Mailbag: The rebuilt Pac-12’s complicated task, an ACC-Big 12 partnership, UNLV’s future, the House lawsuit impact on baseball and more
The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup.com and include ‘mailbag’ in the subject line. Or hit me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline
Some questions have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Would it be wise for the Pac-12 to only have eight football-playing schools, so that each team will have a better shot at making the College Football Playoff? — @CelestialMosh
The membership issue reflects the five-dimensional chess unfolding within the rebuilt conference, where the schools committed for 2026 are plotting their future as the industry evolves with unprecedented speed and complexity.
Everything is interwoven, from the media rights contract to the expansion calculation to the annual football and basketball schedules to revenue sharing to College Football Playoff and NCAA Tournament access.
Add the uncertainty created by the lawsuits against the Mountain West — one by the Pac-12 itself, the other by three schools set to join the Pac-12 — and you can understand why the process is taking so long. It’s far more intricate, for example, than an existing conference simply renewing its media rights deal.
At first blush, sure: A smaller Pac-12 seemingly would widen the postseason path for each member. Whatever CFP format is adopted for 2026 will include an automatic berth for the highest-ranked team outside the Power Four leagues. Win the Pac-12, and the CFP is a very real possibility.
But there’s more to it, because schedule strength will impact the CFP rankings. Which means the Pac-12 must consider the number of conference games, which affects the number of non-conference games.
If the Pac-12 stays lean and adds just one school — Texas State, for instance — then it would have eight football members. That means either:
— Each team must play five non-conference games, thereby increasing costs and potentially undermining schedule strength. Logistically, that could be difficult, as well. There isn’t an unlimited number of quality non-conference opponents available in a given season, especially if the Big Ten and SEC create a crossover series.
— The Pac-12 would need to include home-and-home series during intra-conference play. For example, Washington State would face Colorado State both at home and on the road as a means of adding an eighth conference game, stabilizing its schedule strength and lowering costs.
(FCS schools demand hundreds of thousands of dollars to play the role of visitor in an FBS stadium, and the price will soar if Pac-12 schools are desperate.)
Adding two football-playing schools would help with the schedule but bring other complications, with revenue atop the list: More mouths to feed typically results in lower per-school revenue shares.
Then again, expanding the footprint to include two schools in Texas (Texas State and UTSA, for instance) could provide travel partners and help on the expense side. It would create more kickoff options in the Central Time Zone, which might add incremental value to the media rights package.
And that’s something else to consider: game inventory for football and men’s basketball, which is connected to the linear-vs.-streaming aspect of the media deal.
(The Hotline fully expects the Pac-12’s media agreement to be finalized this summer and include The CW, either ESPN or Warner Bros. Discovery, or both, plus potentially Fox or CBS.)
Lastly, let’s not forget the strategic calculation that looms over every issue: What course of action in 2025 places the Pac-12 in the most advantageous position in 2030? Because in many ways, expansion now is about acquiring chips for the next media rights cycle.
Perhaps a lean-and-mean conference located exclusively in the West is the best brand-building approach for the intermediate term. Or maybe planting the flag in Texas, where football is king, offers the most lucrative path forward.
Our position is well documented. The Hotline believes the priority should be Texas State, which is located along the booming I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio.
If the Pac-12 can grab UTSA, as well, the Texas two-step makes loads of sense.
Yes, the price matters. Would any newcomers enter the conference as full-share members? Would they receive partial shares for the entirety of the media contract cycle, or only for a few years?
It’s not merely a matter of which schools to add but, rather, which schools to add at what price. And that has implications for so many other strategic decisions.
We have seen Pac-12 administrators quip that their task is akin to building a plane while flying it. But that doesn’t do the complexity of the process justice. The conference is also ordering the parts, determining the project’s cost and plotting its flight path.
Much has been made in recent weeks of the 4-4-2-2-1 and 5+11 playoff models. In your efforts to advocate for the ACC and Big 12 to operate in unison, you’ve suggested everything from strategic alignment to cross-conference scheduling alliances. But how about an ACC/Big 12 scheduling alliance that effectively operated as a merger without disrupting the TV contracts in place with ESPN and Fox? — Steve G
My sense is that we are envisioning the same outcome, just with slightly different wording.
The Hotline made the case last month that the ACC and Big 12 should work together strategically in order to (partially) counteract the wallop of the growing SEC-Big Ten partnership.
An outright merger isn’t possible because the Big 12 and ACC have their own media rights deals. (Even if that weren’t the case, they probably aren’t interested in a shared governance structure.) But anything short of the legal limits to a merger should be considered.
It’s difficult to imagine a means by which they could fully integrate their football or basketball schedules. But whatever crossover games can be arranged would provide some competitive benefits.
The common thread? ESPN, a media partner to both conferences.
It was my understanding that the Mountain West signed the remaining teams to the grant-of-rights deal that locks them in until 2032, but UNLV has an out if the Rebels join a power conference. So regardless of the outcome of the mediation with the Pac-12, the remaining Mountain West teams can’t go anywhere, right? —George D
There is a grant-of-rights agreement, yes. But the Mountain West has also promised specific payments to its members based on an infusion of cash from the poaching penalties (Pac-12) and exit fees (five departing schools) that are in excess of $100 million.
What if the mediation leaves the Mountain West unable to meet its financial obligations to UNLV, Air Force and others?
Our advice: Ignore the grant of rights.
Remember, the Pac-12 schools signed on the bottom line in the spring of 2023. It’s a necessary step to locking down a media rights deal that provides peace and stability, but it doesn’t guarantee a media rights deal that provides peace and stability. Especially when the schools in question have escape hatches.
(Which is why, back in 2023, the Hotline placed the Pac-12’s survival chances at just 60 percent after the grant of rights was signed.)
In realignment, nothing is final until the media agreement is signed and sealed.
Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould stated that revenue allocation may not necessarily be decided at the school level. Does that mean the Pac-12, and specifically Oregon State and Washington State, will make the determination on how much each school can depend on each sport? Seems kinda dictatorship-like. — @NateJones2009
In case you missed it, yes, Gould told the Hotline earlier this week that the conference will participate in decisions on revenue distribution resulting from the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit settlement — specifically, how much to allocate to football and men’s basketball compared to other sports.
“We are having conversations around strategy,” she said. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be some institutional autonomy. But if it’s entirely about local authority, then you’re missing the opportunity to prioritize the sports that are important to you.”
But when Gould refers to “we,” she means executives from all the schools that will be members next summer, not just Washington State and Oregon State.
The Hotline asked Gould directly whether Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State and Gonzaga have voting rights.
Her answer: Yes, with the exception of agenda items pertaining to the upcoming competition year (when WSU and OSU will operate as a two-team league).
“We’re all in this together,” she added.
Based on one of your recent articles, boosters can essentially recruit athletes with money. You didn’t refer to the interplay between the coaches and boosters in this relationship. Wouldn’t the recruiter be intimately involved in the deal? It seems as if the schools are worried about themselves. — Jerry M
Therein lies the irony at the heart of the crackdown on pay-for-play: Every coach and administrator in the country wants to rein in cheating — all while pursuing a competitive advantage by any means necessary.
Every school in the FBS cheats to one degree or another. (OK, maybe not all 134, but most of them.) Yet nobody will admit they’re cheating as they point the finger at everyone else and demand more oversight.
It’s both hilarious and ridiculous.
So, yes: The new enforcement entity, the College Sports Commission, has been tasked by the Power Four with eliminating the legal pay-for-play that has existed in the age of booster-run NIL collectives.
The inmates are effectively running the asylum. We should know within a few months if they are interested in adhering to their own rules.
How does the College Sports Commission (CSC) generate revenue? — @jimmy0726
Good question — and one that we posed this week directly to FGS Global, the firm handling communications for the CSC. They have yet to provide an answer, which we don’t take to mean they are evading the question.
The commission’s website, which addresses key questions in the post-settlement world, does not list an address for the CSC or provide any contact information other than a few email addresses.
The projected costs of the operation aren’t publicly known, either.
In the absence of an official explanation, we assume the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC will provide the funding for the CSC, with possible help from other conferences.
Given that football is the driving force behind the majority of the chaos in college athletics today and the general thought that a super league could form, I wonder if it’s worth looking at what another college sport did: men’s rowing. It never joined the NCAA. That seems like something that could work for football. — T Omar
Very true. The Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) governs men’s rowing and much of the women’s version, as well.
And with each passing month, the likelihood of football separating from all other college sports seems to increase. Certainly, the formation of a super league in the 2030s would accelerate that process.
The range of possible outcomes is not limited to a governing body for football in much the same way the College Sports Commission is the oversight body for NIL and revenue-sharing compliance.
We could see Olympic sports form associations of their own or, perhaps, alliances with national bodies.
That process is underway in at least one sport: U.S. Soccer recently formed a committee to “integrate the college game more deeply into the broader U.S. Soccer ecosystem.”
The chair of the committee, Dan Helfrich, is an advisor to U.S. Soccer and executive at Deloitte — the same company that created the NIL Go technology for the College Sports Commission.
Are you hearing how college baseball will be affected by the lawsuit settlement? I imagine it will be like softball, where likely only the bigger schools will throw a few dollars over there, too? — Tony A
There are two issues for baseball: the roster spots available and the dollars offered.
To this point, many teams in the major conferences typically have carried 35-40 players and divided their 11.7 scholarships across the roster.
Under the House settlement, baseball rosters are capped at 34 spots, but every player can be on scholarship if the school so chooses. Most won’t offer the full amount.
The dollars allocated will depend on the value of specific sports to the conferences and universities. We expect the SEC to commit more resources to baseball than the Big Ten, which might favor volleyball.
Another piece to consider: The cost of additional scholarships could replace revenue-sharing dollars for Olympic sports.
For example, Ohio State recently revealed that it will allocate $18 million in direct revenue share to football and its basketball and volleyball teams. Another $2.5 million will be used to cover the cost of new scholarships, thus taking the Buckeyes to the $20.5 million maximum allowed for revenue sharing under the House settlement terms.
Who’s watching the Pac-12 website? The most recent cover story on the home page (at the time of this letter) is from April 29, about the 2025 football schedule. I visited the site to see what they had to say about the Beavers’ trip to Omaha and … nothing! Isn’t visibility a big part of the Pac-12 strategy? — Steve P
I’m not sure exactly when you checked, but the site currently has plenty of information about Oregon State’s baseball team.
Yes, the main article deals with the football schedules for 2025, which is understandable. Not only is football the top sport, it’s the only sport being played by Oregon State and Washington State under the Pac-12 banner during this transition phase.
(Basketball and many of the Olympic sports are competing in the West Coast Conference, while OSU baseball is an Independent.)
But the ‘Around the Pac-12’ news box to the right of the main article includes links to content on the Beavers in Omaha and to track and field competition for both OSU and WSU.
The Pac-12’s account on the social media platform X has been providing OSU baseball content, as well.
It’s a weird situation all around, with just two schools and one sport technically in the Pac-12 at this point. But the conference cannot ignore other WSU and OSU teams. The situation requires a happy medium.
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