In the game we like to call college sports realignment, it's safe to say the Pac-12 has not been the conference who can say they're winning.

After losing charter schools USC and UCLA to the Big Ten, the conference is scrambling to figure out how they want to look for the future. Part of that search includes finding a lucrative media deal going forward, something that has proven to be hard to find.

On Monday, there are signs of hope the search for a deal might be coming closer to ending, according to a statement from the Pac-12 Twitter page.

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The media deal seems to be the top priority of the board members, but maybe they should be worried about the number of teams in the conference. The Pac-12 is down to 10 teams after USC and UCLA leaves in 2024, and there's no telling how many of the teams still remaining will stay. The Big Ten and Big 12 have been reportedly lurking around to see if they can expand their respective conferences, and the Pac-12 seems to be the peak target to add from.

The uncertainty on the number of teams could be why the search for a deal has resulted in nothing as of now. It's hard to blame the networks for not agreeing with a conference that could look considerably different in the near future. These deals can go for decades, and if the Pac-12 happens to drop from 10 to 8 teams (hypothetically), that wouldn't be a smart investment for the network(s) that might be interested.

At any rate, the Pac-12 says a media deal is coming. How that looks is anyone's guess.