The Arizona Board of Regents, the governing body for the state’s public university system, have called for a special board meeting to take place on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. MT. The agenda for the meeting is vague, but there is speculation that board members will directly discuss both Arizona and Arizona State’s future with the Pac-12 Conference and a potential move to the Big 12 Conference. Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff is set to present a potential media rights deal to league members hours beforehand on Tuesday morning, so the Arizona board could be mulling over this information to determine the best path forward for their flagship institutions.
The Pac-12’s prolonged media rights negotiations has created unease within the conference’s membership for the last several months and took a blow last week with the news of Colorado leaving to return to the Big 12 in 2024. Almost immediately after that news broke, Arizona was cited as the next potential candidate to jump ship to the Big 12, with the other “four corner” schools in Arizona State and Utah potentially following suit. Should any of these institutions leave, it would put the Pac-12 in a further perilous state and continue a bleeding out process that began with the departures of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten.
In the seemingly never-ending carousel of college football conference realignment, all eyes will focus west on Tuesday towards both Kliavkoff and the AZ board of regents.