda outside the NCAA rule-making process under the guise of “autonomy” and this alliance could lead to another step away from the NCAA umbrella.
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 2:27 PM.