Pac-12 ‘Alliance’ does little for Conference & Arizona Athletics

With the Pac-12 Conference forming an Alliance with the ACC and Big 10, the partnership does little for the conference and Arizona Athletics. 

Following the shocking news of the SEC expanding their conference, the Pac-12, ACC, and Big 10 have been left scrambling to stay relevant in the everchanging world of college athletics. But where does that leave Arizona Athletics in all of this?

Well, as you hopefully saw just days ago, the Pac-12, the ACC, the Big 10, its chancellors, commissioners, school presidents, etc. all collectively agreed to form an ‘Alliance’ among the three conferences.

A move that will hopefully combat the major exposure and financial benefit the SEC is about to receive, it was also a move that was strategically made to keep these respective power five conferences “relevant” and balance out the college athletics landscape. But will it?

While the Conference Alliance provides more scheduling opportunities and exposure, it ultimately falls short and doesn’t help Arizona Athletics.

On the surface, the move to have the conferences work with each other does have some benefits, but ultimately it is a decision that does little to nothing. It also leaves a school like Arizona at a disadvantage in particular.

In short, this move was made with the big football powers in mind. Essentially, schools like Ohio State, Clemson, Oregon, USC, Michigan, etc. are worried about getting left in the dust with the SEC expansion, and the move was made in part to help more teams get into the College Football playoff.

The bigger matchups, unique scheduling opportunities, etc. will provide little financial benefit, especially if you were to consider the revenue share, and the marketing/exposure component is a little overrated for a school like Arizona.

Here is a hypothetical scenario:

Let’s say Arizona plays a football game against Georgia Tech in Atlanta. While the match-up would generate more buzz than an Arizona-UTSA match-up would keep in mind that the Wildcats don’t recruit in the Georgia market, and even if they did, they are not beating out many SEC and ACC teams that recruit heavily in that market.

So in that instance, that exposure argument does little for Arizona Athletics, and ultimately the Alliance doesn’t do much for Arizona overall.

Perhaps I’m wrong, and the Alliance does work, however, at this point, I just don’t see the benefit. In the sparse watched press conference from just days ago, the Alliance doesn’t have any substantial changes outside of scheduling.