Getty Image / David Madison
Oregon State and Washington State are the only two remaining members of the once mighty Pac-12 Conference Board of Directors, effectively whittling the conference down to the Pac-2.
Nobody wants to see the Pac conference disappear but the Mountain West Conference is at least stepping up to the plate and reportedly working on a potential lifeline for the Pac-12. That lifeline, according to College Football insider Ross Dellenger, could come in the form of a promotion and relegation style model akin to European soccer.
In order to grasp how this would work, it’s important to understand why programs want to preserve the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences to begin with.
Ross Dellenger lists three primary reasons for keeping the two conferences alive: (1) ‘Retain the millions of dollars in assets’ the Pac-12 has including $50M in March Madness shares. (2) Automatic qualifying spots in conference championships, and (3) keeping revenue distribution from the College Football Playoffs.
How Would Promotion and Relegation work in College Football?
With potentially hundreds of millions of dollars at stake the incentive to keep the Pac-2 and Mountain West Conferences alive is significant. According to Dellenger, who spoke with athletic directors engaged in conversations around relegation and promotion, this could be accomplished by creating two parallel conferences.
He writes “The Mountain West and Pac-2 would strike a partnership around a relegation system for football and be managed by a single commissioner, though their membership may fluctuate — at least in football — on an annual or biannual basis.”
Currently, the Pac-2 and Mountain West have 14 teams. That number could be expanded by bringing in additional teams. Each season, 2 teams would move ‘up’ and 2 teams would move ‘down’ based on their results.
Why relegation?
It is hard to fathom an athletic director signing onto this model with a glaring opportunity for failure ahead. But for smaller schools, piggybacking off the Pac-12 media contracts would be critical exposure.
As in life, things become tricky when looking at the 1’s and 0’s. In this two conference model, it is assumed the Pac-12 members would be paid more. This would pump more resources into those programs and set them up better to stay in the Pac-12 and not get relegated to the Mountain West.
That would be assumed risk but actually planning budgets year-over-year becomes a nightmare when accounting for the uncertainty. Ross Dellenger lays out some potential earnings scenarios and how difficult the Pac-12 relegation and promotion model might be:
For instance, if the leagues strike a media rights deal worth $100 million annually, Pac-12 programs would earn 60% ($7.5M per school) while Mountain West schools earn the other 40% ($5M per school). Schools could receive bonuses for winning each league and being promoted from the Mountain West to the Pac-12.
This is where the real problem lies, said one conference administrator. With relegation, budgets will change, dipping by as much as $3-5 million a year. That’s an issue for athletic directors in annual budget projections. There must be a balance struck in the base distribution that allows for annual budget projections.
A Pac-12 model of relegation and promotion would be a massive gamble. But it could also be a gamble worth taking as the other conferences slowly expand and the landscape shifts to a ‘super conference’ in the coming years.
Nick Saban himself has discussed how much he loves relegation. It is not out of the realm of possibility to think the Pac-2 could stay alive with this model. But it will take some athletic directors who are willing to gamble.