Revisionist history on the Texas thing. Missouri is the team that started it all with their “when you align your university with Northwestern instead of Oklahoma State” BS.
Also needs to be reminded that directly before the LHN came to be, in that prior offseason, Nebraska, OU, aTm, and Mizzou all voted with UT to retain their third tier television rights. Those rights were mandatory to start a conference network, and they all thought they could demand more independently. When Texas actually went out and did what all of those teams wanted to do, they got mad because they did not receive equal benefits because their brands weren’t as valuable. They all decided to take their ball and go home.
Also, you talk about bringing teams back and adding new teams like they want that… The only realistic options in there are CU and the Arizona schools leaving the Pac 12 to get more exposure east. No program will voluntarily leave the Big 10 or SEC.
Texas leaves, OU leaves, then all of a sudden the Big 12 is a shell of itself. As much as we love our cowboys and hate the sooners and longhorns. We kind of need them.
Also like @leecothran mentioned we aren’t going to get the likes of LSU or Arkansas or even A&M and Iowa.
At the best case we lose texas and gain Colorado Arizona, arizona St, Houston and Boise? That’s not great.
No sec team or big 10 school will leave with the amount of money they get from the conferences. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about
A fun way to put a spin on this realignment would be to go the premier league route and do away with conferences all together, but in our scenario there will be 5 levels. 10-14 schools per level, top 3 per level move up, and bottom 3 move down a level. Maybe lean towards 10 so that way you can still play rivalry games each year with a college schedule
I think we are more likely to see most of the power 5 teams band together, leave the NCAA, and start something more similar to what the NFL has with divisions. Now I think this is not very likely but more likely than the above proposition. The biggest question will be if the TV contracts go down in the next round of negotiations. With cable cutting I just don’t see the TV partners paying as much as they have. Combine that with other issues like the paying of players and I could see the breakaway of the top teams. Once you have one entity doing the negotiations for all of the teams I think they can really get more money.
The viewership is not really the issue, the issue is the cable companies will not likely be willing to pay the higher prices for ESPN channel and others due to not having the subscribers needed to make it worthwhile at that cost. Without the large base of non sports fans footing the overall bill through their cable subscription the money is just not there. What you will likely see in the future is a sports package (possibly streaming) that is a much higher cost. Heck think about if the power 5 programs decided to just go out and do the production and programming for themselves. That would be a HUGE draw for advertisers and fans. All power 5 games on one platform.
IF the scenario with adding back LSU, Arkansas, aTm, Mizzou, Nebraska, Colorado could happen, I don’t think Texas is so important to keep the Big 12 relevant.
Oklahoma would keep the RRR going, as an out of conference game. That stays, the rest is an upgrade & they’re still king of the new Big 12.
The Big 12 isn’t going anywhere and is doing just fine… But reading through some of the decision making around the ESPN+ deal kind of confirmed one thing that I’ve thought since the day it happened…
Adding TCU is the biggest mistake that the Big 12 ever made. At the time they did this, the Big East was on the verge of crumbling, and the Big 12 could’ve added West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and Syracuse. This would’ve increased the Big 12’s footprint significantly. Doubling the population within said footprint. Travel for the Kansas schools and Iowa State would’ve increased, but the demand that would’ve been created for media would’ve driven increased revenue to make up for that travel.
Instead, we got a tiny private school within our existing footprint that is good at football and baseball… But doesn’t draw attendance, and has fewer alumni living in DFW than every other former Big 12 south school. Heck, there are more current students at Texas A&M than there are living TCU alumni.
Adding TCU highlights how incompetent leadership of the Big 12 was at the time.
The problem was when we added TCU we were not in any kind of expansion mode, we were in survival mode. I just don’t think we could have gotten the conference schools to agree to adding those teams at that time.
If a domino falls and the race for 16 schools is on.
Missouri would bolt to the big 10 in a heart beat. Big 10 would try to get ND, if they failed probably go after Kansas. I think Texas and Ou will want the big 12 to stay together.
Sec is at 13, hello Clemson, Miami(?), and Florida state.