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The decision came one day after the Atlantic Coast Conference announced it is starting its own television network, following the lead of the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten and the Pac-12. To translate for those either unfamiliar or simply worn out by the jargon of conference realignment, that basically means the league has kicked off an expansion frenzy. I’m not sure that holds with the Big 12 because I don’t trust the individual leaders to maintain the same mindset for more than 30 seconds, but it’s at least possible.
And the Big 12 could grow by next year. The result of this meeting is that conference expansion is back on the table.
The reconstituted Big 12 in 2014 hailed its round-robin football schedule as the way to produce “One True Champion”, but the slogan looked silly when it ended up with co-champions that season. The conference then added West Virginia and TCU to bring the league to 10 teams and have been playing with no conference championship game since then as well. In reality, though, that’s just semantics.
Other teams expected to be considered by the Big 12 include USF and UConn. The Rams have politicked to join the league in the past and will have a new football stadium opening in 2017.
Speaking of the boost in revenue from ESPN and Fox, the Big 12 would see a 40 percent increase in money from the networks if the conference adds four teams. But the tenor around that has all changed. That’s a factor in the sudden position change for the Big 12 on expansion, as it likely removes the remote possibility of current Power Five programs joining the Big 12, but a bigger factor was the day’s major event: a concluding presentation on the merits of expansion from the pair of consulting firms the league had previously hired.
There are plenty of other options, from dark horses like South Florida, Central Florida, Colorado State and Memphis to longshots like Tulane, Temple and San Diego State and even delusional teams like Northern Illinois (seriously). They’re either in tiny TV markets, or are bad geographic fits, or lack football tradition, or (in Houston’s case) share a state with four current Big 12 programs – Texas, TCU, Texas Tech and Baylor – that aren’t particularly keen on spreading the in-state wealth in Texas.
This vote was very done off of the basis that there would be two teams and also full members, and that is why there is no vote for a school like San Diego State or Boise State.
Bowlsby later indicated to CBSSports.com that they have previously been contacted by 25 schools.
But this time, after pledging their interest at an afternoon meeting of the conference’s board of directors, the Big 12 said it was finally, truly, quite possibly going ahead with the process of accepting applicants to expand the league.
An industry source familiar with the discussions told Carlton that expansion was nearly assured with the key decision now being two or four schools. Bowlsby suggested he could have something concrete to present to the presidents in their October meeting or he might even be ready sooner than that and could call an unscheduled meeting. But the reality is that the league needed to do something quickly to fortify itself.
Colorado State: Would bring back Colorado, and Denver, back into the Big 12 fold.
Boren acknowledged the ACC news influenced the Big 12.
Whatever the Baylor contingent told the Big 12 on Tuesday seemed to satisfy it. The schools are going to come running to their doorstep, pleading to join for a discount price.
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The conference has being batting around the idea of adding more members for more than a year and begins its search with plenty of suitors. If that is not provided, a university must pay the conference $5 million or double the school’s final year’s conference revenue, which ever amount is greatest.
