The three members of The Alliance — the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC — hope to play eight-game conference schedules moving forward, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff said on Friday.

Kliavkoff said he believes The Alliance conferences can begin playing football games against each other as soon as next season, with one big caveat: they have to re-negotiate contracts with FOX and ESPN to allow for a switch to an eight-game conference slate.

“It depends on whether or not we’re able to re-negotiate our 9 conference game schedule with ESPN and FOX,” Kliavkoff said. “If we’re able to re-negotiate that down to 8 and the Big Ten is able to do that as well, we could start playing these games next year. But there’s a lot of work to be done to get there.”

Sports Betting in Big Ten Country

There is big news coming to the upcoming 2022-23 Big Ten football season (and NFL season). Ohio online sports betting and Maryland sports betting are on the way.

21+ and present in OH. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

Eventually, the Alliance wants to get to a point where every school is playing two nonconference games per season — one home and one away — vs. other members of the Alliance.

“Over time, the goal, the north star of the alliance, is to get to a place where every single school in each of the conferences is playing eight conference games, one home game and one away game against the two other conferences (in the Alliance),” Kliavkoff said.

With nonconference schedules planned out years into the future, it would be virtually impossible to start playing Alliance games without removing a conference game.

It’s currently unclear whether or not ESPN and FOX would be receptive to these negotiations.

The Big Ten’s 2021 regular season begins on Saturday as Illinois hosts Nebraska.