With Colorado being the latest domino to fall, conference realignment is all the buzz this summer. The Big 12 and Big Ten are looking strong moving forward while the Pac-12’s troubles only worsened following the Buffs’ exit.
The Pac-12 currently has nine schools committed to the 2024-25 academic year, but that number could easily drop again. If commissioner George Kliavkoff wants to keep the conference alive, he’ll have to make a few major expansion splashes. His options, however, appear limited to the Group of Five and to the Mountain West, in particular.
San Diego State is by far the Pac-12’s best expansion candidate because of its media market, although the Aztecs didn’t have an easy time fleeing the Mountain West earlier this summer.
One Mountain West school that may be desperate enough to join the Pac-12 is Colorado State. The Rams have been a Power Five expansion candidate before, and now is clearly their best chance at moving up.
Kevin Lytle of The Coloradoan (subscription required) believes that CU rejoining the Big 12 helps CSU’s path to the Pac-12.
Simply, the Rams needed help to move up. The Big 12 is no longer interested. Same with the Big 10 and the conferences farther east (the ACC and SEC). CSU flirted with the American not long ago, but that didn’t make much sense.
But the Pac-12? It’s maybe not as natural a fit as the Big 12 could have been years ago, but CSU would jump at the chance. Like, swan dive, Olympics style, into the pool.
Lytle added that the future Pac-12 figures to be a “thinned-out” Power Five, but the expected money would make it an attractive choice for CSU.
While the Pac-12 is struggling to match the nearly $30 million annually the Big 12 would be getting, whatever the new Pac-12 deal will be surely more (probably about triple) than the roughly $7 million MW schools get.
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