Report: Arizona, Arizona State, Utah Set to Join Big 12 in 2024 Pending Approval

The disintegration of the Pac-12 could be getting closer with Arizona, Arizona State and Utah set to be the latest schools to leave the conference.

Per Brett McMurphy of the Action Network, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah will join the conference pending "formal approval in the next 24 hours. This comes on the heels of the Big Ten formally accepting Oregon and Washington into the conference in a vote Friday afternoon.

This has been a monumental two weeks for the Pac-12, though not in ways that appear to be good for the conference.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark announced last week Colorado was coming back to the conference after the school's board of regents unanimously voted to approve the move.

Colorado's move to the Big 12 will take effect starting with the 2024-25 athletic year. USC and UCLA are leaving the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten, effective Aug. 2, 2024.

Thamel noted Oregon and Washington will "receive only a partial share" of the conference allotment through the Big Ten's upcoming television deals that run through the 2029-30 season after making the move.

The Pac-12's current media rights contracts are set to expire after the 2023-24 season. Commissioner George Kliavkoff presented a series of potential deals to chancellors and presidents from member schools on Tuesday with no agreement reached.

Per Thamel and Heather Dinich, the "likely leader" of the options presented was a streaming deal with Apple that's "expected to be a relatively short-term contract" and start at a "relatively low" value but "would incrementally improve and potentially be competitive with its peers in the Big 12 and ACC down the road, provided certain subscription numbers are met."

The Big Ten finalized new media rights deals with Fox, CBS and NBC in August 2022 that will pay the conference more than $7 billion over seven years through the 2029-30 athletic year.

Per CBS Sports' Shehan Jeyarajah, Apple's offer to the Pac-12 is believed to be in the range of "$20 million annually per school as a baseline" with incentives that could make it comparable to the $30 million Big 12 schools earn per year on its media rights deal.

The incentives, though, are considered a potential problem because Jeyarajah noted Apple could add a Pac-12 package to its baseline Apple TV+ service that "would need a million new subscribers for the deal to make sense" assuming a $15 price point for the package.

If all of the potential moves being discussed go through, the only remaining full-time members of the Pac-12 would be California, Oregon State, Washington State and Stanford.