And a day later he meets with the league’s board of directors.
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I don’t get the second part, unless the Big 12 wants to take another look at adding a conference TV network. “And a number of universities, as you well know, have contacted the Big 12 to express interest in our conference”.
“I would say that we are looking for members that will grow over time as we grow”, Bowlsby said, “that will bring stability to the conference and that have a high top end, will benefit from an affiliation with the schools that are now in our conference”.
The hindrances to expansions have always been that are no schools who are not now members of either the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 or SEC, that could bring in more revenue than they take from the pot.
University of Oklahoma President David Boren, who also serves as Big 12 board chairman, stopped short of saying the Big 12 will expand, telling reporters in a press briefing that this action “is a forward step, a positive step, (but is) not yet a decision”. As we know, UC, along with UConn, Memphis, Houston, UCF, USF, BYU and Colorado State have all thrown their hats in the ring as potential candidates.
University of Oklahoma president David Boren.
Baylor officials told Big 12 presidents on Tuesday that the school doesn’t have a full written report from Pepper Hamilton, the Philadelphia law firm it hired last fall to examine the way it handled allegations of sexual assault, and that releasing a written report would violate federal law protecting student privacy.
“Very, very impressive”, Gee wrote back to Rudd.
Big 12 expansion isn’t dead after all. “They’re going to open it up like an auction”, one Big 12 source said. The rest were Southeastern Conference games. That probably made BYU’s ears perk up, because the Cougars could join the Big 12 in football only and not have to worry about the school’s no-Sundays policy coming into play with its other sports.
If it’s about money, remember that every additional team needs to be able to add at least enough money to offset the fact that there are more mouths to feed, so to speak. The current television contracts with ESPN and FOX run through 2025.
Boren said the Big 12’s checklist for candidates included athletic competitiveness, fan base size, media markets, school integrity and academic standards, including research. It’s not clear to even the Big 12 presidents exactly what the ACC news means. 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. The football championship game will return for the 2017 season.
Bowlsby added that the evaluation process will likely come in two stages, initially with some preliminary work, followed by “fact finding” and “perhaps even a negotiation stage”.
The Big 12 won’t give full shares to new members upon arrival.
Though the league added TCU and West Virginia in a time of semi-desperation, it would hard to argue that the Horned Frogs and Mountaineers haven’t broadened the Big 12’s appeal. The league now stands at 10. If that were the case and the Big 12 did indeed add four teams, the broadcast partners would be contractually obligated to increase their total payouts to 40 percent.
“For example, $10M/year for 2 years, then $12.5M for 2 years, then $15M for 2 years, etc…until parity was reached”, he wrote. Look at the discussion yesterday at media days.
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