Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/pac-12-announces-it-will-not-pursue-expansion/
The Pac-12 will stay at 12.
I assume that no one is surprised.
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Well ****
Good. Stanford Band would lead to multiple arrests in Oklahoma.
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Well, what does one expect when Bowlsby tells Pac-12 to forget it and forms a subgroup to explore expansion for the Big 12? As a result, feelers put out to UCF drew a resonse of “maybe, we’ll see”, as they see the Big 12 as unstable right now. So PAC 12 has been warned off and any invitees are skittish.
We better strike our own deal. Bowlsby looking out for Bowlsby; not OSU.
Nothing else needs to change until after OU and Texas are gone and their massive pile of money is counted twice. The Big 12 needs to stay around until we get them for every dollar.
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Why was that not done a long time ago? Oh I know why!!! Because Bowlsby now finds himself in position of being out of a job that pays 2.5 mil a year that he doesn’t have to do.
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Exactly! Then ANYTHING can change!
No, because they pretty much said they see no benefit in expansion, snd I highly doubt they’ll see a benefit to it in the future.
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I agree with you plus there are other factors that may delay the PAC 12 from taking on additional teams. I am a little perplexed at what the PAC 12 is up to though. So they say that they don’t plan to look into expansion “at this time”. What does that even mean? When are they going to reconsider? Tomorrow? Next year? Ten years from now? Also what the heck prompted them to discuss expansion in the first place? They made a public statement stating “were going spend two weeks thinking about expanding” and then come back with one sentence “never mind were good”. Is this the ultimate troll on the remaining 8 or not? Is this Lucy holding the football for Linus to kick lol? Or is this just their attempt to look like they really really looked into expanding just so they looked good to the public when in actuality they knew the answer before they even started talking about it.
Welp, welcome to irrelevancy as a group of six now. 
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In the interim, let’s just go win the Big XII Championship this year and then kick some SEC a** in the playoffs!
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To all of you news folks that don’t understand the way busines works and are projecting the woeful for Oklahoma State:
Big deals don’t happen overnight. The more parties involved in a deal, the more careful they need to be.
Circumstances here: At least $76 million is at stake from OU/TX combined, which is about $8m+ for each remaining school. That means we have a total of 10 interested parties at just that interval.
Now add ESPN and Fox to the list. ESPN wants relief from the Texas network, and neither want to absorb a newly developing drain from the remaining 8 of the B12.
OU and TX do NOT WANT TO PAY. Read it: They don’t want to honor their contract. This complicates the dealings. There is evidence that ESPN has been orchestrating this, so now ESPN is changing course and hoping to avoid a tortious interference claim as well as a likely antitrust claim.
The SEC reportedly already approached Ohio State, Michigan, Clemson and Florida State. Now they are issuing disclaimers about everything (hint: deny all, something is rancid). It begins to smell like a takeover of college football by the SEC, which could easily be spelled: antitrust violation. The likely damages are horrendous. Count all the D1 schools that will lose football funding, and hence shut down so many other programs funded by their football programs. That is spelled “damages.” Think of the ongoing scholarship commitments by those schools. “Damages.” Think of the operating costs. “Damages.” This has become a big problem for the SEC and ESPN.
If a conspiracy to commit a tort or antitrust violation can be demonstrated, as suggested by B12 commissioner, then the attorney client privilege might be waived between the schools and their lawyers who facilitated the conspiracy. Suddenly, being so coy looks very stinky to the SEC, OU, TX, and maybe ESPN.
The remaining 8 do not want to lose this $76 m. They can and should be freely negotiating a B12 exit strategy dependent upon the first departures of OU TX. So we have a bit of a wild west standoff, or stare-down. The 8 say we will labor on, the 2 traitors want out now. It is a matter of negotiating and who will blink first.
The Alliance cannot formally do anything, lest they damage the conspiracy claims or step in the doodle themselves. OU needs cash – a lot of it in light of NIL and the portal. It hasn’t been but a couple of years ago that the power company turned off the lights at OU for nonpayment, remember? They are desperate. Texas? Cash rich but man do they underperform. Do they want to risk losing to Kansas again? I hear the math department at Texas uses a calculator to keep track of how many head coaches UT football has gone through. That number typically exceeds their annual win totals. So, they need out – now.
While football may drive many programs, don’t forget: Kansas basketball. Baylor natty. OSU regaining its blue blood status. OSU 3rd in softball WS. Wrestling? It’s always Penn State, OkState and Iowa. Shoot, OSU has more Olympic medals than most countries. Golf? OkState is the premier. Cross country our facilities and team are considered the best. OkState is a walking, talking, fire-breathing liability for OU/TX/SEC/ESPN if a conspiracy can be shown. Can it? I don’t know, but it would take years of embittered fighting to get a result. Who wants that?
P12 not pursuing expansion at this time? Did you expect anything else? The waters are perilous. And besides, the remaining 8 might want it that way at the moment in order to assure their claim for the exit penalty. Let the $76 m issue get resolved and then they will support expansion as may be necessary. B12 expansion? Fine, with an extra $8m plus to each team. As the ACC said, the B12 is an important part of the national football system. While ESPN would like to douse the B12 expansion, the network might get swamped by a firey mess of litigation. Best keep their mouth shut, and for heaven’s sake, muzzle that SEC hack Finebaum on your staff from saying all those stupid things about every other conference in the country.
There was a post on the official UT football web site that said Texas would work with ESPN on the amount owed UT by ESPN to fund their $38m buyout, and that ESPN was going to loan OU the $$. As soon as the commissioner rang the antitrust bell, that post disappeared.
Be patient. These things will sort out. And if you kept up with the OSU staff assigned to this project, you will have a high level of comfort.
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Interesting analysis and hard to argue with
Did u get this information from the ouiji board too.
This type of thinking will doom the Big 12. Nobody will ever join our conference if they think we’re unstable and are looking to bail on the conference in 2025.
If P4 doesn’t come calling, we should be prepared to join the AAC.
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I would agree with that statement if the Big 12 was pursuing teams already in Power 5 conferences making equal or more TV money. Don’t think that will be the case and as a result there will be a financial incentive regardless IMO.
You need a different coach than the current one for that to happen.
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No, I got it from one of the founders of the paddle people that knows these people.
Leave it to UT to shoot a dying NCAA college football system in the foot when it needed to be put down for good. UT drove Arkansas, MU, NU, CU, ATM out of their conferences and now goes crawling to the SEC. All hat no cattle as they say. The real move was getting college football out of the NCAA but that would take vision. UT continues to fall short in that area. The only thing UT and OU are good making things worse for others. Their fragile egos will soon take a beating once they realize they have no sway in the SEC. ATM got what it deserved.
I find it ironic ESPN funded the LHN and it has been a financial disaster. Compound that with the pandemic and you see why they aren’t bullish on future TV deals. On the other hand the BIG built their own network and are flush with TV cash because they don’t have a partner spending revenue. Generating more revenue than SEC programs who have performed better on the field and in viewership. Don’t know if anyone would have predicted that based upon media talking points when it happened.
When you compare the BIG and Big 12 I see many similarities. Each league has a blue blood doing well (OU, Ohio State) and a blue blood that has struggled for over a decade (UT, Michigan).
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