Big Brother 17 had more alliances than any season before it, and most of them were the same people under a different name. This is every named alliance and pact from the summer of 2015, who was in each one, and when it fell apart.
The season had one core group at its centre that kept shedding members, absorbing new ones and rebranding as the house target shifted — Sleeper Cell became Sixth Sense, which became Freaks and Geeks, which became the Scamper Squad. Around it, a rotating cast of smaller alliances formed to stop it and failed, one after another. The alliance that actually decided the season was none of them: it was a quiet two-person deal made in the first few weeks and never broken.
After Dark Crew (ADC)
Jason, Jeff, Meg, James
The early alliances
5 Alive
Jace, Austin, James, Audrey and Clay (Fake Alliance)
The High Rollers
Jason, Meg, DaVonne, James, Audrey, Jackie and Jeff with Shelli as a spoke.
Tres Amigos
Jace, Austin & Liz
Shell Town
Austin & Jace (Final 2 Deal)
Pre-Existing Amazing Race Alliance
Jackie & Jeff
Girls Alliance
DaVonne, Shelli, Audrey
Shlay
Shelli & Clay (Flirtmance)
Sleeper Cell
Clay, Austin, Vanessa, Audrey and Shelli
Vanessa & Johnny Mac
Have a deal to not put each other up if they win HOH
Final 8 Crew
Jeff, Jason, DaVonne, James, Meg, Audrey, Shelli, Clay with Jackie as the +1
Sixth Sense and what it became
The same core group under four names across the season. Treating them as separate alliances is the usual mistake — the membership changed, but the centre of it never did.
Sixth Sense
Shelli, Clay, Austin, Liz, Vanessa, with Julia once she became a full individual player. Formed in Week 2–3 after Vanessa worked out the twin twist and brought it into an alliance instead of exposing it. Dominated the middle of the season, then began to fracture when Vanessa started backing away from targeting Austin — which fed straight into Clay’s eviction in Week 6 and Shelli’s in the Week 7 double.
Freaks and Geeks
Austin, Liz, Julia, Vanessa, Steve. Reconstituted later without Vanessa, with Johnny Mac taking her place — Austin’s own words on the feeds: “we basically just replaced her in Freaks and Geeks.” The clearest single example of the core group swapping a member and carrying on under the same name.
Scamper Squad
Liz, Julia, Austin, Steve, Vanessa. The late-season name for what was left of Sixth Sense once Shelli and Clay were gone, with Steve folded in. Also called the Aus-Twins around this stretch, after the Austin/Liz/Julia core at the middle of it. It fractured around Week 8 when members moved against Vanessa’s influence, splitting into Austin and the twins on one side, Steve and Johnny Mac on the other.
The alliances that tried to stop them
The Goblins
Jackie, Meg, James. Grew directly out of the After Dark Crew — after Jeff’s Week 3 eviction, Jackie joined what was left of the group. They spent weeks working to bring down Sixth Sense, with James orchestrating Clay’s eviction as the high point, while gambling on trust from Austin, Vanessa and the twins that cost them in the end.
Dark Moon
Vanessa, Shelli, Clay, Meg, Jason, James, Jackie, Becky. Formed in Week 5, just after Audrey’s eviction, by merging Three’s Company with the After Dark Crew remnant and adding Jackie and Becky. A Final 8 pact with one immediate goal: evict Austin. The name came from a phrase of Audrey’s for shady behaviour, which is an odd tribute to someone already out of the house.
It lasted about a week. Vanessa nominated Jason instead of the agreed target, betraying several members at once, and the whole thing came apart. Becky was voted out by her own former allies not long after.
Three’s Company
Shelli, Clay, Vanessa. The trio inside Sixth Sense that merged into Dark Moon rather than operating on its own for long.
The deal that decided the season
SOS — Students of Sound
Steve and Vanessa. A Final 2 commitment they had been working since the first few weeks of the game, which Vanessa later described as solidifying around Day 40, once she saw Liz and Austin becoming a couple.
It was never broken. They only revealed it to Liz on the last night in the house, at the Final 3 table. Every other alliance in this list collapsed, got picked apart or turned on itself — this one held from the first few weeks to the final vote, and it is why Steve, not Vanessa, sat in the Final 2 and won 6–3.
Which Big Brother 17 alliance actually won?
On paper the Scamper Squad ran the house, and the Sixth Sense family in all its forms put more people on the block than anything else that summer. But the alliance that won Big Brother 17 was the smallest one in this list. Steve and Vanessa’s two-person pact outlasted every group either of them belonged to, and it decided the last vote of the season.