Rouse: Big 12 rejects expansion
Charles Rouse III, Sports Editor
BIG 12 OFFICIALS SAY “NO” TO EXPANSION. DO THEY MEAN IT? By Charles Rouse
KANSAS CITY – Big 12 officials and representatives of the ten member schools say the conference is in a perfect place with two fewer members and that there is no interest in expanding. That’s the public relations speak now, anyway, as Big 12 athletic directors ended a two days of meetings this week in Irving, Texas. Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe made that point abundantly clear. “The 10-school model is one that is extremely attractive and provides the opportunity for continued long-term success,” the commissioner said. “There is no interest in expansion, and it was not a consideration at this meeting.”
Why wouldn’t conference officials tow that line, especially now when stability and digging into the details of operating a conference with two fewer members are the most immediate and important considerations in the aftermath of expansion attempts by other major conferences interested in getting bigger at the expense of the Big 12? But is that really what they mean, or simply the politically correct thing to put out there for public consumption at this point in time? I’m not going to be fooled, and you shouldn’t be either.
In a time and place when college sports – particularly in the two big revenue-producing sports, football and basketball – is all about all about winning and increasing revenue intake in order to feed the beast and keep winning, I can’t buy the argument that it is in the best long-term interest of the Big 12 Conference or its member schools to manage through the wounds left by the departure of the University of Colorado and the University of Nebraska and maintain the status quo thereafter.
The Big 12, and even the Big Eight before that, has always prided itself on being on a par, both athletically and academically, with the likes of the other so-called power conferences across the country. The Big Ten and Pac 10 conferences have both said and now shown that they are interested in getting bigger and expanding their geographic boundaries. And there is no reason to believe that the Southeastern Conference, already considered the standard by which all other football conferences are measured, is going to stand by and allow progress and the quest for even greater power and prestige to pass it by.
Two thoughts come quickly to mind: As the other BCS conferences (which the Big 12 was a part of and hopefully will continue to be, even in its reduced form) continue with expansion talk and their growth and realignment plans, which they undoubtedly will, the Big 12 leadership would be foolhardy not to believe that the predator wolves will be at door again in the future. And, yes, I recognize that each of the remaining 10 conference members have supposedly signed 10-year agreements not to leave the conference, but we all know that these kind of agreements are not as binding as we would like to think they are, especially at the right price. Again, it’s all about the money.
Second, while the economic benefits of being able to increase the television revenue to each member school because of having fewer members participating in the payout is a better outcome than before, it would seem to me to be only a short-term satisfier and not a long-term solution. There is also the matter of negotiating new television contracts. Commissioner Beebe has said that he is confident he get negotiate better deals than the current agreements the Big 12 has with Fox Sports and ABC/ESPN. Importantly, at the time Texas and four other teams in South Division announced they were staying in the Big 12, thus preserving what is left of the conference, no new TV deals had been negotiated or finalized.
Whether losing two teams, one of which is a strong national football brand in Nebraska, and no longer having to play a conference championship game in the future, which a number of teams in the Big 12, like Oklahoma, actually prefer, will have a deleterious impact on the conference’s efforts to get new, more lucrative TV deals is uncertain at this point. You would think, however, that this could hurt the Big 12 negotiating position. In return for their commitments to remain in the Big 12, it has been reported that Texas should pull in between $20 million and $25 million with the new TV contracts the conference is hopeful of getting.
The Texas Longhorns are seeking their own television deal
Texas also has been granted authority to create its own TV network, something that Oklahoma also has said it will do. By starting its own network, Texas can pull in another $3million to $5 million. Oklahoma and Texas A&M reportedly also have been guaranteed at least $20 million annually from, again, a yet-to-be-completed new TV deals. It is Important to point out that the same guaranteed revenue streams do not hold true for the other seven schools who make up the new conference alignment.
This doesn’t seem like a very practical or prudent way to try to hold a conference together for the long term that Beebe keeps talking about. Here’s something else to ponder: Schools like Kansas, Missouri and Kansas State were not happy before with the Big 12’s disproportionate approach for distributing revenue among conference members. Now that Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M have been given what they wanted to keep them happy, what’s to prevent the seven remaining schools from looking elsewhere to protect and improve upon their futures.
I don’t think the Big 12 can afford to sit on the sidelines and concede its future growth and increased revenue opportunities to the super-conference movement. No one wants to think of the possibility of the once-powerful and prestigious Big 12 becoming a secondary conference or so-called mid-major, or worse yet, cease to exist. Without seriously considering an expansion strategy, though, the Big 12, Mighty Ten, or whatever they decide in rebranding the conference, is probably only prolonging the inevitable.
Charles (Chip) F. Rouse III, the Kansas City Sports Examiner, has spent over 40 years working in and with the news media. Rouse, a journalist by training and a graduate of the University of Kansas, has served in the role of newspaper reporter; in addition to radio and television. To view Chip’s sports articles, including this one, on Examiner.com, please click here. He welcomes your comments at crouse@massappealnews.com.