Making sense of the new alliance
By Vincent DiGeronimo
In the very active world of college football, a lot has been going on. For those who do not know, on Aug 24, 2021, the Pac-12, Big Ten, and the ACC announced an alliance that they would be participating in. According to several articles and quotes linked to conference officials, it is clear that the move was made in an attempt to counteract Texas and Oklahoma agreeing to join the SEC when their contracts are over in the Big 12. On top of that, heads of each of the conferences also added that the move was not for generating revenue, and was more in order to balance the power of the SEC.
I am not opposed to the new alliance, however I do not think that it really did much to balance the power of the SEC. The SEC was arguably the most important conference in the power 5 to begin with, and with Texas and Oklahoma agreeing to join soon, in due time the SEC will be the largest and most powerful conference in the country. I think that this move was mainly just to protect the three conferences, as opposed to trying to gain any power.
As for within the alliance, I think that it is great that 41 schools can come together now and share resources and potentially be able to get a lot done. I think that the value added for a student athlete within these three conferences definitely increased. While I think that the new changes in terms of scheduling will be very drastic, I think that overall, the long term benefits of this alliance are great internally, but maybe are not that important in terms of keeping the college football world from making drastic changes as they have done recently.