Alliance between Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC will not yet affect Iowa football schedule

IOWA CITY ― The spoken, not signed, alliance among the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC conferences will not yet affect Iowa football’s schedule.

On Tuesday, Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff announced a three-conference alliance to “bring 41 world-class institutions together on a collaborative approach surrounding the future evolution of college athletics and scheduling.”

But for right now, the three commissioners remain committed to the status quo: keeping nine conference football games in the Big Ten and Pac-12 and eight in the ACC, along with the regularly scheduled non-conference games in each.

“We promised that we're going to keep all of our existing contracts and games in order,” Warren said. “Some conferences have eight (conference) games, we’re a conference that has nine conference games. So all of those different issues ... they're put on the table now.”

Iowa is locked into a contract to play non-conference rival Iowa State through 2025 in addition to two other non-conference opponents through 2023. The 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons only list Illinois State and Florida Atlantic, respectively, as non-conference opponents in addition to Iowa State, leaving a vacancy for additional non-conference games.

Pac-12 commissioner Kliavkoff added that the games the Pac-12 could substitute with other alliance partners in lieu of some of the conference games contracted over the next three years “would be very compelling and worth making that move sooner,” but will need to work with TV and alliance partners to do so.

The Athletic reported that the Pac-12 will make an announcement later this week about whether or not it will expand its membership following the departures of Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12 to the SEC.

Warren emphasized that the Big Ten already has existing relationships through volleyball, field hockey and basketball “challenges,” with the Pac-12 and ACC, but looks forward to adding early-to-mid-season games with other members of the alliance to the men’s and women’s basketball schedules, along with other “premier” matchup opportunities.

Iowa’s field hockey team hosts a Big Ten/ACC challenge this weekend in Iowa City while Iowa men’s basketball will travel to Virginia and Iowa women’s basketball will visit Duke this winter in the Big Ten/ACC challenge.

According to a release, the alliance will also seek opportunities for Olympic sports to “compete more frequently and forge additional attractive and meaningful rivalries.”

But in regards to football, matchups among the three conferences had already been established before the alliance was formally declared the alliance.

“This year we have Oregon, who will be playing at Ohio State and Washington will be playing at Michigan,” Warren said. “Between 2022 and 2035, there are already 68 games that are on the schedule from a football standpoint. That’s not including even Notre Dame, and if you include Notre Dame, it's 103 games. What this allows us to do is to focus on the existing games that we have.”

The point of the alliance, as addressed by all three commissioners, is to align on many of the modern-day issues across college sports such as: gender equity, player health and safety, mental health, social justice, the ruling of the Alston case and college football playoff expansion. All three were in favor of playoff expansion, but said they would continue to discuss the right path for it without offering specifics.

“We felt we had a responsibility to stabilize a volatile environment to focus in on the things structurally that we have to do if we want to see college athletics not only survive, but excel,” Phillips said.

There was no signed contractual agreement among the three conferences. For now, there will be no 41-team “super conference.” When asked if the SEC’s acquisition of Texas and Oklahoma prompted the alliance, Warren said that it was not a reaction, but allowed the three conferences to evaluate what is going on in collegiate athletics. The commissioners noted the importance of the Big 12 as an existing Power Five conference.

“We have many issues that we have to deal with, and especially conference realignment,” Warren said. "We just felt that we could look each other in the eyes, shake each other's hand to say that we have a fiduciary responsibility to pass through athletes our current student athletes and a future student athletes, to be able to do something that is right.“

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