As Oregon and Washington exit for the Big Ten, Black Friday has arrived for the Pac-12
As Oregon and Washington exit for the Big Ten, Black Friday has arrived for the Pac-12
The Pac-12 is now a Pac-7, and could be a Pac-4 very soon. The college football world must brace for the possibility that this will be the last season for the self-proclaimed Conference of Champions.
Black Friday is here for the Pac-12.
The Big Ten has agreed to move ahead with the additions of Oregon and Washington, per a source with knowledge of the situation, delivering the Pac-12 an effective knockout punch as it takes away the conference’s top remaining members.
There is a formal process to this that is expected to be finalized later Friday, with the incoming schools submitting applications that will then be voted on by the Big Ten’s council of chancellors and presidents.
That vote will be unanimous in favor of the additions, despite reservations from a number of current Big Ten schools. Some of those concerns have been eased by the reduced revenue share that Oregon and Washington are initially expected to receive from the conference, per a source.
The move is a feather in the cap for new Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, who has hired just more than four months ago and has further strengthened the Big Ten’s standing, as it is now the nation’s first 18-team conference.
Decisions about integration and a schedule format are expected to be discussed at a later date, as the Big Ten had just announced in June its “flex protect plus” scheduling model for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, the first to include UCLA and USC.
Those schedules will now include fellow Pac-12 defectors Oregon and Washington, after the Pac-12 failed to present those schools and its former peers a strong — or timely — enough media rights package, with its current deal set to expire after this season.