In a surprise move, the Big Ten has added two new schools from the west coast in rival schools USC and UCLA that will join the conference in 2024. The move seemingly sets the stage for the Big Ten and SEC to eventually rule supreme by each poaching schools from the remaining conferences to create two Super Conferences. With all of the conference realignment that’s happened to date, regional location has still been taken into account for the most part. With this move, that is all out the window now setting the stage for a total overhaul of how conferences in college sports are constructed.
USC and UCLA reportedly reached out to the Big Ten instead of the other way around which many previously expected to be the case. It also strips away the conference’s two flagship programs and weakens the PAC-12 significantly who now must likely scramble to make their next steps.
— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) July 1, 2022
This move also is interesting for the “Alliance” the Big Ten, ACC, and PAC-12 created last year on the heels of Texas and Oklahoma moving to SEC. And now before the Alliance made it a year in, one conference has poached another conference with the alliance for two of their schools and their two most important schools at that. The landscape of college sports is changing right before our eyes with football and money being the biggest factors. It will be extremely interesting to see how things ultimately play out.
