Canzano: Pac-12 expansion plot ramps up

How many schools? When? Could Gonzaga get involved?

Pac-12 athletic directors met on Friday to discuss next steps.

The Pac-12 held another meeting on Friday — this time, a video call between the conference’s six athletic directors.

The conference has until the summer of 2026 to reach a minimum of eight members. It swelled to six last week in an accelerated and surprising development that brought the top four Mountain West Conference members into the fold. There’s been rampant speculation about what the next move will be.

One school? Two? Three? Four?

Said a well-placed source: “Getting close to the next steps of nailing things down.”

What else I know:

• The University of Memphis remains a top target of the Pac-12, as this publication previously reported. The Tigers would deliver TV market No. 50, robust viewership history, and competitive programs where it counts most (football and men’s basketball).

• Tulane University, South Florida, University of Texas-San Antonio, and UNLV, are among the other schools getting consideration, per sources. That makes sense, that group rounds out the best available G5 football programs and TV markets.

• The Pac-12’s interest in UNLV remains a looming question. The school was not added along with fellow Mountain West friends San Diego State, Boise State, Fresno State, and Colorado State last week, raising eyebrows.

• Las Vegas would add TV market No. 40 and UNLV has a competitive football program currently. But the school has little football history and has historically undelivered with television viewership.

• Said one involved source: “UNLV is the biggest puzzle out there. The TV ratings are not great, but you’d get the buzz of Las Vegas.”

• One of the fundamental questions being kicked around internally is how big the Pac-12 wants to grow. The conference is using a consulting firm (Navigate) to help it rank and assess potential candidates.

• As one source explained: “We need eight. The intent isn’t just to add teams to add them. Is it a total of eight? Nine? 10? Ultimately that’s dependent on who else wants to be part of doing something epic.”

• The Pac-12’s strategy is to position itself for one of the College Football Playoff’s five automatic berths in most seasons. The five top-ranked conference champions get the auto bids. By snatching up the best remaining G5 schools to pair with the current six, it essentially accomplishes that.

• How big will the next bite of expansion be for the Pac-12? One person with direct knowledge of the discussions told me, “It feels like it could be anywhere from 1-5 as the next step, depending on dominoes.”

• I’d be shocked if the Pac-12 grew beyond 9-10 football members given that it wants to stay lean and nimble as an entity. Also, there’s the matter of how many ways they’d want to split the conference’s yet-to-be-negotiated media deal. I’ve been told nine members is ideal for football scheduling, but let’s see where it lands.

• Be careful with speculation about how valuable the potential TV deal would be until we see the final make-up of the conference. There are a lot of numbers floating around out there. Some of them whispered, no doubt, by consulting firms with conflicting interests. The market won’t lie. But what’s obvious is that the top G5 members are worth more if they’re bundled together in one conference and not subsidizing less valuable schools.

• There’s some speculation that Memphis wouldn’t bolt to the Pac-12 without Tulane and South Florida. The Pac-12 may have more leverage if it pivots in another direction. Would the conference be better off staying regional and adding schools such as UNLV and, say, Utah State? Or should it go all-in on the G5 front and look eastward? Discuss.

• Also, discussed in Friday’s Pac-12 meeting was the possibility of adding Gonzaga as a basketball member. When I asked a source about the extent of those conversations, the reply came: “How could Gonzaga not come up? Could it work? What would that look like? Those are the kinds of questions being asked right now.”

• What’s the timing? The Pac-12 hasn’t been secretive about its desire to expand. Everyone knows it is plotting. The Pac-12 doesn’t want to take its time, however. It would like to move quickly and go to market on the media-rights front as soon as possible.

One conference AD told me: “I can’t imagine it’s going to take long.”

Another source estimated: “It feels like 48-72 hours.”

A third offered: “That 48-72 hours feels like it could be an everyday thing.”

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