According to the Associated Press, Boren said the board also directed commissioner Bob Bowlsby to evaluate universities that have shown interest in joining the Big 12, which include Houston, Colorado State and Cincinnati.
Advertisement
On the heels of Tuesday mornings Baylor Media day train wreck by Bears coach Jim Grobe, the Big 12 Board of Directors…which is not the same as the President of the League (Bob Bowlsby), announced via conference call the league will explore adding either 2…or 4 teams.
“So there was continued interest expressed and expansion and the direction to the commissioner, I think, reflects that and we will look forward to receiving back from him the information that he gathers as he evaluates the interests of all of those who have contacted us”.
“We want to do everything possible to put this conference in a position to play for national championships”, Boren said.
Big 12 football media days ended with a bang. That would give a new member one year in its current conference – this academic year – before bolting.
For perspective, the American Athletic Conference, home to Cincinnati, UConn, Memphis among others, is in the middle of a seven-year deal with ESPN and CBS that is worth $126 million dollars or about $2 million per year per school.
Bowlsby: “We’ve been contacted by a number of institutions, and I would imagine after this news breaks we’ll be contacted again”. Remember the hectic weeks and months after the Big Ten announced in December 2009 that it was exploring expansion?
Oklahoma quarterback speaks to reporters during the Big 12 college football media days in Dallas, Tuesday, July 19, 2016.
For now, the winds of expansion in Big 12 country have never blown harder.
That has changed. Boren expressed in June 2015 his desire for a conference network, a conference championship game and expansion. Adding both two and four teams to the conference will be on the table. The vote was unanimous and reignited excitement and hope for the usual suspects consistently flashing the goods in the Big 12’s direction.
So despite the overwhelming opinion that conference expansion had stalled due to the lack of interest in a network from its broadcast partners, it is now likely the conference will be growing after all.
But Boren downplayed the desire to create a network and Texas officials seemed disinclined to fold the lucrative Longhorn Network into a league-wide channel.
The announcement came just a day after the ACC announced a 20-year deal with ESPN, which runs through the 2035-36 academic year. The Big 12’s grant of rights go through the 2024-25 season; the ACC’s grant of rights had gone through 2026-27.
A week later, Bowlsby’s tune changed dramatically after meeting with league leadership, admitting that he might have overreacted to what he learned in the meeting and cooling talk of a Big 12 title game return.
“We can not sit on the sidelines and not be proactive”, Boren said.
So which schools might be candidates to join the Big 12?
Advertisement
Bowlsby said there could be two or four members added to conference prior to the 2017 football season. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission.
