The domino effects of Colorado preparing to join the Big 12

With Colorado initiating the process to leave the Pac-12 and join the Big 12 for the 2024-25 season, it marks a significant ripple in college athletics as the next phase in realignment.

Here’s a look at the biggest questions for both leagues and what’s next on the landscape in the wake of Colorado’s looming departure.

Jump to: Next steps for the Pac-12

The league is now slated to have 13 teams for 2024-25, and it would make sense to add another in time for the 2024 football season. Where will that team come from? And could more than one be added?

The preference of the Big 12 would be one of the Pac-12’s other so-called Four Corners schools — Arizona, Arizona State or Utah. According to sources, Arizona has been the most engaged among those three schools. But virtually every school in the league has had some kind of contact with the Big 12, as the Pac-12 has spun its wheels on landing a television deal for nearly a year. It would be fiduciary negligence to not explore other options.

Arizona’s decision-making will be made more through the prism of basketball than most power conference schools, which would make a move to the Big 12 more attractive. Pac-12 basketball has been significantly weakened with the loss of USC and UCLA, and the Big 12 has been the country’s top basketball conference in recent years. Arizona president Bobby Robbins has maintained publicly that no decisions will be made until there’s clarity on the Pac-12’s television deal. That will be put to the test after Colorado’s decision.