CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodds wrote about what to expect for the possible Pac-12 or AAC merger with the Big 12, starting by stating that according to industry sources, the value of the Big 12 drops from $37 per institution to around $15 to 18 million, but that the remaining 8 teams do want to stay in the Power 5 designation.

For now, the Big 12 is trending toward a long exhale. It has time to consider its future. Texas and Oklahoma have publicly stated their intent to stay in the Big 12 for the final four years of the leagues media rights agreement.

Intent being the key word. If the two superpowers left early, they would owe the conference tens of millions of dollars because the Big 12 otherwise owns their TV rights until 2025. If they stay, it could get ugly on the fields and courts for the defectors, but insults thrown from the stands don’t cost nearly as much as a prolonged legal battle.

If the Big 12 stands pat, it has time to decide whether to expand. The Pac-12 and AAC are still going to be there four years from now. That would leave room for a Pac-12 scheduling alliance to increase revenue. The two sides discussed such an arrangement following the Big 12’s failed expansion foray in 2016.

A full-on 20 team Big 12-Pac-12 merger would rock the collegiate world. Again, forget geography. Think of four scheduling pods of five to create travel partners.

1: California, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State
2: Colorado, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah
3: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech
4: Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, West Virginia

Dallas Morning News’ Tim Cowlishaw likes the idea of the Pac-12 and Big 12 merger, mainly thinking that neither really has a choice in the matter:

Football is king. It’s really all that matters.

If you look at the TV money that Big Ten and SEC teams are receiving and will be getting soon, we are talking $40 million-$50 million per school at a minimum. If you look at the TV money that the Sun Belt or the Mountain West or the MAC receives — numbers that aren’t announced with such great fanfare — it has recently been $2 million-$3 million per school at the high end of those conferences.

Basically, it’s Power Five (or perhaps Four) or bust.

There is no getting around the fact that the SEC and the Big Ten have won the fight. It’s a matter of whether the Big 12 wants to keep trading punches and surviving a few rounds or accept the knockout blow that UT and OU delivered and throw in the towel.

Teams can disperse into the wind, a Kansas and Kansas State running one way, TCU and Baylor latching on somewhere else. But with one or two exceptions, it won’t be major conferences throwing out lifelines.

Yeah, I pretty much think that it is Pac-12 or bust for the most part, although I think that picking off teams with the AAC is somewhat pleasing, but I’d also tend to think that when conference realignment happens again, there would be other teams that bolt and then you just sort of water down the product to some extent.