I didn’t predict any of OU, Texas, USC, or UCLA moving, so the only thing I am confident about is that I don’t know what’s going to happen. That said, I think there are two truths that will guide next steps.
1. Nobody can leave the ACC due to ACC’s grant of rights through 2036. The civil liability a school would owe for violating a grant of rights is enormous; It would simply cost too much for any individual or small group of schools to break that contract.
2. The Big 10 and SEC will not add schools that do not add revenue for existing members, which means no more schools will be added unless they have media rights worth >$110M annually. Every single one of the Big 10 and SEC’s moves since the Big 10 added Penn State back in the day has been revenue enhancing for their existing members. Even when the Big 10 added lowly Rutgers, it helped open New York market to Big 10 network. The thing is, the SEC and Big 10 media contracts are now so valuable that every school (or group of schools) they add has to have media rights worth $110M+ per school annually, or else adding a school means LESS money for existing members. There are literally no schools that meet that criteria left in the Big 12 or Pac 12. For example, a few pages back folks linked a Fox Sports exec explaining that Oregon and Washington’s media rights are only worth $30M annually. Even if that’s a low ball estimate, that’s WAY under what the Big 10 would require in order for those schools to be revenue enhancing for their existing members. And even though it would be impossible for any school to leave the ACC, even if they could, it is also true that no school in that league is worth $110M+, including Clemson (small market)/Florida State/Miami.
The only school left on the table that has media rights worth $110M annually is Notre Dame; therefore, there won’t be any additional moves by the Big 10 or SEC unless Notre Dame decides to move. Notre Dame is bound by the ACC’s grant of rights for most sports but not football. That means Notre Dame could probably move if they wanted to, but a move outside the ACC would still be costly. I have also read that Notre Dame is contractually committed to joining ACC for football if it joins a conference, and that may also limit Notre Dame’s ability to join any conference other than ACC. And Notre Dame’s identity is wrapped up in remaining independent. Notre Dame isn’t a good fit for SEC. So, taking all that into account, Notre Dame’s choice (if they have one) is likely between full membership in Big 10 or continuing independence/partial membership in ACC. I could see this choice going either way.
If Notre Dame joins Big 10, then I think Big 10 adds 1-3 schools from Pac 10; this would satisfy all truths noted above. A group of 2 schools including Notre Dame and perhaps Oregon or or Stanford would be revenue enhancing to the Big 10, and would not violate ACC grant of rights as to football. Probably just Notre Dame + 1 more.
Given the contractual issues noted above, I think it is more likely that Notre Dame says no to the Big 10 and works out a favorable deal with ACC, preserving independence but maybe adding regular access to ACC championship game like ACC provided Notre Dame recently in exchange for increasing number of ACC games. I could see ACC adding West Virginia in this scenario to get to 16 schools, matching SEC and Big 10. This combination would likely be revenue enhancing, and would not violate ACC grant of rights.
Ok, so what happens to Big 12 and Pac 12? I don’t know. But it is clear that there will be a collection of somewhat valuable schools that will never be invited to Big 10 or SEC; even Oregon will probably get left out of the club. If I had to guess, I’d guess/hope that once the dust settles with Notre Dame, the top 16 most valuable remaining schools in Big 12 and Pac 12 will form a new conference and leave behind the weaker schools. I think Iowa State is one of the top 16 schools but I don’t think that is certain.
Lots of talking heads are saying the Big 10 and SEC are destined to form super conferences of something like 40 teams total and then have their own playoff. I would bet good money against this. The Big 10 and SEC are now in position to set the terms for an incredibly valuable playoff and capture most of the revenue from that playoff for themselves; they can do that staying at 16 and without adding schools that reduce media rights value - i.e. schools that aren’t individually worth $110M annually. Plus keeping the playoff open to all FBS schools probably reduces antitrust risk.
Bottom line: Iowa State is probably going to be included in a group of second tier schools that make decent money and still have playoff access. Will be interesting to see what Notre Dame does, whether there is a Pac 12/Big 12 merger of some kind or if new conference composed of most valuable remaining schools is formed, and if there is new conference whether Iowa State is included.