Colorado State University president Tony Frank had sent a brochure to West Virginia University president Gordon Gee in 2015 detailing why CSU would be a good fit for the Big 12. Bowlsby tells us there are hard-and-fast numbers to be perused and revenue projections to be extrapolated before the dog days of decisions arrive. He reiterated he will push for a decision to be made on expansion by the end of the summer. “Any of that would be premature”. Instead, the meetings will likely be a two-day data dump of potential models for expansion, television scenarios and a championship game.
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Even Big 12 Conference commissioner Bob Bowlsby has tempered his expansion rhetoric heading into the meeting.
“I’m not out to get Texas”, Boren said last month.
The Rams have not been shy about wanting to join the Big 12 and sent the league a brochure of their benefits on and off the field about inclusion.
At 12 teams, the Big 12 would retain most of the stability they’d like to keep, as it would ensure those 10 current teams are the vast majority of those who make up the conference. He’s left in the middle, tracking the volleys like this is the French Open and not the future of his brand.
Citing a source familiar with the Big 12 Conference’s internal discussions, the report indicated that expansion could be voted on this year, with as many as eight teams supporting the possibility of adding new members. Fueling the expansion talk is a consultant’s study that said the league increased its chances of making the playoff by 10 to 15-percent with a 12-team league.
If the league wants to create a conference network it will need to expand to provide enough inventor, but even before that the Longhorn Network needs to be given up by Texas. On Friday, Dodd explains, Chris Bevilacqua will break down the details of what expanding would mean, as well as adding a conference championship and Big 12 television network.
The Big 12 logo displayed prominently on Baylor’s field.
Texas has been painted as the school most opposed to change. And the better question, why? Then there is the Big 12 which is in small towns likes Ames, Iowa; Lawrence, Kansas; Waco, Texas; Lubbock, Texas; and so on.
There’s a major problem with all of that billion-dollar dreaming, though. “It’s fair to say when we have a conference member that has had the kind of difficulties they’ve had at Baylor, it reflects on all of us”.
But Oklahoma, the Texas arch rival in the conference, has a different take.
Baylor is represented at the Big 12 meetings by interim President David Garland and Todd Patulski, the deputy athletic director. Boren said it would be “wrong” for league presidents to view expansion as the only method for solidifying the conference’s future.
This gluttony has to stop if the Big 12 wants to move forward, but every appearance indicates the people won’t get out of their own way.
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Though the Big Ten Network has brought huge revenues to Jim Delany and Fox and the ESPN-run SEC Network has done well in its first two years, the window may have closed on launching a sports network as the Pac-12 Network has struggled to find distribution as have other recent upstarts like Time Warner’s Dodger channel and the ill fated CSN Houston. The Bears are in the middle of dealing with unspeakable errors, and they’re managing to make it worse, all because they believe recruits are their property based on a signature. Instead, a 5-5 vote maintained a dumb policy that insists walk-ons lose a year of eligibility if they transfer to another Big 12 school.
