ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 Announcing Alliance Intended to Obstruct Conference Shake-Ups

The Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten and Pac-12 are expected to announce Tuesday that the three leagues will forge an alliance to collaborate on football scheduling, collegiate sports governance and other issues, the Associated Press reported. The action comes less than a month after the Southeastern Conference extended an invitation for the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma to join the league, which would establish a league encompassing 16 schools by 2025.

"This move ensures a strong future for an outstanding athletics program, providing the opportunity for our student-athletes to compete at the highest levels," University of Texas system Chancellor James Milliken said in a statement after the school's board approved the move to the SEC.

An individual with knowledge of the expected announcement, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the AP that the three conferences hope the 41-school alliance will make room for "stabilization" after the shakeup in the Southeastern Conference.

The conferences have been in talks regarding the alliance for several weeks, the Associated Press reported. The individual with knowledge of the decision told the AP that the leagues' commissioners are anticipated to speak publicly on the action. The individual said that the announcement won't offer many specifics on the coalition, but rather an overall pledge from the leagues that they will collaborate in working on common objectives moving forward.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

The person said Tuesday's announcement will be light on details and more of a commitment from the three relatively new commissioners — Kevin Warren of the Big Ten, Jim Phillips of the ACC and George Kliavkoff of the Pac-12 — that the conferences will work together on shared goals.

The leagues announced that a video news conference would be held at 2 p.m. Eastern with the three commissioners, though no details were given as to the subject.

The alliance also forms as the NCAA begins the process of handing off more responsibility to conferences and schools to run college sports, and with a proposal to expand the College Football Playoff in the pipeline.

The scheduling piece could lead to multiple nonconference football games per season between the league members, creating new and valuable television inventory. But nonconference football schedules are typically made years in advance and many schools already have mostly full slates in the coming seasons.

For example, Ohio State has a home-and-home series with Alabama set for 2027 and 2028. It is unclear how an ACC-Big Ten-Pac-12 alliance would account for future games already in place and traditional ACC-SEC rivalries such as Clemson-South Carolina and Georgia-Georgia Tech.

An alliance involving the conferences could impact basketball scheduling more immediately, where schedules are usually made months, instead of years, in advance.