When I think of the word alliance, I think of something like The Hunger Games, where it is in your best interest to work with others until you must fend for yourself. They are normally situations where you have to depend on someone else to advance because you could not otherwise. I believe there is typically an understanding that there will be a time that it comes to an end, and it truly becomes every man for themselves.
When I think of the word alliance, college athletics is nowhere on my list of where alliances are formed. So why was one formed on Tuesday?
The ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 publicly announced that they will be forming an alliance focused on a “collaborative approach” when it comes to scheduling and other pertinent areas. You can access the full release the Big Ten put out at 2 o’clock on Tuesday here.
Their announcement comes weeks after the news that Oklahoma and Texas will not be renewing their contracts with the Big 12 and will leave to join the SEC. If alliances are formed out of fear that one needs another’s help to survive, then in this case, the Sooners and Longhorns heading to the SEC is their fear.
That I understand. Those two coming into the conference that has won four of the seven College Football Playoff National Championships completely changes the landscape of collegiate athletics as we know it. But what does this alliance even do to combat this, exactly?
According to their press release, they decided that this will “create new inter-conference games, enhance opportunities for student-athletes, and optimize the college athletics experience for both student-athletes and fans across the country.”
To me, that just sounds like they are planning to schedule each other more during the season than they were planning to. So, how exactly does this alliance plan to combat the original dilemma?
My biggest problem with this, though, is that there is no contract associated with this. Nothing in writing. Just a friendly gentlemen’s agreement that they will do it. Great publicity, sure, and even if they do this in the future, all the schools involved will probably make more money out of it.
What happens if a school or conference decides something is in their best interest but also a detriment to the other agreeing parties of this alliance? Nothing is stopping anyone from walking all over each other. If Oklahoma and Texas were contractually bound to be in the Big 12 but were actively looking for ways to get out of their contract, nothing is going to stop one of these three conferences from putting their own future first. If the SEC approaches, say, the Big Ten, about joining together and forming their own thing, nothing is stopping them. Will they catch some heat for it publicly? Sure, but the money invested would speak for itself.
That is where I find this whole thing to be dumb. There is no plan, no action, nothing holding this whole agreement together. If they wanted to schedule each other more, then they would have decided to do just that and not label it as an alliance, but that was done intentionally.
There could be more to this that will be laid out in the future, but if what was publicly shared yesterday is the whole plan, it seems pointless to form a scheduling alliance that has nothing to do with taking voting action to benefit each other. It feels comedic, even, to call this an “alliance” like they will trailblaze the future of college sports.
Nothing has changed since this information went official, and I have a hard time seeing how this significantly impacts the collegiate landscape in the near or far future. Like The Hunger Games, it is in the best interest of all the conferences to remain competitors anyways, so I do not see this getting too high off the ground.
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